Here’s Part Eleven of Spider-Man 1970s Classics. For Part One click HERE.
GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #2 (October 1974)
Title: Masterstroke
Villain: Fu Manchu
NOTE: For anyone unfamiliar with the way Marvel licensed the rights to Fu Manchu and other Sax Rohmer characters and with the differences between the novels and Marvel’s use of Shang-Chi as the son of Fu Manchu I covered the first twelve issues HERE.
Synopsis: Still rooming with Flash Thompson after the destruction of his and Harry Osborn’s old apartment, Spider-Man is swinging around New York City one night. He comes across a robbery at the Guggenheim Museum and attacks the robbers.
That gang of criminals are secretly operatives of Fu Manchu and use their martial arts skills and weaponry against Spider-Man. He overcomes them all and when he interrogates one of them about who they work for, the thief does as ordered by Fu Manchu and instead claims he works for Shang-Chi. (Part of Fu Manchu’s plan is to pit his son Shang-Chi against Spider-Man.) Continue reading
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #138 (November 1974) 
The following morning, Peter gathers what few belongings he was able to salvage from the destruction and stops by the adjoining building’s rooftop to retrieve the spare Spider-Man costume, web fluid cartridges and web shooters that he tossed there days ago to prevent them being found in his apartment after the bomb went off. 
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #136 (September 1974) 
NOTE: Not only would that have been a Kung Fu flick from the still-flowing initial wave of Bruce Lee-inspired Martial Arts Mania here in the U.S. but it would also have been when Forty-Second Street theaters showed everything from grindhouse movies on up. 
GRAVEYARD SHIFT Volume 1 (2019)
Another undertaking (as it were) is Project Wormwood, which involves Regen Chambers to restore life to newly slain soldiers in order to form an unbeatable army, and Mind Wipe technology to reprogram the revived dead to know nothing but their new existence as servitors of whatever nation buys them (but really as servitors of Van Helsing himself). 
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #134 (July 1974) 
As the ship sails along it is hijacked and held for $1,000,000.00 ransom (equivalent to $5,581,387.00 today). The hijackers are the brand new Hispanic villain Tarantula and his two costumed sidekicks. While the villain and his aides rob the passengers of all their valuables, Peter grabs the first chance he gets to become Spider-Man and saves a sailor knocked overboard in a scuffle with one of Tarantula’s men. 
TALES OF THE ZOMBIE Vol 1 #1 (July 1973) 
THE COFFIN (2000) – Written by Phil Hester and drawn by Mike Huddleston, The Coffin was originally a four-part serial before being collected into graphic novel format. I’ll provide details below but right up front let me point out that the horrific but intriguing premise is that the Coffin is a dead scientist whose soul is trapped within a polymer techno-suit of his own creation. 
And so Heller Technologies recruited Dr Ahmad to devise strong, lightweight polymers for medical purposes. To that end Ashar has developed polymers that can be used to form an artificial membrane that is perfectly impermeable and incredibly durable. 
GIANT-SIZE SUPERHEROES Vol 1 #1 (June 1974) 
FAUST: LOVE OF THE DAMNED (1987) – Written by David Quinn with artwork by Tim Vigil. Halloween Month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog with this review of the 1987-2012 “adult” comic book series Faust. This series included very graphic and very unusual sex and violence while offering a twisted update on the story of Faust selling his soul to Mephistopheles. The year 2000 Brian Yuzna (’nuff said) movie version of Faust: Love of the Damned is pretty bad but does capture the blood-soaked, anarchic WTF air of the series. 
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #132 (May 1974) 
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