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
THE LAST GENERATION – A STORY OF THE FUTURE (1908) – Written by James Elroy Flecker. A poet longs to see beyond his own era and experiences. He is visited by a time-travel phenomenon which is similar to a wind. The Time Wind transports him to various periods in the future. 
PART 60 – As always, this installment of The Fool-Killer included sentiments that would tick off people from both the left and the right. Some of the Fool Killer’s targets in the October of 1912 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s publication:
THE HOOKED GENERATION (1968) – Directed and co-written by the one and only William Grefe. William is known to me and my fellow fans of bad movies for Florida-filmed cult turkeys like Sting of Death, Death Curse of Tartu, The Wild Rebels and Impulse, with William Shatner. 
THREE OVER TWO – In the NAIA the number 3 team in the nation – the MORNINGSIDE COLLEGE MUSTANGS – traveled to face the 2nd ranked NORTHWESTERN (IA) COLLEGE RED RAIDERS. The Mustangs led 14-10 in the 1st Quarter but the Red Raiders went up 26-24 by Halftime. Morningside College went back on top 34-33 to end the 3rd Quarter before cementing the Upset in the 4th with a 55-49 win. 
NUMBER FIVE TAKES A FALL – Staying in the NAIA for a moment, the CENTRAL METHODIST UNIVERSITY EAGLES welcomed America’s 5th ranked BAKER UNIVERSITY WILDCATS. The Eagles put the Wildcats on Upset Alert at the break with a 7-6 edge, then led 14-12 in the 3rd Quarter and won out in the end 21-19. 
DOWN GOES NUMBER SIX – Over in NCAA Division Two the SOUTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA STATE SAVAGE STORM visited the country’s number 6 team – the OUACHITA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY TIGERS. The Savage Storm parlayed a 7-0 opening Quarter lead into a 28-7 advantage at the Half. After the break SOSU held off the Tigers to win the game 35-21. 
EIGHTY-FOUR – Down in NCAA Division Three the LAKE FOREST COLLEGE FORESTERS played host to the BELOIT COLLEGE BUCCANEERS yesterday. By the midpoint of the game the Foresters held an amazing 56-3 lead. They never looked back from there, ultimately triumphing by a final score of EIGHTY-FOUR to THREE. 
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. 
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994) – Directed by John Carpenter and written by Michael De Luca, this movie was an unabashed valentine to H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King’s imitations of Lovecraft, and The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers. The King in Yellow, of course, is the 1895 book 
Soon, Trent is visited in his padded cell, where he has used a black crayon to cover his body and the padded walls with crucifixes for protection. His visitor is Dr Wrenn, played by David Warner, the panicked, crucifix-surrounded man from The Omen, now talking to the panicked, crucifix-surrounded Sam Neill in this film. (I admit that’s a sly touch in keeping with the style of the movie. It even has echoes of the victim in Equinox fixating on his protective crucifix.) 
THE AUTOMATIC BRIDGET (1889) – Written by Howard Fielding (pen name of Charles Witherle Hooke). This was an early short story about a robot run amok. 
Free Speech has been under assault by both Liberals and Conservatives in recent decades, but mostly by Liberals in the past twenty years via Political Correctness and Cancel Culture. There was a time when Liberals actively supported freedom of expression because they understood it was THE primary freedom from which all other freedoms flowed. The early figures from my own country’s history protected speech with the FIRST Amendment to the Constitution because they knew all too well that ideas that are considered taboo and offensive today might be considered essential truths by future generations.
They became the Political Correctness Police and anyone who offended their 1960s attitudes had to be silenced because – as they knew so well from their own experience – when controversial ideas are given the room to breathe they can often thrive. The totalitarian asses of the 1960s left can’t bear the fact that younger people might have opinions that offend THEM as much as their opinions offended their parents’ generation. 
Keep in mind Spinoza’s wonderful line “Every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks.” That still rings true because no matter what the hypersensitive fools who want to censor the rest of us find offensive NONE of them has the right to try to extinguish one single product of the human mind. 
Balladeer's Blog 