Here’s Part Three of Spider-Man 1970s Classics. For Part One click HERE.
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #123 (August 1973)
Title: Just A Man Called Cage
Villain: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire
NOTE: Luke Cage was still going by Hero for Hire at this time, not Power Man.
Synopsis: This issue opens up with the police plus J Jonah Jameson and his City Editor Joseph “Robbie” Robertson at the crime scene where Norman Osborn has been found murdered. Jameson is, of course, insisting that Osborn, an old friend and major advertiser at the Daily Bugle, must have been killed by Spider-Man. The webslinger had been searching for Osborn through Robertson’s contacts at the Bugle earlier in the evening.
Robbie and the police at the scene tell Jameson they aren’t so sure Spider-Man was the killer. There are fragments of the Green Goblin’s exploding pumpkin-bombs in the battle scarred area there on the New York City streets. PLUS, someone obviously moved Osborn’s body a bit before the cops arrived on the scene. At length Jonah refuses to listen any further and rides off angrily in his limo.
From a nearby rooftop the mysterious man in the shadows from the end of last issue reflects that HE is the one who moved Osborn’s dead body when he was removing his Green Goblin costume and bat-shaped flier. He knew that if the world learned that Norman Osborn was really the supervillain the Green Goblin they wouldn’t care about his death.
The mystery man further reflects that millionaire industrialist Norman Osborn, with his secret identity preserved, is still looked on as a pillar of the community and therefore he will be widely mourned and the police will be pressured to bring in Spider-Man for questioning.
NOTE: It’s no spoiler this many decades later to mention that this shadowy figure turns out to be Harry Osborn, Norman’s son, who witnessed the final battle between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin and will become the new Goblin months down the road.
Meanwhile J Jonah Jameson decides to hire the new superhero Luke Cage to do what the police can’t do and capture or kill Spider-Man. Continue reading
RIKI-OH: THE STORY OF RICKY (1991) – Back when I started Balladeer’s Blog in 2010 this Hong Kong martial arts/ splatter film was among the first movies I planned to review. Feeling intimidated by the need to describe the sheer scale of the joyously tasteless violence in this movie I kept postponing it. Eventually, it seemed so notorious that I figured too many people knew about it for me to bother. 
Riki-Oh (pronounced Ricky-HO) is also known as Violence King and with good reason. This Category 3 Hong Kong movie does the seemingly impossible – it more than lives up to the Japanese Manga it was based on. Siu-Wong Fan stars as the title character. Ngai Choi Lam directed and wrote the screenplay adaptation. 
RED STAR (1908) – Written by Alexander Malinowski under the name Alexander Bogdanov. This pro-communist science fiction novel came three years after the failed uprising of 1905 and sixteen years BEFORE Aelita: Queen of Mars, a silent sci-fi film which depicted a similar communist paradise on Mars. 
They reveal that Lenni’s brilliant paper described the concepts of nuclear fission and anti-gravity that the Martians use in their spaceships. Recognizing his superior mind they sought him out in order to take him on board their interplanetary vessel and transport him to Mars. Once there they will let him observe their culture like they secretly observed Earth culture during their stay. 
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #119 (April 1973) 
UNION COLLEGE CONQUERS DIVISION ONE – Every season we get David over Goliath victories in which NAIA teams defeat higher division teams from either NCAA Divisions One or Two. Last night the UNION COLLEGE BULLDOGS traveled to face NCAA Division ONE’s CAMPBELL UNIVERSITY CAMELS. A slender 13-10 Halftime edge for the Bulldogs ultimately turned into a 33-18 Upset victory! 
DEFENDING CHAMPS ROLL – Meanwhile, the defending National Champions in the NAIA – the LINDSEY WILSON COLLEGE BLUE RAIDERS – opened their 2021 season by hosting the WEBBER INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY WARRIORS. The Blue Raiders converted a 13-7 1st Quarter lead into a 30-7 advantage at Halftime and finally into a 58-7 blowout victory.
SHUTOUT – In this game the BETHEL (KS) COLLEGE THRESHERS took it on the road against the MCPHERSON COLLEGE BULLDOGS (should be the Mastiffs). The Threshers led McPherson 3-0 in the opening Quarter and 10-0 at the Half. After a scoreless 3rd Quarter Bethel College went on to win the game by a final tally of 24-0. 
BLACK SASH (2003) – This program was basically a vehicle for Baguazhang-style martial artist Russell Wong and only produced 8 episodes, 2 of which were never aired. Wong starred as Tom Chang, an undercover narcotics agent who was framed and spent 5 years in a Hong Kong prison. 
Instead it dealt with the main character moving to San Francisco and running a martial arts school while trying to reestablish a relationship with his 12 year old daughter and his remarried ex-wife. He also became a mentor and surrogate parent to his students. At least one fight scene against genuinely dangerous assailants featured in each episode, too, often having to do with Chang’s sideline as a bounty hunter. 
PART 58 – Here are some of the targets of James Larkin Pearson’s version of The Fool-Killer from August of 1912. 
A JOURNEY IN THE TWENTY-NINTH CENTURY (1824) – Written by Faddei Bulgarin, who had served in the Polish Legion of Napoleon’s Grand Army in his youth before going on to work for the Czars of Russia. In this fascinating tale an unnamed narrator gets swept overboard in the Gulf of Finland in 1824. The cold water and another element somehow put him in suspended animation and when he comes to he is all the way over in Siberia, where his body was recovered in the waters of Cape Shelagski centuries after he was lost at sea. 
THE BETSY (1978) – The popular 1970s television miniseries format proved to be perfect for adapting Harold Robbins’ novels since they were really just glorified soap operas, but for whatever reason this big-screen version of The Betsy attracted some very respected thespians for its cast. Name stars like Laurence Olivier, Robert Duvall, Katharine Ross, Jane Alexander and others pretty much slummed it in this flick, which was to the auto industry of Detroit as Dallas was to the Texas oilfields and Falcon Crest was to the California vineyards. 
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #113 (October 1972) 
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