Here’s Part Nine of Spider-Man 1970s Classics. For Part One click HERE.
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #136 (September 1974)
Title: The Green Goblin Lives Again
Villain: Green Goblin II
Synopsis: This issue picks up an unspecified amount of time after the previous one. It is late afternoon and Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson are walking along after having spent the earlier part of the day, in their own words – “riding horses in Central Park, taking a boat to the Statue of Liberty, and catching a Kung Fu flick on Forty-Second Street.”
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.
Peter and MJ have not fully started their romance yet, since Peter is still recovering from Gwen Stacy’s death, but Mary Jane is making it clear she wants it to go that way in her usual flirty way. As the couple approach the apartment that Peter shares with Harry Osborn, MJ expresses concern that things may get awkward if Harry is inside, since she and Harry used to date. Continue reading
THE BLACK REAPER (1899) – By Bernard Capes. Balladeer’s Blog’s month-long celebration of Halloween continues with this neglected horror tale. The story takes place in 1665 in a secluded British farming town called Anathoth. 
The citizens of Anathoth are described in the narrative as the kind of religious people who merely pay lip service to their beliefs but don’t live by them. They even treated their previous Vicar like a joke. 
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. 
YEGOR’S PORTRAIT (1897) – Written by George Hepworth. A well to do Russian named Yegor was killed in a horse riding accident. A portrait of the man haunts those who remember him. By night the Yegor of the portrait emerges from the work of art. 
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. 
THE UNSEEN MAN’S STORY (1893) – A needlessly neglected mummy tale. At age twenty-eight, a Frenchman named Carigliano arrives in Egypt on assignment from the French government. He has studied Egyptology and is thrilled with his placement. 
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. 
The Old Gods Waken deals with Silver John performing with other musicians at a music festival, then getting drawn into a property line dispute between the Forshay family and two sinister British men calling themselves Brummitt and Hooper Voth. As usual in our hero’s travels there are dark supernatural forces at work behind this boundary dispute – forces ultimately dealing with Pre-Columbian entities and transplanted Druidism. 
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #129 (February 1974) 
Synopsis: In a laboratory hideout are two costumed men, the Jackal and the Punisher, BOTH making their first ever appearances. The Punisher, the now-legendary vigilante who got multiple movies long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was launched, is blowing apart statues of Spider-Man with high-tech, specially designed rifles and machine-guns paid for by the Jackal. 
Balladeer's Blog 