Here’s Part Two of Spider-Man 1970s Classics, from yet another clash with the Hulk to Gwen Stacy’s death, a scene ripped off in TWO movies and a Spider-Man cartoon show. For Part One click HERE.
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #119 (April 1973)
Title: The Gentleman’s Name is Hulk
Villain: The Incredible Hulk
NOTE: I skipped over 3 issues which were not classics as Spider-Man simply had typical adventures in those tales against supervillains like the Smasher and the Disruptor, the latter of which turned out to be a crooked New York City politician whose misdeeds Spidey covered up so that the city would continue to think he was an inspirational hero. (Decades before The Dark Knight Batman movie’s “hero Gotham needs/ deserves” business.)
Synopsis: This story dives back into the subplots left unexplored for 3 issues. As Spider-Man, Peter Parker travels to Westchester to visit his Aunt May, who, as we left her last time, is serving as the housekeeper at Doctor Octopus’ mansion while Ock is in prison. Our hero switches into college student Peter Parker and goes in to visit with his aunt.
May is still naively oblivious to Otto Octavius’ true nature as an organized crime leader and tells Peter she is perfectly happy at the mansion, taking care of things and being protected by Ock’s “bodyguards” (really his army of thugs).
Luckily, before Peter gives Aunt May a telegram that arrived for her, he manages to overhear Dr Octopus’ men talking about how they still haven’t received the telegram in question, which obviously went to May’s old residence by mistake. Mary Jane Watson’s aunt Anna – Aunt May’s friend – passed it on to Peter to give May.
Peter shrewdly refrains from mentioning the telegram and keeps it in his pocket during his visit. He hadn’t opened it but now suspects it may hold clues about exactly why Ock is pretending to be infatuated with Aunt May. After an hour long visit Peter leaves, becomes Spider-Man again and heads for the apartment he shares with Harry Osborn back in Manhattan. Continue reading
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. 
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #113 (October 1972) 
THE YEAR 4338, LETTERS FROM PETERSBURG (1835) – Written by Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevski. Set in the year 4338 A.D. this novel is told through correspondence from Hyppolitus Tsungiev, a Chinese college student in Saint Petersburg to Chinese friends in Peking. In that far future year Saint Petersburg has grown to be a megalopolis so large that it extends all the way to Moscow. 
With the movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings trickling out, assorted readers have been asking me if I’ll do a blog post about the character. I did one back in June, but the release of the movie wound up getting delayed. Below is the link to that blog post in which I examined the first twelve Shang-Chi stories in the 1970s. 
WHAT IF NAPOLEON HAD WON AT WATERLOO? (June 18th 1815) – In 1907 G.M. Trevelyan penned an essay on this topic. In Trevelyan’s take, Napoleon had been chastened by his temporary exile to Elba before escaping and regaining control of France. 
WHAT IF? Vol 1 #1 (February 1977) 
THE WINGED MAN – From Great Britain’s renowned story papers came the Winged Man. British story papers, like Dime Novels and Pulp Magazines, were text stories peppered with a few illustrations. The Wonder, an Amalgamated Press publication, debuted in 1913 and among its offerings was the tragic tale of the Winged Man, whose first story was titled Twixt Midnight and Dawn (the hero’s favorite time to dispense vigilante justice).
The mysterious Winged Man was “a strange genius” whose real name was never revealed. He possessed such inventive brilliance that he created a suit complete with working wings which allowed him to fly. 
MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #18 (January 1969) 
The Badoon killed every Alpha Centauran because they considered them and their control of the living metal Yaka to be a threat. Similarly, the lizard-like aliens committed genocide on Pluto, Jupiter and Mercury as well, because they felt threatened by large numbers of foemen possessed of the enhanced abilities of those genetically engineered humans. 
THE WRECK OF A WORLD (1889) – Written by W. Grove. (No other name available) This novel is the sequel to Grove’s A Mexican Mystery, an ahead-of-its-time work about a train engine devised to have artificial intelligence. The machine – called only The Engine in that story – rebelled and took to preying on human beings in horrific fashion. For Balladeer’s Blog’s review of that novel click 
Our story begins in what was to Grove “the far future” of 1949. After a fairly superficial depiction of the world’s political and scientific situation in this imaginary future the meat of the tale begins. All in all the author did not present 1940s technology as being much more advanced than what was available in the 1880s. Grove might have done better to set his tale in 1899 or just into the 1900s to detract from his lack of vision on this particular element. 
Balladeer's Blog 