Eyes of the Demon Credits: Gerry Conway (writer), Alex Saviuk (penciler), Keith Williams (inker), Rick Parker (letterer), Janice Cohen (colorist)
The Plot: Following his battle against demons at the Daily Bugle offices, a disoriented Spider-Man tries to find MJ. Tracing her steps, Spider-Man investigates the sewers underneath a photography studio. Soon, he’s attacked by the Hobgoblin, who now has demonic powers. MJ ignites a scrap of her dress, hoping to spark a gas explosion that will destroy the sewer’s demonic sludge. Spider-Man accidentally throws Hobgoblin into the gas-filled tunnel. He disappears in the explosion.
The Subplots: Harry Osborn visits Aunt May, who later decides to go into the city to check on Peter and MJ. Eduardo Lobo protects Glory Grant from more demons. Kingpin also protects his employees from a demon, annoyed that the Arranger couldn’t take care of the problem.
*See _________ For Details: Spider-Man teamed up with the Daily Bugle staff to fight demons, while Hobgoblin made his deal with N’astirh for demonic powers, in Spectacular Spider-Man #147. Aunt May’s story is continued in Amazing Spider-Man #313.
Review: This is the conclusion to the Hobgoblin mini-arc that ran during “Inferno.” After failing to capture the original Green Goblin’s formula, Hobgoblin makes the wise decision to make a deal with a demon and get what he wants. Surely, we’ll never see the day when the hero of this series makes a similar choice. Now, Hobgoblin has demon powers, and thankfully no one’s twisted him into a crazed religious zealot yet. Turning Hobgoblin into an actual goblin could be too much of a literalization, but I’ve always liked his early appearances with the demon powers. Jason Macendale was a third-string villain who stole another villain’s gimmick, and was a bit of a joke during his early appearances. Now, he has more of an identity to set himself apart…he’s the guy who was crazy enough to make a deal with a demon. In this issue, we only have a few scenes of him ranting about his great power, then angsting about his hideous new face, but in later stories, Gerry Conway will develop a firm personality for Macendale that worked great. He didn’t care if you thought he was ugly; he got the power he wanted and now he’s going to exploit it for all that it’s worth. As for this issue, it works better when read with the rest of the Spider-titles from this month, but Alex Saviuk handles the Hobgoblin/Spider-Man fight well, and although they don’t really go anywhere, Conway still tries to work in as many of the ongoing subplots as he can.
I agree with you that the demonic Hobgoblin's early apperances were generally pretty good -- due mostly to Gerry Conway writing most of them. I recall a team-up with Carrion in Spectacular that was pretty fun, too.
ReplyDeleteNo mention of the Kingpin punching a demon so hard that it implodes (or something)?? I love that scene!
Yeah, I remember the team-up with Carrion also. Too bad they changed the demonic Hobgoblin later on. His early appearances he were done well...
ReplyDeleteI like that in honor of Inferno there are flames under Spider-Man in the logo box. Cute.
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