Nothing Stops the Juggernaut!
Credits: Howard Mackie (writer), John Romita, Jr. (penciler), Scott Hanna (inks), Gregory Wright (colors), Comicraft (letters)
The Plot:
Spider-Man creates a web-net to stop his fall. He’s discovered by a
group of kids that includes Devon Lewis. The Juggernaut suddenly walks
by with a rare sword he intends to sell. Assuming Spider-Man wants to
fight, he attacks. Devon steals the sword, thinking he’s helping
Spider-Man. The NYPD soon arrives and deals with Juggernaut while
Spider-Man searches for Devon. After he convinces Devon to give
Juggernaut the sword, Juggernaut leaves peacefully.
The Subplots:
Devon’s friend JC tells Spider-Man that his mother is a doctor, and he
thinks Spider-Man’s vertigo is caused by an inner-ear infection.
Spider-Man gets medicine from JC’s mom and finds his vertigo is cured.
Web of Continuity: Devon Lewis is the son of the owner of the Daily Grind, the coffee shop that employed Ben Reilly.
*See _________ For Details:
The Juggernaut says he received this sword from “a bunch of lowlife
Welchers in the Middle East.” The footnote points towards Incredible Hulk ##457. He claims that he’s selling the sword in order to pay for Black Tom’s hospital bills, following the events of Generation X #25. Oddly enough, the footnotes cite Marvel Team-Up #150 as an example of Spider-Man and Juggernaut meeting in the past, as opposed to the more famous Amazing Spider-Man #229-230, or the more recent crossover in X-Force #4/Spider-Man #16.
I Love the ‘90s: Spider-Man tells Devon that this is not like a Xena adventure.
Review: Wizard had already begun declaring Amazing Spider-Man
#229-230 as a modern-day classic during this era, which might’ve
influenced the decision to pit Juggernaut against Spider-Man once again
this issue. After all, John Romita, Jr. drew that original story, and
it would be fun to see how he handled a rematch in his modern style,
right? And, yes, I have to acknowledge that visually this is a stunning
issue. Any JRjr Spider-Man collection wouldn’t be complete without
this story, which exhibits his expressionistic “blocky” style as well as
any other comic I can remember. Both Spider-Man and Juggernaut are
large, bold figures that are bigger than life in an appropriately
comic-book way, much larger than I can ever imagine Romita getting away
with back in the Jim Shooter days. Which isn’t to say that the gigantic
images stand in the way of the storytelling, as Romita maintains
Spider-Man’s unique body language throughout the issue, and manages to
work those large figures into a multi-panel page when he has to. Credit
also goes to Gregory Wright for doing some of the finest color work at
Marvel during these days.
Unfortunately,
there’s really no story for Romita to work with here. Juggernaut
stumbles across Spider-Man by pure coincidence, they fight for no real
reason, Spider-Man makes sure Juggernaut gets his sword back, and
everyone goes home. Sure, the fight scenes are fun, but what a lame
justification for a fight. And an even lamer ending, with the villain
simply walking away for the second issue in a row. The threadbare plot
might’ve been saved if Mackie could create some kind of a dynamic
between Spider-Man and Juggernaut, but their tête-à-tête is just a chore
to read. When it isn’t utterly boring, it veers into the vaguely
incomprehensible.
Spider-Man: You are serious about all this sick friend stuff…aren’t you?
Juggernaut: Yeah! What -- I can’t have a friend? You of all people got nerve name-calling!
Spider-Man: What are you talking about?
Juggernaut: Yeah…well…I’ve been havin’ a tough year.
What?
What is this supposed to mean? How is there a connection between
Juggernaut telling Spider-Man that he isn’t in a position to name-call
(which he clearly wasn’t doing), and then Juggernaut spontaneously
declaring that he’s having “a tough year”? I guess the idea is that
Juggernaut is overly-sensitive to criticism because of this alleged
“tough year,” but even that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Spider-Man’s
obviously not insulting him, he’s been trying to avoid a fight for the
entire issue, and suddenly Juggernaut a) thinks Spider-Man is calling
him names, and b) decides to blame his non sequitur response on a “tough
year.” I don’t want to harp on this, but Mackie’s dialogue exchanges
often have these brief moments that make little-to-no sense.
Following
the Juggernaut fight, which essentially amounts to pretty filler, we’re
graced with a resolution to the vertigo subplot. Revealing that it was
actually an inner-ear infection and not a vampire’s bite is a
respectable twist ending, although I think the vertigo bit has been used
so many times by now, in all of the titles, that resolving it with a
dose of antibiotics is somewhat anticlimactic. Also, it gives MJ an
invitation to nag Peter once again,
since he didn’t go to the doctor when she originally told him to. Why
does MJ nag so much in the titles now? Was this an editorial edict?
I see what you're getting at, and that exchange certainly is nonsensical, though in Mackie's defense, even Spider-Man is confused by Juggernaut's calling him out for "name-calling", as he immediately replies "What are you talking about?"
ReplyDeleteI assume the "tough year" is a reference to being punched into a coma and then trapped inside the Cyttorak gem by Onslaught, right?
Regarding Mary Jane nagging: We've already seen that Marvel failed once in getting Spider-Man back to the single life by way of the Clone Saga. Maybe their new plan was simply to make her unbearable until readers wanted her gone?
I assume the "tough year" is a reference to being punched into a coma and then trapped inside the Cyttorak gem by Onslaught, right?
ReplyDeleteYes, in addition to whatever happened in Incredible Hulk, I suppose. Plus, he had to live in the Ultraverse during this time.
Regarding Mary Jane nagging: We've already seen that Marvel failed once in getting Spider-Man back to the single life by way of the Clone Saga. Maybe their new plan was simply to make her unbearable until readers wanted her gone?
There was a fan theory around this time that this was Marvel's plan. Out of nowhere, Wizard began running rumors that Peter and MJ were getting a divorce around early 1998, as I recall. It's possible Marvel put that out to test fan reaction.
Well, simply the fact that Marvel sent the couple to marriage counseling could've been a step in the direction of splitting them up.
ReplyDeleteI have never understood why, if Marvel was so adamant about separating Peter and Mary Jane (and I understand why they wanted to do it), they didn't just divorce them and be done with it. The argument that divorce would "artificially age" them is nonsense. People get married straight out of high school sometimes, and are divorced by 20. No one looks at these people and sees them as anything other than youngsters who made a mistake. A baby would artificially age them, but Marvel already put the kibosh on that idea, so a divorce would've been no big deal, and certainly far, far better than the Mephisto nonsense we were eventually given.
I'm trying to remember exactly how that Hulk story ended. I believe a group of villains called the "New World Order" sent Juggernaut to fight a Hulk who'd been suped up by Apocalypse into the newest version of the Horseman War.
ReplyDeleteI feel like it ended with the Juggernaut retrieving the Hulk's sword and bringing it back to the NWO, at which point it was revealed that the sword contained an explosive, which blew all members of the NWO to kingdom come, thereby weeding out more examples of "the weak."
Obviously it makes sense for Juggernaut to survive the explosion, and maybe even for the sword to survive too, I guess ... ?
Implying that the NWO are "welchers" for not delivering on any promised reward for his service seems odd, though, if he knows they were all killed.
Maybe I'm misremembering the storyline. It certainly wasn't one of Peter David's most memorable.