"MAKE WAY FOR...MEDUSA!"
Writer: Stan Lee/Breakdowns: John Romita Sr./Penciller: Don Heck/Inker: Mike Esposito/Letterer: Sam Rosen/Editor: Stan Lee/Cover Art: John Romita Sr.
Synopsis: Medusa has arrived in New York to discover whether her fellow Inhumans are safe to live among humanity again, but things soon go awry...
Review: I'm afraid this review isn't going to be very positive. This issue has long been the one I cite as the worst of the Lee and Romita era; heck, I think it could well be the worst issue of the Silver Age. There's barely anything here worth talking about, but I started this blog to talk about Spider-Man - even the issues I don't like - so that's what I'm going to do.
The bulk of the issue revolves around Medusa and her quest to find out whether humans are safe to live among again. The Inhumans can be really cool characters when featured in the pages of Fantastic Four, and the very first Hulk annual has a fantastic mash-up of the green goliath and the residents of Attilan, but with Spidey...I don't know; it feels very strange seeing Medusa going up against the web-head. I don't know why this is; it's not like we haven't seen Spider-Man teaming up - or, in this case, battling - other Marvel characters before, but for some reason I find Medusa's presence kind of incongruous here. Maybe it's because I associate the Inhumans so much with the FF and Jack Kirby; whatever the reason, she feels out of place.
The plot is woeful as well; Medusa gets plucked by the greedy CEO of Heavenly Hair Spray to star in their new advertising campaign, which she soon grows tired of and leaves, prompting the CEO to lie to Spider-Man, telling him that Medusa attacked them; he hopes that footage of the battle between the two will boost sales of their hair spray; how, exactly? It's just dumb as rocks, and is little more than an excuse for the two superhumans to fight each other, something that regular readers will know I'm not a fan of. The CEO isn't even an amusing caricature either; he's reminiscent of B.J. Cosmos from ASM #14, but without any of the wry satire that made that character work.
The only positives I can really glean from this issue are the scenes that don't deal with Medusa: Peter going to the Stacy house and vainly trying to get Gwen to listen to him, Harry continuing to struggle with his studies, and best of all, Norman is still suffering from flashbacks to his final hour as the Green Goblin; I love that his recurring nightmare features an unmasked Spider-Man whose face becomes clearer and clearer with each passing night; Stan really did a great job of building up this subplot and mounting the tension. Shame he couldn't have spread those energies around to benefit the A-plot of this issue.
ASM #62 is an issue that I really don't have a lot to say about. It's the definition of filler, an issue that exists solely because they didn't have anything better to fill a month, and it shows. Stupid plot, incongruous guest star, lacklustre attempts at humour, a pointless fight between characters, and even a sexist joke from Spider-Man all combine to make this not worth your time reading. The best thing about it are those brief detours away from the Medusa plot, just to remind you that things of importance are indeed happening.
Rating: 1.5/5
Next time, we'll be taking a look at the first ever spin-off Spider-Man title: The Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #1, in which we get a very different type of enemy for the web-head to match wills with...
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