"TRAP FOR A TERRORIST!"
Writer: Stan Lee/Penciller: John Romita Sr./Inker: Sal Buscema/Letterer: Artie Simek/Editor: Stan Lee/Cover Art: John Romita Sr.
Synopsis: Peter travels to London to try and reunite with Gwen, but soon becomes embroiled in a terrorist plot...
Review: We're entering the twilight months of the Stan Lee era at this point, and I must confess that despite loving the man's work on ASM overall, I find these last few issues a little bit lacking for the most part, and this is probably the weakest of the bunch. It's a fun novelty transposing Spider-Man from his usual New York haunts and plonking him in another world famous city, but the plotting here is ploddy and convoluted, when it's not being tragically underwritten.
For one thing, the idea of an American delegate travelling to an international peace talk in London of all places is absolutely ludicrous. As a native Brit, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that no peace talks are ever held in this country; Geneva would have been far more believable. It just feels like Stan was still mining Cold War tensions for all they were worth: first General Su in ASM #88, and now this; everyone's going to a peace talk at the moment. Then there's the farcical scene where the terrorists have planted a bomb underneath the plane's landing ramp, planning to hold the passengers hostage; it can't be a very powerful bomb because when Spidey kicks the landing ramp away from the plane - a mightily foolish thing to do if there's an explosive under it - the plane isn't even scratched by the resulting explosion. Then it turns out that the terrorists only wanted the American delegate and his son; what was the point of threatening to blow up the whole plane, then?
Stretching credibility even further is the climax of the issue, where Spider-Man has to rescue the delegate and his son from being killed by a bomb planted inside Big Ben. It takes Spidey an agonisingly long time to realise that London's iconic clock tower is where the two are being held captive, and once again I have to ask: why not just hold the delegate and his son hostage in some random house or disused area? Surely that would be simpler than rigging up a bomb to blow them up in an elaborate fashion? Oh well, it's a pretty cool race against time as Spidey has to web up all four faces of Big Ben before the clock can strike the hour. In fact, the action in this issue is all pretty great stuff; some nice scenes of Spidey pursuing the terrorists atop their getaway car, with lots of crunching metal, machine guns going thakka thakka thakka, and Romita's classic brand of Spidey's closed-fisted intensity as the American delegate and his son are brought closer to death.
There are also some really lovely scenes at the start of the issue where Peter is still plagued by Gwen's absence; Stan's dialogue conveys his anguish really well, and I love Aunt May suddenly realising that her nephew really is in love with the girl; it's stuff like this that really cements Gwen as Peter's greatest love (not my favourite character, but Peter's single greatest love). I also really like the little scene at the Bugle where Robbie gives Peter the opportunity to visit London and find Gwen; I always love seeing the camaraderie between Peter and the other Bugle regulars. Slightly more baffling is Harry's bizarre way of abbreviating 'refrigerator' to 'refrig'. If you're fond of slightly amusing melodrama, then Gwen's fainting spell at the sight of Spider-Man swinging past her apartment window in London will be right up your alley. Peter doesn't even get to speak to her in the end, which makes the whole story feel pretty pointless, but I have to commend Romita for his gorgeous update of Pete's classic blue suit: he retains the red tie but merges the yellow jumper and white shirt into one yellow shirt with pinstripes; it's such a small detail, but hey, I'm a Spider-Man obsessive, and I appreciate this slight revamp of Pete's classic Silver Age look.
ASM #95 has some fun moments, but they're mostly confined to the early scenes in New York, and everything starts to go downhill once the action shifts to London. The plot doesn't hang together at all and barely anything gets fleshed out about the delegate or the peace talks he's in London to attend. I also don't think that Romita makes London visually distinctive enough from New York: a double-decker bus and an advert for Wrigley's chewing gum doesn't cut it for me, and Stan's use of stereotypical "I say, old man" dialogue for the British police officers is rather tiresome. I don't want to be too harsh on this, because there are far worse issues out there, but this is one occasion where if you've seen the cover art, you've pretty much read the issue.
Rating: 2.5/5
Next time, we're back stateside, but without the Comics Code as the drug scene in New York rears its ugly head...
