"THE GOBLIN'S LAST GASP!"
Writer: Stan Lee/Penciller: Gil Kane/Inker: Frank Giocoia/Letterer: Artie Simek/Editor: Stan Lee/Cover Art: Gil Kane
Synopsis: As Peter rushes Harry to the hospital after a bad trip, the Goblin devises a new weapon with which to defeat Spider-Man once and for all...
Review: The final issue in the drug trilogy is easily the weakest in my opinion. That's not to say it's bad -it's a perfectly enjoyable read - but it's definitely lacking in some of the rich character moments that we got in the previous two issues. Mary Jane is nowhere to be seen, and Harry spends the entire issue unconscious in bed, so there's no real exploration of him coming down from his trip, or how he feels in the aftermath. Spoiler alert: don't expect that to be addressed all that much going forward, either. What we get instead is a mostly action-based issue, which is fun enough for what it is.
We get another Goblin battle of course, about on par with that of the previous issue, Gil Kane creating lots of exciting moments; I especially love the way he has Spidey leaping and diving all over the place as the Goblin rains pumpkin bombs around him; fantastic stuff. My favourite moment of the entire fight, though, and one of my favourite moments from any Spidey/Goblin encounter, is the moment where Spidey leaps over the Goblin's head and wraps his legs around the villain's neck. That gorgeous panel where Spidey jumps down to meet his target, and those words: "Right here Gobby--just where I wanna be" have stuck in my head for years, and is one of the first things I think of when I think of Spider-Man fighting the Goblin; there's something so exciting, so triumphant, about it; it's one of Kane's best pieces of art.
Whilst the fight itself may be fun and games, there is a real problem that I've always had with this issue, and it's kind of an extension of a bugbear I had with ASM #97, ie. the Goblin being extremely stupid. What exactly is he doing for the middle portion of this issue? In the opening scene, Peter manages to drive the villain away by shocking Norman's brain back to reality - temporarily - when he shows Norman how ill his son is. OK, I'll buy that, fine. But then, the Goblin just sort of...disappears for a good chunk of the issue. When he returns for the grand finale, all he's done is develop a gas that briefly removes Spider-Man's ability to stick to walls. Did he not attempt to expose Peter's secret to the public? Go after his friends and family? Send him some hate-mail? Anything? Like with the last issue, it just calls to question the Goblin's qualifications as an arch-nemesis to have him make bone-headed mistakes like this. Oh well, at least the fight scene is good, and I will admit that the opening moment where the Goblin bursts into Peter and Harry's apartment is brilliantly tense.
As stated above, there's very little character stuff here, but what we do get isn't bad, I suppose. It really offers us a look-in on characters that have been absent for the past two issues, namely Jameson, Robbie, and of course, Gwen. Gwen's scene is nothing much to write home about; it's your typical lovelorn melodrama that comes with the territory at this point whenever she's around, but she does at least make the decision to return stateside to try and reconcile things with Peter. The scene with Jameson and Robbie is much more interesting, and highlights well the wonderful friendship the two have. Jameson being cautious about printing the story of Harry's drug use in the Bugle, and Robbie standing by his convictions makes for a lovely little exchange - short though it is - and the final panel where Jameson demands Robbie get to writing up the story brings a smile to my face; I never tire of seeing the trust these two have in each other.
The commentary on drugs takes a bit of a backseat here in favour of the Goblin action; all we get is the short scene with Jameson and Robbie, and a pretty spectacular moment in which Peter savagely beats up the drug dealers that sold Harry the pills; he's a few rounds of ammo short of Charles Bronson in Death Wish. This actually might be my favourite fight scene in the trilogy, believe it or not; as exciting as it always is to see Spider-Man take on the Green Goblin, there's an invigorating rawness to the encounter between Peter and the drug dealers that you rarely see in Spider-Man comics, and it's always cool to see Peter take on criminals without his costume.
ASM #98 rounds out the Goblin/drug trilogy in reasonable fashion. The drug aspect I think is well-handled, and as said, I love the moment where Pete teaches the dealers a lesson. Oddly, the less successful side of the issue is all the stuff with the Goblin, partly because of how idiotically the character acts, but there's also a sense that we've seen all this before, something I've always felt about the Goblin action in these issues. It's basically just a rehash of the story from The Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2: Norman remembers he's the Goblin, goes on the attack against Spider-Man, before promptly reverting to his normal self through some convoluted means. I do quite like the idea of shocking Norman back to himself when he sees his son in the grip of drug addiction, but that still doesn't shake the feeling of a reheated plot. It's probably a good thing that Stan never wrote for the character again after this, because it's clear he didn't really have anything in the way of fresh ideas for what to do with him.
With that said, I do still find it to be a pretty fun issue overall, and hey, it does end on a positive note as Peter and Gwen reunite with a snog for the ages. Things are looking up for our hero for once, but can they possibly last?
Rating: 3.5/5
Next time, we take a stroll through a day in the life of our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man...
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