See my initial post for the context. Suffice to say that I will be sharing my entries to the Classic Comics Forum tradition, “Twelve Days of Classic Comics Christmas“. This is a cross-post of my second entry representing #12 on my list of favorite comic book Crossovers.
11. Spider-Man and The Man-Thing
from Giant-Size Spider-Man #5 (1975)
by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, and Mike Esposito
Second Spidey entry. I really could have filled my list with Spider-Man. And a decent chunk of it with this stellar series. But I decided one from this series would have to do. Apologies to the excellent earlier issues where Spider-Man meets Shang-Chi, Doc Savage and Punisher. All contenders.
What do we have here. A lot of focus on character work. Conway uses his page count to shine a spotlight on everybody. It’s during the Clone Saga, so Gwen has mysteriously returned, and everybody is dealing with that. Gwen, Peter, Betty, MJ… we get the first hint of a characterization they will later go all in on for Mary Jane, for better or for worse. We see her on the edge of tears, but then quickly correcting when her Aunt comes in, and putting on a smile and talking about wanting to party. Defalco will later reveal that that’s all she was ever doing, and it will ring untrue.
Conway was more subtle in his treatment of MJ. Maturing her and bringing her and Peter together, while preserving her character.
We also get Curt Connors again turned into the Lizard and see this struggle through the eyes of his wife better than we have before.
We even get solid character work on one random character, a bankrupt chemist on the verge of suicide, whose fate is changed by an encounter with Man-Thing, and who emerges as the hero in the battle against the Lizard.
Not sure if we get good character work on the Man-Thing. You’d have to look closely into his eyes to see what he thinks of these events. All we know is he hears the Lizard’s call with other swamp creatures, and that he seems to respond to intense emotion.
