The Amazing Spider-Man (1977) s02e01 – The Captive Tower

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

A group of highly trained men takes over a state-of-the-art skyscraper. They are led by an enigmatic leader whose primary contact on the team is the computer wizard. They have rigged the roof to explode. They have thirty or so hostages on the thirtieth floor, and they are in control.

But there’s something they didn’t expect—they’re not in the pilot for “McClane,” which could’ve starred Tom Selleck in 1979—they’re in the second season premiere of “The Amazing Spider-Man,” and Nicholas Hammond is going to kick their ass. I mean, presumably Nicholas Hammond. While there are a handful of scenes you know it’s him in the costume, in most scenes, you know it isn’t him. Does it break the verisimilitude?

Yes and no. Captive Tower is a decent season premiere of an action stunt show. It’s very specific about how it works. Hammond (out of costume) hangs out in the first act, then is in and out for the rest of the episode. He checks in for exposition scenes and catch-ups with the supporting characters, but otherwise, it’s all costumed “Hammond.”

So it’s an action stunt show with a specific target market. Tween boys who are allowed to stay up at primetime, which is a weird advertising demographic for primetime. The Die Hard plot is so incontrovertible the show can’t help but be compelling. Even when the height of action drama is “Hammond” being woozy at the edge of the building.

Spider-Man’s lack of balance this end of the Spider-Verse also plays in when there’s a balancing on a tightrope sequence. Spider-Man’s bad at balance. What is even happening.

Basically, there’s just no promise of verisimilitude for it to fail. All the character work for the regular supporting cast stops before the halfway point. Chip Fields drops Hammond off at the assignment—presumably to borrow his new car (which will go on to be a regular on the season, but never a plot point). She does an exposition dump to help introduce new regular Ellen Bry, playing a rival photographer who can appear in the action plot but also be damsel and love interest at better rates than weekly ingenues.

Bry and Hammond bicker, touch a lot, then she’s background.

Ditto Robert F. Simon as J. Jonah Jameson. He gets a lot to do in the first act (though, at best, he’d just be setting himself up for an Ellis situation). But then he’s just around to tell the guest stars what to do. Like, literally. Either Hammond or Hans (David Sheiner) will tell everyone to do something, and Simon will tell people to do it. It’s busywork and very obviously where Tower proves the Die Hard structure needs, you know, some kind of artistic impulse.

Instead, the character drama is either about a terrorist’s fear of heights or the computer guy (Todd Susman) being in love with the computer. Does the computer talk to him? No. Is it visually impressive? No. Director Cliff Bole just gives Susman one shot after one shot about how much he loves the computer and how he’s got to seduce her into doing their… commands.

Sheiner’s bad. Susman’s bad, but not always. Hammond’s got his moments, and even though Tower features him definitely in the costume doing scenes with other characters—he talks to the other other agent Johnson—Spider-Man’s not a character who has any stakes. The cops aren’t even after him this season, apparently. The show replaced season one (and pilot movie) regular Michael Pataki with Bry for this season, only to bring in Ed Sancho-Bonet as a Pataki-like cop to negotiate with Sheiner.

Simon and Bry are both fine. Fields gets that opening scene to be charming and makes Hammond immediately better; he’s never better on the show than with her. If only she’d stayed past that actual opening scene.

But there’s more than enough “Spider-Man” action for the target audience.

And that Dana Kaproff score is dynamite.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012, Marc Webb)

The Amazing Spider-Man is melodramatic trifle, but not in any sort of bad way. I mean, it doesn’t succeed but it does try a lot. Director Webb really goes for a high school romance, with such saccharine effectiveness it probably ought to be an ominous foreshadowing for leads Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s burgeoning romance. Except, although Webb’s going for the melodrama and there’s a sappy, though heroic, and familiar in many parts James Horner score, John Schwartzman’s photography is super flat. It’s unclear if Webb’s messing it up or Schwartzman or some combination; I lean more towards Webb, if only because Schwartzman knows how to light J. Michael Riva’s early seventies style sets and Webb doesn’t know how to shoot them.

If The Amazing Spider-Man were a period piece set in the late sixties, with a lot more for Denis Leary to do in the first half of the film, it could’ve been something. Instead, it’s this weird mushing together of various ideas, from Spider-Man comics, from popular movies, from unpopular movies, probably something from a TV show. Webb and screenwriters James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent, and Steve Kloves throw just about everything in. The heart shows. The film’s enthusiastically sappy.

And it usually works, because the good performances weather occasional weak scenes and subplots and manage to sell the sap. Martin Sheen can sell the sap, so can Denis Leary. It’d help if Rhys Ifans’s could sell it too, but he’s pretty terrible as the de facto villain. The writing on the villain stuff is terrible throughout, but Ifans still isn’t any good in the part. Sheen, Leary, and Ifans make up Garfield’s surrogate father trinity in the film, which should be important but isn’t.

Instead of continuing anything the first act threatens with daddy issues, as soon as the delayed second act is underway, the film quickly veers into mostly unrelated territory. The familiar Spider-Man origin has frequent, small tweaks. Usually so director Webb can avoid the action, but not the Spider-Man in New York stuff. Webb likes that stuff.

But the fighting? Webb’s fumbles it. Even when the special effects are good–which is never with Ifans’s CGI alter ego–Webb doesn’t know what he’s doing. Someone–either Webb, the screenwriters, or just the plain old studio–sets up action scenes ripe for video game realization. The action in the third act is almost like the target demographic is Spider-Man gamers. With the gaudy Horner music and Schwartzman’s flat, “realistic” photography, the sequences even amuse. The Amazing Spider-Man goes all out when it’s got an idea, good or bad.

It goes for it for over two hours. It goes for it to the point the narrative has two or three major shifts where previous subplots just get dropped. At some point, the film decides it just wants to set up Garfield as a pretty cool Spider-Man. And then everything builds towards it, sometimes with stupid stuff like C. Thomas Howell inexplicably having an extended cameo, like Tobey Maguire or Nicholas Hammond wouldn’t have been far better.

Great Stan Lee cameo though, during the one time the effects all come together and Webb goes along with it and it all works out. It’s a big high school fight sequence between Garfield’s CGI stand-in and Ifans’s CGI stand-in. It’s just fun, but with some danger. Amazing Spider-Man’s balance of danger to fun is one of its strengths.

The greatest strength, however, is Garfield. He’s socially obtuse and pensive, sympathetic without being lovable, occasionally justified in his insensitivity. And instead of losing his place once he and Stone get involved, Garfield just gets better. The fun flirting just informs later serious concern and chastely suggestive sequences. Especially one where Stone and Leary have this awkward family moment and it’s almost good enough, but Webb fumbles it. Stone and Leary try hard enough they get it to pass… but it should be better.

Like Stone. Stone’s underutilized. More Stone would make it better. But the script’s too busy. There are too many characters crowding Garfield. Stone’s just another one of them; after setting her up for her own character development time and again, the film just keeps cutting her off. It’s got no idea what weight to give to what character. Garfield’s just haphazardly visiting people who should have good subplots, but then they never do.

Despite it having nothing to do with anything, it’s got a pretty good ending. As far as melodramatic trifle goes. With the exception of Ifans and a little Leary, Webb’s good with actors. He relies on Garfield and Stone heavily throughout the film and the epilogue’s got some acknowledgement (even if not enough for Stone.

The Amazing Spider-Man has some heart to it, which helps it immeasurably.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #259

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Lot of Ditko homage on the last pages, even with the filmic–especially for the eighties–pacing of Peter suiting up in the red and blue.

It’s sort of a weak finish to a great issue. Most of the issue–except some ill-advised attention on Hobgoblin (providing the action)–is Mary Jane telling Peter all about her life.

DeFalco does an amazing job with the Mary Jane stuff. It’s this heart-wrenching confession–as Mary Jane assesses herself and her past actions–mixed with Peter’s internal reaction. It might be one of the most touching comics I’ve read about a major property, just because it’s so delicate. It doesn’t even with Peter and Mary Jane heading off to the altar–far from it. DeFalco seems to be aware if he went that route, it’d flush the story’s value.

Frenz does an excellent job (albeit within his abilities) here too.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #258

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I knew I liked these eighties Spider-Man issues. It just took DeFalco a while to bring it around (though it could all be the nostalgia talking).

What’s important about this issue isn’t the beginning, which cops out of the previous cliffhanger and then strangely sends Black Cat off to Neverland instead of resolving a new situation with her… but the end.

The majority of the issue is spent getting the black costume tested by Reed Richards and then taken off Spidey. There’s some funny stuff with the Torch–it’s amazing how much better DeFalco does when he’s writing Spider-Man around other superheroes instead of trying to handle his Peter Parker stuff–and a couple nice Ditko homages.

But the ending–Mary Jane shows up to talk to Peter. I didn’t think she would show up… figured DeFalco would draw it out.

He doesn’t and it’s a lovely move.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #257

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What a cliffhanger! Mary Jane reveals to Peter she knows he’s Spider-Man! All with some weak Ron Frenz faces. I actually liked most of Frenz’s work this issue, when he was doing the action stuff–the fight between Puma and Spider-Man had some nice moves and it worked. But when Peter gets back to Mary Jane for a talking heads scene?

Ick.

Frenz can’t keep the faces constant from panel to panel on the same page.

He seems to get the hair right though, on both of them. I guess hair’s something.

It’s a somewhat boring, contrived issue–with the exception of the long fight scene. Black Cat bitches and moans–in thought balloons–about how common Peter Parker lives. She’s such an unsympathetic character. They should have killed her off at this point. Mary Jane shows up to annoy Peter, then reveals the secret.

Still, not atrocious.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #256

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Why have a Native American superhero when you can have a Native American supervillain!

The politics of Puma (this issue is his first appearance) are fantastic–successful Native Americans use their special abilities to become assassins for hire. It’s great. You’d never see this kind of thing today.

Maybe Jason Aaron can do a Puma MAX series, after he’s done with Scalped.

Otherwise, it’s a fine enough eighties Spider-Man costume. Frenz isn’t great, but he’s enthusiastic and he works–most pages have nine panels–and his Peter Parker looks like a grown up Ditko Peter Parker. There’s a nostalgic appeal to it.

The writing’s pretty lazy. DeFalco repeats the same expository revelation two pages after the first mention. Then there’s the when he comments on the Black Cat and her “colorful” namesake. Pretty sure a black cat is monotone.

There’s nothing particularly good about it, but nothing bad either.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #255

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It’s a perfectly decent done-in-one.

The issue opens with the Black Fox (I thought he was the Black Cat’s father, but maybe not) and he introduces the issue’s main story, the Red Ghost wanting to rob a bunch of stores so he can afford to build his death ray (or whatever it’s called). There’s some painful dialogue until that conversation, but then it gets amusing–the supervillain in hiding, needing to resort to breaking and entering to fund his devious device.

It’s funny.

The Spider-Man stuff is awkward. Most of the Peter Parker scenes are spent going over all the events of previous crossover titles. Then the black costume takes him out for a day and keeps him unconscious (which he doesn’t know yet, of course).

It’s a breezy read and Ron Frenz does a good job of the action. He gives Spidey some needed physical levity.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #254

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Here’s my issue… yes, Spider-Man has lots of human problems–his aunt’s pissed at him, he’s got girlfriend trouble, he’s got job trouble. He’s apparently the only superhero in New York when there’s a superpowered terrorist blowing up toy stores. The list goes on and on.

But let’s look at these problems.

Aunt May’s pissed he dropped out of college. How contrived. She’s not even a character. It’s unbelievable her beau would even have lunch with her.

His girlfriend trouble–the Black Cat. She’s a moron and a flake and written by everyone in that manner. She even tells Peter she doesn’t like him, only the costume.

The job trouble–he’s taking boring pictures. Considering he got his start faking exciting pictures, Peter’s just being lazy.

He’s not very sympathetic here.

But the Leonardi art is good on all the superhero adventuring. Not so much on the faces though.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #253

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Where to start… I’m tempted to start with Rick Leonardi, who comes up with these great layered panels (or maybe Bill Anderson inked them to make them layered), but simply cannot keep any consistency when drawing people. Maybe he does all right when he’s got football helmets on them–it’s a football corruption story, luckily Peter was assigned to the sports department this issue.

DeFalco manages to overwrite and underwrite at the same time. He’s pushing everything he can into the issue to get an emotional response–the football player throwing games, his disappointed kid brother, Aunt May being mad at Peter for dropping out of college. He even ends the issue with Peter being compared to the football player, they’re both throwing it all away.

But there’s almost no Spider-Man stuff in the issue. Some swinging around, some black costume stuff. There’s no focus on the character though.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #252

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Tom DeFalco really likes expository dialogue and thought balloons, not to mention narration. Peter Parker cannot shut up he’s talking to himself so much, then there’s the Black Cat thinking about recent events to catch the reader up. Strangely, the issue opens on this amusing exchange between Jonah and Robbie about the best way to use art on the cover of the Bugle.

The opening and close is pretty strong–DeFalco paces the issue really well and reading it is an investment of time (oh, the eighties… one got to read one’s Marvel comic for longer than five minutes… I’d forgotten).

Spidey and Curt Connors get back from Secret Wars in a nice sequence, then the lengthy Peter exposition stuff, but the conclusion is Spidey taking an arguing teenage couple out to see New York the way he does.

It’s occasionally overwritten, but still a rather good mainstream comic book.