All They Want to do is Kill You, Spider-man..

Amazing Spider-man #214

by Denny O'Neil, John Romita Jr and Jim Mooney

Issues 213-215 of Amazing featured a three part story about the Frightful Four and their revenge against Spidey for their latest defeat back in Spectacular #42

Back in 1980, I quite enjoyed this story especially the mystery surrounding the new member of the FF. However on re-reading, while it was still alright on one level , there are a lot of bad things about the story.

Firstly, the good things. JR Jr's art is still good even though Jim Mooney's inking is a bit heavy for him. Even back in 1980 he still draws a mean Spidey.

I also still like the mystery member. The clues are there and Llyra (an old Sub-Marnier villain) I still think was a good idea. She wanted revenge on Subby and so wanted the rest of the FF to help her after she'd helped them against Spidey.

But it's with Llyra that the main problems start. It is too much of a co-incidence that she, in her beautiful human guise, moves into an apartment just down the hall from Pete. If she'd moved in after Spidey's encounter with the Wizards Robot Spider which could home in on his Spider-sense it would have made more sense. But no, she moved in before that which is too much of a co-incidence. Thus Pete falls for her beauty and it looks as if Deb Whitman may be forgotton.

This beautiful neighbour plot device is then used a few times in the story including, at one point, Subby crashing into her room (which Spidey happens to see of course). So Spidey and Subby start slugging it out for the second time in a day or three before the Wiz zaps them with his gun.

This is another bad point - this gun removes Spidey's spider-sense and transfers it to the Sub-Mariner! What rubbish! I never like it when this sort of thing happens and I always wonder why bad guys don't finish the job off properly when they've got the heroes reeling!

At the end Llyra's secret is revealed and she is defeated but even that is handled in a contrived fashion which jut doesn't feel right somehow.

Overall, then, not the greatest of stories in my opinion.

Rating 6/10