Amazing Spider-Man #341, Marvel Comics, November 1990
If I'm gonna talk about all of my comic book firsts this week, I suppose I have to fess up about my first ever letter printed in a comic book letters page. There are only 2 or 3, but then I only flirted with the idea in the very early 90s (when I really should have known better). And that first, thrilling letter was published in Amazing Spider-Man #341, a number of months after I stopped collecting Amazing. I made an exception in this case, but that's vanity for ya. What's it look like?
So there you have it, true believers, proof positive that I am responsible for the resurrection and wholesale whoring of Venom. Little did lil' fanboy Siskoid know that he was giving Marvel the impetus to run Venom into the ground and ruin a perfectly good movie franchise. To be fair, VADLRAC never sanctioned turning Venom into a Punisher-type anti-hero, nor did it encourage Venom to reproduce into various horrors like Carnage. You know what? I'm not even sure I ever bought a Venom appearance after this. [Oh wait, yes I did. He was back in action not 6 months later.] Let me just officially retract every opinion submitted in that letter. Except where I bash writers for creating more mutants. I stand by that one. Filthy muties.
And what about the story? Well, the reason I stopped reading Amazing wasn't David Michelinie's scripts, which were fine (not Iron Man-fine, but fine), but rather Erik Larsen's art. Here, he's still channeling half of Todd MacFarlane and half of Kevin McGuire. I'm more accepting of it now, but Peter Parker still looks like a Neanderthal.
And Mary Jane is severely glammed-up. Where's the girl next door we all grew up with?
Maybe worse yet, what's with Flash Thompson's pants here?
Felicia, by the way, is the Black Cat, Spider-Man's former (and hottest) girlfriend. But this issue hasn't been sexed up enough! NOooooo. We also need a subplot about Aunt May wanting to make sweet, dry geriatric love to the Fantastic Four's mailman Willie Lumpkin, and this scene, where a shadowy bad guy plays "hide-the-grape" in his moll's cleavage. And then he beats her. I don't know what to tell you.
Oh yeah, and Spider-Man's lost his powers and he fights the king of pointy shoes, Latin American villain La Tarantula. He's like Antonio Banderas in a ballroom movie (not that that would ever happen). Whatever. It's not like his powers didn't return.
If I'm gonna talk about all of my comic book firsts this week, I suppose I have to fess up about my first ever letter printed in a comic book letters page. There are only 2 or 3, but then I only flirted with the idea in the very early 90s (when I really should have known better). And that first, thrilling letter was published in Amazing Spider-Man #341, a number of months after I stopped collecting Amazing. I made an exception in this case, but that's vanity for ya. What's it look like?
So there you have it, true believers, proof positive that I am responsible for the resurrection and wholesale whoring of Venom. Little did lil' fanboy Siskoid know that he was giving Marvel the impetus to run Venom into the ground and ruin a perfectly good movie franchise. To be fair, VADLRAC never sanctioned turning Venom into a Punisher-type anti-hero, nor did it encourage Venom to reproduce into various horrors like Carnage. You know what? I'm not even sure I ever bought a Venom appearance after this. [Oh wait, yes I did. He was back in action not 6 months later.] Let me just officially retract every opinion submitted in that letter. Except where I bash writers for creating more mutants. I stand by that one. Filthy muties.And what about the story? Well, the reason I stopped reading Amazing wasn't David Michelinie's scripts, which were fine (not Iron Man-fine, but fine), but rather Erik Larsen's art. Here, he's still channeling half of Todd MacFarlane and half of Kevin McGuire. I'm more accepting of it now, but Peter Parker still looks like a Neanderthal.
And Mary Jane is severely glammed-up. Where's the girl next door we all grew up with?
Maybe worse yet, what's with Flash Thompson's pants here?
Felicia, by the way, is the Black Cat, Spider-Man's former (and hottest) girlfriend. But this issue hasn't been sexed up enough! NOooooo. We also need a subplot about Aunt May wanting to make sweet, dry geriatric love to the Fantastic Four's mailman Willie Lumpkin, and this scene, where a shadowy bad guy plays "hide-the-grape" in his moll's cleavage. And then he beats her. I don't know what to tell you.
Oh yeah, and Spider-Man's lost his powers and he fights the king of pointy shoes, Latin American villain La Tarantula. He's like Antonio Banderas in a ballroom movie (not that that would ever happen). Whatever. It's not like his powers didn't return.
Comments
What's actually stopping me from becoming president is that I'm not a citizen of the USA. You win this time, Constitution!
Those were some pretty terrifying pictures of Spider-Man though. Mullets! Mullets everywhere!
"I have a prime minister, not a president! And it's ZED--not ZEE, ZED!!"
Although I will say this: by some strange quirk of fate, both issues that feature my letters also feature Guy Gardner on the cover.
I've got another one I can share with you folks, but it makes me come off as even more of a square. You'll just have to be patient.
I've got a feeling there's a third letter somewhere, but I'll be damned if I remember where it was printed.