Tonight!: The most shocking, intense, frightening, exciting Bully-post ever!

When you're a fan of Marvel Comics, you have to learn to live with a little bit of hyperbole in your comics. When very issue is described in impossibly over-the-moon terms as "senses-shattering" or "mind-blowing" or "weasel-flavored" or "written by Brian Michael Bendis" you learn to take those big boastful banners with a grain of salt, not to mention the entire pretzel. Nobody ever "demanded it," this saga will not "change the way you look at our hero," and this is never a comic that will "beat you into an unconscious heap and kick you out in the gutter, put its feet up on your coffee table and eat all your sandwiches." Uh uh, no way.

But that's part of the fun of Marvel Comics...the gleeful hucksterism of Mister Stan Lee and company telling us that the four-color fantasy we hold in our sweaty little hooves is the greatest thing since the invention of Eli Whitney's gin-flavored cotton, true believer! Take a look at Amazing Spider-Man Annual #13, f'r instance. After all, it does say, right on the cover, "We guarantee it! The strangest Spidey story of all!" (Keep in mind of course, that the issue where he eats hot dogs with the Norse God of Mischief Evil hadn't even been published yet.) I'm not certain that you shouldn't verify that statement with the Attorney General and the Better Business Bureau before you lay out your six bits for this ish. After all, it even says, right at the top of the cover: "King-Size Annual, and this comic book is nowhere near as big as even your tiniest king.

Still, let's open Spidey Annual lucky number thirteen...


All panels from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #13 (1979), script by Marv Wolfman, pencils by John Byrne, inks by Terry Austin, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by John Costanza


Hey! It's pretty much the same scene as on the cover! Well, at least they can claim that "this scene actually does appear in this comic book!" We also get to see the bragging and boastful "We confidently predict—this is the strangest Spidey Saga—ever!!" So, Doctor Strange is gonna be in it, huh? Hmmm, let's take a closer look at that gasconadic getup:




Sufferin' spiders! "Don't dare peek at the surprise ending of our latest Spidey thriller!"? But I wanna! Aw, c'mon, Stan Lee, let me peek...I ain't gonna tell anybody! Oh good, nobody's looking, so let's peek! I'm sure it's a startling, amazing, spectacular, webby ending that will shatter my senses and eviscerate my eyeballs and other tingly stuff. Are you ready for the most shocking ending ever to Spider-Man story? The most thrilling and gasp-inducing conclusion to Old Webhead's saga? Brace yourself, folks, for here it comes...(takes a deep breath)




Oh. It's a...it's a to be continued.

Wow.

Mister Lee, can i have my seventy-five cents back?