Todd & Joe Have Issues 01/12/17 Tangled Web #4
Ah, 2001, what a time in comics. The big two, Marvel and DC of course, were trying a lot of things. Mostly based on the success of Brian Michael Bendis on Ultimate Spider-Man, both companies reached out to tons of other indie creators for chances on their big name characters. One such book was Tangled Web where non-traditional creators took a chance on Spider-Man stories. The first arc was three issues by Garth Ennis and John McCrea, notable for DC’s Hitman followed up by a one shot featuring the first Marvel work by Greg Rucka and Eduardo Risso.
People forget that Wilson Fisk started out as a Spider-Man villain, so it was natural for two folks adverse at creating crime stories did a story about the Kingpin of Crime.
It wouldn’t be until later that the Kingpin would become more of a Daredevil villain then later a catch all baddie for every street level character who ‘fought crime.’
I think an inspired story exists where the X-Men or the Avengers take on the Kingpin and his assorted cronies. It may have been done, just not in my recent memory. Now, this issue in question is not hard to come by, meaning it’s not worth tons of money, but it is a book that should be in any Spider-Fan’s collection.
Lastly, I’ll probably never get a chance to mention this again, but in the Marvel mobile game, Avengers Alliance, where all the heroes and villains are in high school, Kingpin’s nick name is Mashed Potatoes. There’s you’re useless fact for the day.
Any discussion, thoughts, feelings, criticisms of this week’s selection can be placed below in the comments section. As well as suggestions about future choices for one shot issues to add to our list.
No specific comments about this issue, but Tangled Web as The Spidey version of LOTDK was a great series. The ones i remember strongly are the Rhino story by Peter Milligan and the Crusher Hogan story by Brian Azzarello and Pro wrester Scotty (the Body) Levy.
Having trouble finding this one. I’m going to go the… gasp… backissues bin.
Weirdly enough I was just getting to that issue on Marvel Unlimited. What a rad creative team! Have they ever worked on a series together?
Captured the dread shadow of Kingpin’s influence for sure. Cross him & there’s no easy way out. Now to read the rest of the series.