Amazing Spider-Man 229

Amazing Spider-Man 229

Jun 1982

Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut!

by Roger Stern, John Romita Jr., Jim Mooney, Joe Rosen, Glynis Wein, Tom DeFalco

Black Tom Cassidy and the Juggernaut target Madame Web. She gets a premonition that something is coming for her and reaches out to Spider-Man for help. Spider-Man tries his best to prevent the Juggernaut from reaching her. 

A brief portion of this story takes place at the Daily Bugle. The Juggernaut is a little too single minded (stay on target!) to swing by the offices of the Daily Bugle but Peter spends some time there, shooting the breeze with Glory Grant and running in to Betty Brant. He has to high tail it out of there when he gets a call from Madame Web.

Thoughts

I kind of like this story. It isn’t a classic in my eyes but I like it. Juggernaut is very one note. Spider-Man tries to stop him while cracking jokes. 

Nothing stops the Juggernaut but he loses interest in capturing Madame Web when he discovers that she can’t survive without her life support chair.

If I didn’t know that there was a second part to this story then I would be somewhat disappointed by the way this part ends. I’m not sure what to expect from part two other than another fight between Spidey and the Juggernaut. Will Spider-Man figure out how to stop the Juggernaut? Will Black Tom Cassidy give Juggernaut a hard time for not returning with Madame Web? Black Tom Cassidy seems to be the brainier one. What exactly was his plan once they got their hands on her?

Notes

Betty Brant once dated Peter Parker but she was married to Ned Leeds at this point. She and Ned got married in Amazing Spider-Man 156 (May 1976). After the wedding she wasn’t seen again until Amazing Spider-Man 182 (Jul 1978). She appeared in 3/4 of the issues from ASM 182 to 197. This is her first appearance since Amazing Spider-Man 197 (Oct 1979). 

This is Madame Web’s third appearance. She first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man 210 (Nov 1980) and also appeared in ASM 216 (May 1981). I think this is the first story that she’s been in that I have read.

Glory Grant first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man 140 (Jan 1975). She was a model when she made her first appearance and J. Jonah Jameson’s secretary at the time of this story. She appeared in all three Spider-Man titles on a recurring basis from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s.