You’ve Never Read Spectacular Spider-Man by DeMatteis and Buscema?! Part 7
Part VII: Best of Enemies
This is it, folks. This journey we embarked upon almost two months ago is finally reaching its conclusion. This run from J.M. DeMatteis and Sal Buscema started with a look at the complicated relationship between Peter Parker and Harry Osborn, and that is where it ends in Spectacular Spider-Man #200. Without further ado, let’s jump into one of the most memorable Spider-Man comics ever published.
Spectacular Spider-Man #199 ended on quite the cliffhanger with Harry Osborn in full Green Goblin gear swooping in on a terrified Mary Jane as she was walking by herself. He wastes no time at the start of this issue scooping her up and flying off into the night sky. It’s another excellently laid out page by Buscema with DeMatteis allowing him to tell the story instead of filling the page with dialogue. This will prove to be a theme in this issue.
Harry proceeds to take her to the exact spot where his father once murdered Gwen Stacy atop the Brooklyn and/or George Washington Bridge (if you know, you know). Mary Jane, being the badass that she is, declares that she isn’t afraid to die and asks Harry to just get it over with. This prompts a fascinating conversation that really provides some insight into Harry’s nonsensical thought process. Harry has convinced himself that taking a former friend to the location of their mutual friend’s murder while dressed as the murderer himself to have a private chat is just a normal thing for a friend to do. This is a deeply unwell man.
Mary Jane eventually convinces him to take her home. The timing here isn’t great as they arrive at the same time as Peter who was out searching for her as Spider-Man. Spider-Man does what you would expect when seeing the man who kidnapped his wife and delivers a Sal Buscema haymaker for the ages.
Mary Jane breaks the two of them up and tries to get the two former friends to make peace. Harry declines the truce. From there we get to see how Harry’s actions are impacting two families. Peter and Mary Jane continuously argue and fight with one another out of a feeling of helplessness about what they can possibly do to peacefully resolve the situation. Meanwhile, Harry returns home to his family looking like he is on the verge of collapse. He’s shaky, and sweat is pouring down his face. His wife is clearly terrified both of him and for him, but she puts on a happy face so as not to incur his wrath. It’s clear that the formula Harry took to grant him his strength is having an adverse effect on his health.
The middle part of the issue focuses on Harry doing his best to antagonize Peter in his daily life. He shows up at The Daily Bugle (in full Green Goblin costume) under the pretense that he wants Jonah to run a story on a new foundation he’s starting, but the real reason is to make Peter think he’ll reveal that he’s Spider-Man to his boss and frequent antagonist. Harry and Peter then have a brief chat on the roof (a chat that includes some punches) where Harry makes it clear that his only goal at this point is to make Peter’s life as miserable as possible. He’s been pretty successful thus far!
Harry continues to ratchet up the pressure on Peter throughout the issue until Mary Jane decides to pay him a visit in an effort to talk some sense into him and put this vendetta against her husband aside. Unfortunately, Harry’s security cameras spot Spider-Man arriving on his roof just as it seems that Mary Jane is getting through to him. Any chance that Harry will come around is snuffed out at the sight of his nemesis at his home. Harry gears up and launches into an attack on Peter that leads to one of the most brutal fights to ever appear in a Spider-Man comic.
DeMatteis and Buscema really cut loose here. Pardon the phrasing, but the fight is truly spectacular. Both men unload everything they have on each other both physically and verbally. Nothing is held back. After trading haymaker after haymaker, both of them are utterly exhausted. Peter tries once again to appeal to Harry by invoking their time as roommates in college.
It was a decent attempt, but it falls short. Harry produces a needle that was hidden in his glove and injects Peter with a chemical that renders him barely conscious. Harry then reveals his master plan: he has rigged the house with explosives and intends to kill both himself and Peter. Harry has convinced himself that the world will be a better place without the two of them in it. It’s at this moment that Harry realizes that Mary Jane and his son Normie are also in the house. Peter uses his remaining strength to convince Harry to get Mary Jane and Normie out of the house to save them. Even faced with his own impending death, Peter is thinking about saving others first and foremost. Harry has a brief moment of clarity and manages to get both of them out of the house. Once safely outside, Mary Jane pleads with Harry to not let her husband die. Realizing what he has done, Harry flies back into the house and rescues his old friend right before the house explodes into a fiery inferno. Having finally done the right thing, Harry begins to succumb to the very formula he had used to give him his strength. While it gave him his powers, it has also been slowly killing him. The final two pages are entirely devoid of captions or word balloons as Peter rides in the ambulance with his old friend to the hospital. Unfortunately, Harry does not survive the trip. The comic ends with Peter standing outside the hospital letting Mary Jane and Normie know that Harry didn’t make. The final panel is of a photograph of Peter and Harry as friends in college.
It’s a truly poignant ending to an incredible run. DeMatteis deserves major kudos for trusting his artist to tell the story entirely through his art, and Buscema knocks it out of the park. I’ve talked a lot throughout this retrospective series about how great Buscema is at drawing fight sequences, but this is where he proves himself to be one of the greatest illustrators of his generation.
Thus concludes one of the greatest runs in Spider-Man history. I find myself appreciating it more and more as I get older, and I revisit it frequently. It’s a run that really leans into Peter being an adult dealing with adult issues in a way that hasn’t really been replicated before or since. It’s proof that allowing your characters to grow and change over time can lead to great storytelling.
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed going on this little journey down memory lane with me. Next week I will…wait. Hold on. I’m being told that there are actually three more issues in the DeMatteis and Buscema run. That can’t be right, can it? Wow. It appears that they are part of a massive fourteen issue line-wide crossover event. I guess we’ll just have to cover it next. What event could that possibly be?
Great review! But I think the late Joe Rosen deserves a tip of the old ink pen for such a great lettering job here on a rather challenging assignment!!
As a kid my friends and I HATED Sal's art. As an adult, its fantastic