Comics Corner: Web Of Spider-Man 33

   

Title: Web Of Spider-Man
Issue Number: 33
Release Date: December 1987

Highlights

• First issue in The Mad Dog Ward story arc
• First appearance of the Gibbs family, Vicky, Frank, Jacob, and Tanya
• Additional first appearance of Doctor Hope, Doctor Hunt, and Patient MD 2020 (though he remains unnamed)
• First appearance of the location Pleasant Valley Mental Hospital
• Vicky Gibbs stands in the kitchen talking to herself
• Her son Jacob enters, and asks her if she was talking to the shadows again
• Vicky is clearly not well
• Vicky is leaving her husband Frank, and she's taking the kids, Jacob and Tanya with her
• As they leave, Frank is outside, coming home from work
• He sees their bags are packed, and immediately concedes that they should all just go
• Vicky tells the kids to stay there, and that she'll be right back
• Jacob tells Tanya, they're not going anywhere, and he too goes inside
• Vicky tells Frank she doesn't like the criminal company he works for, and says she almost turned him in, setting Frank off
• Frank tells Vicky he'll kill her, and she runs for the bedroom, calling the police, and grabbing a gun
• Vicky discovers that the police officer she's on the phone with is on the take, and Frank gets on the phone with him
• He tells his wife she's signed his death warrant, and the phone rings, an unnamed man tells Frank that his wife needs to be put away so she can't cause anymore trouble
• Peter reflects on being buried alive, and his battle with Vermin, and also informs the readers that Mary Jane is away in Paris on a photo shoot
• Peter has dinner with Aunt May, but as he's leaving her house, an ambulance screams by with its sirens blaring, and Jacob and Tanya bump into him as they chase after it
• Tanya tells Peter they took mommy, and they need to follow the ambulance
• She tells Peter they're taking their mom to Pleasant Valley, and asks him what is wrong with her, but he doesn't know
• Jacob keeps trying to pull her down the street, but when Peter says that maybe their mom just needs to rest, he gets angry, and they're trying to get rid of her, to shut her up
• Peter suggests the kids visit her in the hospital
• That night, Peter can't sleep, and he keeps thinking about the two kids
• He suits up, and heads out into the night
• Jacob and Tanya are out in the night, of the roof of the hospital to find their mother, and the boy has brought a gun with him
• Their father has followed them, and though Tanya hugs him, Jacob turns the gun on him
• Jacob tells his father that he's no longer his son, and that he'll never go near their mom again
• Armed guards swarm the roof, and after making a call tell Frank he and the kids are being taken inside for a chat
• Spider-Man breaks up the party, but Frank runs away
• One of the guards grabs Tanya, and holds her over the edge of the building
• He tosses her over, and as Spider-Man dives after her, he takes bullets to his back
• As Spider-Man lays there bleeding, he tells Tanya to run and get the police

Low Points

• Marvel pretty much required you to read all three Spider-Man titles at this point to get the full story, which arced across multiple titles

Oddities

• None

Rating (based on a 1 through 5 Stans grading system)

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