Face front, true believers!
This episode we’re covering S1E8: ‘The Alien Costume Part One’.
We delve into the first part of the trilogy that’ll bring us into the world of symbiotes and some of the best of the ’90s. This time Henry and Jack are distracted by Aerosmith, the Rhino is stuck in a zero-hour contract, and Kingpin just wants his bread. While the cast come together for the opening of this mini-saga, Spider-Man tries to do the right thing -but things go all John Wick 3 thanks to the Spider-Man Justice System.
Then, after our talk about the eighth episode of the series, we look into the origins of Rhino in The Amazing Spider-Man #41-43, and how he eventually comes into play in the pages of The Incredible Hulk. Then, we touch on the alien costume from the comics with a look back to Secret Wars #8.
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Further podcast notes
Now, let’s move onto some classic issues that we referenced in the podcast.
The Rhino’s first appearance was in The Amazing Spider-Man #41 in 1966.
The issue begins with one of J Jonah Jameson’s all-time biggest scumbag moments, when he plans to nudge a sixteen-year-old boy into debt to get more photos of Spider-Man on the cheap.
Jonah’s son John comes back from a space flight to share the news he was infected with mysterious ‘space spores’ and is still under government surveillance.
Meanwhile, The Rhino makes his first appearance, running through Mexico to get to the US border. A wall wouldn’t have kept this guy out of the country.
Meanwhile, Peter learns the news of The Rhino heading to New York City in a news bulletin.
Eventually he arrives in the city.
And heads straight to John Jameson, who he promptly kidnaps.
Spider-Man interferes, then finds out that John is worth a lot of money to other countries.
Eventually, he overpowers him, taking him out with one of Black Widow’s patented leg tackles.
Then in issue #42, the spores affect John Jameson and he and Spider-Man come to blows. Yeah, it’s a whole thing.
He gets OP pretty fast.
Meanwhile, scientists struggle to figure out what to do with The Rhino now that they have him in custody.
He tries to escape but is taken out with ‘spray tranquillizer’… for now.
Spidey takes out a mentally-unstable and super-powered John Jameson by the end of the issue, and all returns to normal… for a short while.
And the issue caps off with the very first meeting between Peter and Mary Jane Watson in this iconic ending.
In issue #43, Rhino breaks out of jail and heads after Spider-Man.
The tranquillizers wear off and he makes short work of the guards, before vowing revenge on the man who had him imprisoned.
Meanwhile, Peter is smitten with MJ, who is full of whatever-Stan-Lee-thinks-teens-in-the-60s-talk-like lingo.
Strangely enough, it’s her who suggests they head out to the city to see The Rhino. Seeing as it’s later revealed that she knew he was Spider-Man at this point, there’s another level to this rather than simply the Rhino being “a real swinger”.
Aleksei reminisces about how he got his suit and powers, in typical Stan Lee fashion.
He starts up a ruckus to lure Spider-Man out, then takes him on in a fight. While Spider-Man is downed, Rhino hits a truck, which soon explodes – but Spidey is saved at the last minute by a police officer.
Rhino thinks he’s dead, so heads over to the hospital to find John Jameson and complete his mission.
Peter finds a piece of The Rhino’s hide on the floor.
And takes it to Doctor Conners’ lab for some testing.
Conners suggests The Lizard could fight, and Spidey rightly shoots down the ridiculous notion.
Spider-Man interrupts Rhino’s second attempt to kidnap John Jameson, who really can’t catch a break these days.
Before webbing him up with a new chemical concoction that melts his bulletproof suit.
Then he punches the naked man in the face, and it’s all over.
But that’s not all, folks. We also talked about the introduction of the black costume, starting from Secret Wars #8 (December 1984), written by Jim Shooter and drawn by Michael Zeck.
Spidey’s a little battle-ravaged from the fight this issue, so heads to use some of the alien technology on Battleworld to restore his costume.
He uses what he thinks is the right machine.
And he gets the full (let’s face it: super cool-looking) costume.
Then, in Secret Wars #9, he starts to enjoy the new suit, to the annoyance of the Human Torch.
He discovers it has its own organic webs, and can transform into different clothes at a mere thought.
At the end of the series (Secret Wars #8), Spidey finds out that the machine he used wasn’t intended to repair costumes at all…
But he doesn’t think too hard about it…
Then we first see the new costume in action back on Earth when Spider-Man returns in The Amazing Spider-Man #252 (1984), written by Roger Stern and Tom Defalco, drawn by Ron Frenz. The cover even harkens back to the cover of The Amazing Spider-Man #15.
Spider-Man arrives back on Earth along with Curt Conners (long story), where the world sees his new black costume for the first time.
At first, no one recognises him in the new get-up.
In the week he’s spent off-world, his civilian clothes have disappeared, but luckily his wallet and keys are left behind for him to store in his new costume.
Back at home, he finds he can just alter the appearance of the suit at will.
It’s pretty damn convenient when you think about it.
And it can be summoned to him with a mere thought. The fact that Peter Parker’s life is still in shambles at this point goes to show just how unlucky he is.
It’s a little creepy, but it’ll be a little while before the costume starts to reveal its true self.
Here’s that alternate intro to the series that Henry was referring to, which an animation assistant later added Peter Gunn’s Theme to:
That’s all for this week’s edition of the podcast. If you missed out on it, you can check out our last podcast right here.
That '90s Spider-Man Show 