This week we’re covering season 4, episode 1 of Spider-Man: The Animated Series – Guilty!
Robbie Robertson, the reigning dad of last season, is drawing a glock again – but this time it’s a lazer gun, and he has no idea how it ended up in his hands. But there’s a man that would risk his neck for his brother man, who won’t cop out when there’s danger all about: Jigsaw Jameson.
JJ dons the original trench coat and fedora, suiting up into his alt costume as the hero this city deserves. After all, this is a town with gaslighting cabbies, the irredeemable Baby Joe’s, and a place where Robbie Robertson of all people is considered a lucky man.
For our comics segment we talk about the Spectacular J. Jonah Jameson noir story from 1983, then jump into Joe “Robbie” Robertson’s origins as a Lee-Romita creation, while Jack figures out just how many times he’s quit the Bugle, been fired from the Bugle, and how many times he’s fired our down-on-his-luck photographer. All of the reasons are insane.
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Further podcast notes
This episode draws from a lot of great Robbie-centric comics, particularly the 1989 Tombstone arc in The Spectacular Spider-Man #150 – 155. We covered that in more detail back in our Tombstone episode last season, which you can find here. TAS’ version of the story takes out the back-breaking and the fact that Robbie actually is guilty of a crime: withholding evidence, though under severe intimidation…
The psychology of Robbie during this time did a lot to cement the character as an all-time great of the supporting cast.
This issue also adapts 1983’s Spectacular Spider-Man #80, written by Bill Mantlo and with art by Ron Frenz. While there’s no Jigsaw Jameson per se, it does feature J Jonah Jameson going on a solo investigation while Spidey helps out from the shadows.
We also discussed Robbie Robertson’s appearances throughout the comics, where he was created by John Romita under the direction of Stan Lee.
Quick digression: Speaking to Pat Jankiewicz in Comics Scene #33, Romita spoke about the process of creating characters on Stan Lee comics – which shows that while Lee’s idiosyncratic writing style has its merits, his “created by” credits can be a little exaggerated at times: “I created the look of the Kingpin. Stan would write the character’s name, and I would find an index card with the word ‘Kingpin’ on it. Next month’s villain will be the Kingpin. It would be up to me, when I did the panel where he first shows up, to come up with an interesting character. It was my idea to make him bald, 400 pounds and dressed like a tycoon. I wanted him to be as unlike a normal thug as possible, so that would be a nice combination when thugs were used against him.” (h/t to CBR for finding the quote)
Robbie was introduced in 1967 due to a push for diversity within the comic by Lee in 1967, for Amazing Spider-Man #51. The first appearance was just a panel, before he got dialogue in the following issue and became more involved in later stories.
“Stan told me he wanted a Black City Editor,” Romita said in the same interview, adding that the character “was contrived, but in a beneficent way”. While Gerry Conway would later introduce Robbie’s origins as a Philadelphia-born reporter going back to the school paper days, he was originally conceived as an ex-fighter. “That’s why I gave him a broken nose,” Romita explained:
“Originally, when I first gave Stan the character sketch, I drew him with a cauliflower ear. Stan told me not to use it because young readers wouldn’t understand that kind of stuff; they would think it’s a badly drawn ear, and they would write in asking, ‘Why doesn’t John Romita know how to draw ears?’ Stan never pursued Robbie’s origin, as a young Black fighting his way out of the ghetto who became a Golden Gloves prizefighter and then a City Editor. Whenever I created a character, I always gave him a background, something to hang it on.“
John Romita, Comics Scene #33 (1981)
One last thing – if you wanted to check out the issues I mentioned about Robbie-related resignations and firings at The Daily Bugle, here ya go – and as is the way with talking into a mic there are some corrections too!
Spectacular Spider-Man #142 (1988)
Robbie offers tries to resign after the revelation he had withheld evidence on Tombstone earlier in his career. Jonah isn’t having it.
Amazing Spider-Man #206 (1980)
One of my favourite out-of-context covers – and also an issue that provides a handy recap of the Jonas-Harrow-driving-JJ-crazy-with-a-ray-gun arc.
Web of Spider-Man #64 (1990)
Peter gets fired by Robbie for being caught on film in his Spider-Man costume – but the reason given is for fabricating for photos, even though it wasn’t intended for print (evil incarnate Nick Katzenberg yucking it up in the corner).
Following the firing, the two of them continue to fall out over it all before eventually Robbie starts to accept his photos again. Prison made him too hard-edged to play nice, for a little while at least.
Amazing Spider-Man #431 (1998)
After Carnage attacks the Bugle, he begins to agree with his wife Martha that maybe this job is just too dangerous to be worth it. I mistakenly said in the podcast that it was when a symbiote-less (desymbioted?) Kasady painted himself red and went on a killing spree, but it was actually when he got the power cosmic from the Silver Surfer… that Carnage Comic Origins episode sure made mincemeat of my brain huh?
Spectacular Spider-Man #254 (1998)
So it turns out I may have imagined that Robbie quit after Chameleon impersonates Jonah and drives the Bugle down a more sensationalist route (If you notice a mistake like that again, a wizard did it), but he does quit Norman Osborn takes over The Bugle in the late 90s. This is actually him following through after JJ convinces him to stay again after the Carnage incident. Eventually, Osborn’s blackmail hold over Jonah runs its course and JJ gets Robbie back on staff.
Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man #21 (2007)
After the Civil War event sees Spidey’s secret identity revealed to the world, this obviously causes quite a stir at his old placec of work. After Robbie argues with JJ over his treatment of Peter – and reveals he had previously figured out the identity himself – Jameson fires him. As usual, they get back together after a stiff drink and some deep talks about why he did it.
Amazing Spider-Man #561 (2008)
During this era of the comics, Dexter Bennett takes over the paper while JJ is out of comission and rebrands it as The DB. After one too many ethical lapses, Robbie jumps ship to move to Frontline with ex-Bugle staffer Ben Urich.
Amazing Spider-Man vol. 5 #1 (2018)
In yet another instance of Peter being fired for ethics in journalism – he loses his new post as science editor of the Bugle for plagiarism.
Which he did technically do. Sort of. It’s (hilariously) complicated and involves a Doc Ock body swap.
Well said, MJ.
Gorms & Dumb Episode Stills!
As per usual, here are some silly screenshots I took from the episode! If you want some less goofy ones, you can check out our Tumblr. And of course, there’s the wonderful/horrifying Baby Joe’s neon sign
That’s all for this week, folks! And of course make sure you check out our Patreon for more bonus episodes!
That '90s Spider-Man Show 