Welcome to Part 5 of Spidey-Man Vs Gnatman and Rotten!
Hey you know what - I am Bat Crazy
Crazy enough to be staying inside the…
But how crazy is the Bat - sorry Gnat… Let's see…
This is a multi layered reference (my favourite kind, as if you couldn't guess) to :-
A) The infamous "Killroy was here" graffiti (of which "Killroy lives" was a variation)
So yes a piece of graffiti used to comment on a piece of graffiti
B) A reference to Frederick Foswell aka "Big Man"
Who just died in Amazing Spider-Man #52, September 1967
NEXT!
This looks rather like Doc Ock! - remember a few pages back, old JJJ was wearing a night shirt with "bring back Doc Ock" on it?
At the time of publication of this comic, Doc Ock was indeed absent until Amazing Spider-Man #53, October 1967
Well what we have in the Spidey-man strip is a unnamed "mad scientist" who Spidey-man himself says is Aunt May's boyfriend
This is of course a direct reference to rather notorious storyline which started in Amazing Spider-Man #54, November 1967
Where over the course of many issues Aunt May befriends and "falls in love" with Otto Octavius to the extent that they nearly get married (I kid not)
in Amazing Spider-Man #131, April 1974
Again Marie Severin must be physic or she knew about this entire storyline before it ever saw print …!
NEXT!
And yes - here we go "Have a whiff of my famous Gnat Gas!!"
Marie wouldn't mean THESE famous "Gnat" gas(es)…
Of COURSE she does!
This can only be a direct reference to possibly the most insanely surreal sequence in a super hero movie ever!
The Super hero movie in question Being 20th Century Fox's 1966 "Batman"
Which in honesty is a slightly bigger budget extended tv episode! (and all the better for being so)
The insanely surreal sequence in question is of course the part pretty close to the beginning of the movie
Where Batman is in the water on a rope ladder attached to bat-copter which Robin (Burt Ward that is, not me) when a hyper real and obviously very deadly shark jumps out of the water biting Batman on the leg and holds on while Batman is lifted out of the water by Burt ward
Batman tries to punch the shark as if that's going to make any real difference eventually giving up and asking Burt Ward to hand him the shark repellent bat spray
And we cut to a picture (like the one above) where we see that Batman somehow has prepared a entire array of bat sprays for all kinds of ocean going creatures presumably completely by utter coincidence and has also put them inside the bat-copter for easy use (don't ask what would happen if Batman was being attacked by a eagle or some such)
Of course that is not enough as Burt Ward climbs down the rope ladder and hangs upside down to hand batman the shark repellent bat spray all the time while no-one is flying the bat-copter
Having got the shark repellent bat spray it only takes 2 sprays by Batman and the shark lets go, of course there is no blood or apparent injury to Batman, but reality seem to be the least of our concerns as when the shark hits the water, it explodes!
Here it is in full graphic detail, not for the fient of heart
So Batman didn't jump the shark, the shark jumped Batman!
But nothing like that ever happened to Spidey, right?!
Wrong! witness this cover of Super spider Stories 16 by none other than John Romita Sr
But, I hear you say, there was no actual shark story inside!
Well apart from that being a literal shark jump.. there is also this little gem from what is fast becoming my favourite comic of all time
Which appears to combine the stories of a certain former George Lucas property with a movie directed by Steven Spielberg, just look at this page...
And of course there is also the actual George Lucas / Steve Spielberg movie from which the expression "Nuke the fridge"came from, This itself being another variation of "jumping the shark"
But okay let's push the boat out (we are going to need a bigger one…) and say there has never been a shark jumping out of the water and attacking a helicopter in Marvel comics, right…!
WRONG!!
This drawing by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer is straight from Marvel Super Special 6 aka the comic book adaptation of…
But in fairness the above scene did not exactly happen in the actual movie…
Which this time seriously is actually frightening and rather gruesome!
As you can see .. the helicopter was on the water to start off with so there was no actual shark jump
But I think we can safely say that so far a shark has never jumped a helicopter in real life...
Though there was a rather famous hoax!!
NEXT WEEK:- It's POW, ZAP time and we cover a TV show presented by Allen Funt, until then Have a Merry Christmas, Shark Fans!!!
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