The Man Who Could Not Die!

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THE SPIDER-WOMAN — Issue no. 8, August 1978

Book: The Spider-Woman

Issue No.: 8

Published: August 1, 1978

Titles: “The Man Who Could Not Die!” and “The Suit!”

Cover Price: 35¢

Format: Original paper copy

This book continues to perplex me, y’all.

Issue no. 8 opens in media res, with Spider-Woman being held at gunpoint in a cabin in Oregon. I had to check the previous issue to make sure I didn’t forget some cliffhanger.

This story eventually gets around to explaining the situation. Spider-Woman had rescued a guy who was trying to kill himself, only for him to tie her up and drag her to Oregon (I am assuming the suicide attempt happened in Los Angeles). He finally explains to Spider-Woman (and to us) that he was cursed for cowardliness during the American Revolutionary War and is now doomed to walk the earth forever unless he can find someone who truly cares for him.

Basically, he needs to be loved to die. It’s macabre and a bit Twilight Zone-ish, which is fine. And then the story wraps after nine pages, and another story starts. Which is super weird! Marvel comic books during the late-1970s were generally seventeen pages long (plus ads, etc.). It was very rare for a standard Marvel book to feature two separate stories.

A panel from this issue that shows Spider-Woman gliding in and grabbing a man from a motorcycle that is about to crash. Narration reads “‘But, as all I can do is glide, I fell behind... until —’” The man Spider-Woman is grabbing says, “Damn it! Let me go! Why are you interfering with me? I have to die! Let me die!”

The second story is also a bit macabre and Twilight Zone-ish. It’s about a guy who has weird things happen to him when he borrows a murdered man’s suit. He gets this suit from a cop, who is like, “just cover up those bullet holes and it should be fine.” Uh. OK, man. And it is a short-term loan, because the suit probably has to go back to the evidence locker at some point.

Spider-Woman is barely in the second story. She just kind of shows up at the end because she was investigating the goons who killed the suit’s original owner. I think.

After I read the two stories, I flipped back to the fan-mail page. That page closes with a note that writer Marv Wolfman (an iconic writer who has worked on some great comics and who has been inconsistent at best on Spider-Woman) is leaving the book, and the next issue will have a new writer but the same artist (the great Carmine Infantino).

The previous issue closed out with the promise of a bold new direction for Spider-Woman, and I guess the writer doing two short stories and then saying “so long!” is, if not bold, at least unexpected.

(And perplexing. Because, like I said, I am perplexed.)

Next time — Tarzan! (Or maybe Conan!)

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