Fourth and Eternity: Web of Spider-Man #34

Web of Spider-Man #34
“Fourth and Eternity”
Writer: Jim Shooter
Pencils: Sal Buscema
Inks: Vince Colletta
Letters: Rick Parker
Color: Janet Jackson
Cover: Steve Geiger and Keith Williams
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco
Released: Sept. 1, 1987

I have marked the start of the NFL season in this space before with a look at comics featuring football-players-turned-superheroes. While I could have continued that tradition with an issue of Booster Gold, I only thought of that as I was typing this sentence, so we're going to go with my original plan and check out a superhero-turned-football-player.

I snagged this issue from the same vendor mall where I got my hands on Web of Spider-Man #44, filling in a gap in my sporadic Peter David Hulk collection. It was on my list of issues to track down, although I don't remember where I first learned about it. One look at the cover and it would have been an easy choice to buy.

The intersection of comics and superheroes would have been enough, but throw in the Watcher – in peril over the outcome of a football game between an apparently injured Spider-Man and a group of kids – and I'm hooked! The Watcher, Uatu to his friends, has been a favorite of mine since the unlikely appearance of What If issues at my local Kroger provided an often-depressing crash course in Marvel history.

Turns out Spidey's not injured, but he is certainly grumpy as he watches kids tossing the old pigskin. Marveling at them playing a game instead of causing mischief, he acknowledges he's cranky before huffing, “Ball's probably full of crack.” Now, I've certainly had moments where I wish those darn kids would stop playing their rap music on my lawn, but that's another level of cantankerous.

A boy named Gerbil is injured trying to tackle a bigger, older kid named Truck. When the more physically imposing team, already winning 42-0, refuses to sit a player to make the teams even, Spidey volunteers his services to even the odds.

That could be an entertaining story even without cosmic stakes, but at that very moment on the Moon, a not-too-friendly wager is taking place. Alien Grunz has bet A'sai a considerable amount that he can't sneak up on an all-seeing Watcher. I'd say the odds were in Grunz's favor, but A'sai succeeds not only in infiltrating Uatu's compound in the Blue Area of the Moon, but also capturing the big bald observer.

Back on Earth, the big bully team agrees to let Spidey sub in for Gerbil if he doesn't use his webs or super-strength. Plus, they can tag instead of tackling him and he's got to play with one arm tied behind his back – not in a sling like on the cover. They forgot one of his other powers though, as his adhesive fingertips make catching the ball a breeze. But a fumble by one of the kids puts Truck's team up 49-0.

Instead of a commercial break, we get exposition, A'sai takes Grunz's entitre net worth by winning the bet and explains that the stubby gauntlet he's wearing was salvaged from the wreckage of Galactus' Worldhome.* A'sai decides he'd like some more cosmic firepower, namely the Watcher's. So Uatu agrees to a wager in order to deprive A'sai of the stolen Galactus tech. Winner gets the loser's gizmos, but A'sai chooses the bet.

Given the Watcher's affinity for Earth's heroes, one of his monitors is tuned to Spidey's gridiron face-off,** and he picks Truck's squad, now leading Spidey's not-so-amazing friends 56-0 going into the fourth quarter. Spidey scores and convinces his squad they can make a miraculous comeback if they can win the real battle inside.

The momentum swings and, somehow, Team Spidey closes the gap to 56-45 with a minute left despite A'sai saying they scored a safety and there being no visible clock. The drama is overpowering the math and logic, though. A'sai makes use of his cloaking tech to transmit “power in usable metabolic form” to Truck, who tackles one of the smaller kids and injures his leg, to the point the little guy can't move it.

Truck demands Spider-Man's team forfeit, but Gerbil forgets which sport he's playing and pulls a Willis Reid, limping back onto the field. Spider-Man thinks it's is a bad idea, but he can't shake the feeling this game is important.

Spidey kicks off but is unable to tackle the powered-up Truck. Instead, he pokes the ball loose and his teammates recover it. Like Texas State's Featherstone himself,*** Gerbil decides he's the best option to catch a Hail Mary since no one expects him to get the ball. Spider-Man seems to spoil the element of surprise by yelling, “Go, Gerb, go!” but nevertheless completes a long bomb to the kid.

Unfortunately, Gerb makes the catch five yards shy of the end zone, and on the wrong side of Truck. But then...

Is it a triumph of the human spirit? Is Gerbil a mutant? Did he eat spinach between plays? Did the Watcher break his sacred vow of non-interference for only, like, the 34^th time?

We don't know. But before A'sai can carry out his inner monologue's decision to kill the Watcher, Uatu teleports his weapon away and informs him he'll be punished for trying to renege on the bet. Then we get a page-plus epilogue that finally reveals A'sai has been transformed into a joker on a deck of cards at a Las Vegas casino.

This was a weird issue, but in almost all the right ways. The only thing keeping it from being a timeless Spider-Man story is the presence of the black costume, though he had separated himself from the alien symbiote version of it sometime earlier. Peter Parker's empathy for the underdog is on full display, as is his sense of fair play. The idea of an alien betting on an informal Earth game as a way of usurping massive power is a terrific, only-in-comics twist, and Uatu's confidence in Spider-Man to win the day seems very on-brand.

Really my main confusion, even moreso than how they were keeping time for the game, is how Gerbil made his game-winning play. I can accept a man with the proportionate strength and speed of a spider, as well as reflexes so quick they border on precognition and an ability to stick to walls, not to mention an omniscient dude in robes who follows more superhero stories than I do. But we just saw Truck was so strong even Spider-Man couldn't tackle him, so how does Gerbil steamroll him? Shooter gets a little wordy in this one, so it seems like he could have dropped a hint, maybe even in place of some of the Vegas material at the end.

Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed it. But I need a little more internal logic.

Otherwise, this issue was just as much offbeat fun as I expected when I first learned of its existence. I mean, $1.99 is about twice what I'm looking to pay for an average back issue, but this one was worth it.

* - Which a handy asterisk informs us was destroyed in the original “Secret Wars” series.

** - No doubt subject to a broadcast blackout in the New York metropolitan area.

*** - See the 1991 classic “Necessary Roughness.”