The Tablet Saga in Amazing Spider-Man ran much longer than I expected. Otherwise there’d be no point in calling it a saga — though to the best of my knowledge, nobody else ever has. Which is fair enough: despite running eight issues (by Stan Lee, John Romita and Jim Mooney), it’s an energetic but underwhelming tale. Partly, I think, because it’s episodic. Rather than a single arc it’s multiple separate stories loosely linked by the mysterious stone tablet “older than the priceless Dead Sea scrolls,”
We first encountered the tablet in #68. While Empire State University deals with black protests on campus, the Kingpin schemes to steal the tablet and the supposed ancient secret it contains. Fisk winds up in jail, Spidey gets the tablet, but oh, where can he put it that it’s safe? Especially given the cops think he was in cahoots with the Kingpin — if he tries handing it off to the law, he’s going to be ducking bullets and “you have the right to remain silent.”
Before he figures it out, Quicksilver decides this book’s been too long without a hero vs. hero.
Pietro figures busting the notorious criminal Spider-Man will make up for him having thrown in with Magneto in Avengers recently. Of course it doesn’t work out that way. Quicksilver gets no solution for his problems but Spider-Man does, turning the tablet over to Gwen’s father Captain Stacey.
Stacey isn’t prepared for the Shocker to come looking for it.
The Shocker has no idea what the tablet’s secret is but hey, if everyone’s so crazy about it, it’s got to be worth big bucks, right? While Spider-Man eventually takes the Shocker down, he doesn’t know where his foe has hidden the tablet. By the time he figures out the Shocker’s girlfriend has it, someone else has reached the same conclusion — Man-Mountain Marko.
A Maggia thug, Marko seems to be evidence for my speculation “normal” people in the MCU are superhuman by our standards. Sure, he’s big and he’s strong, but against Spider-Man, who has ten times peak human strength and speed, it shouldn’t even be a contest. Later he’d be retconned as genetically enhanced but Stan clearly wrote him as “just” a muscleman.
Marko has floated around the Marvel Universe as hired muscle ever since. His boss, the Maggia leader Silvermane, has stuck around too, though with a more varied resume (Hydra leader, Maggia leader, cyborg …). While the tablet’s secrets baffle everyone else, Silvermane remembers legends of the tablet in the “old country” (I presume not specifying Italy was to avoid the Italian American complaints about linking them to organized crime). If the legends are true, the aging crimelord believes he’ll be able to maintain control of his crime family despite the efforts of conniving mouthpiece Caesar Cicero to take over (another C-lister with a long later career). And who can better figure out the secrets of an archeological relic than biochemist Curt Connors?
Silvermane has no idea how risky this is. The more he stresses Connors with threats, the greater the chance Curt loses control and becomes the Lizard again. That’s not how it worked the last couple of times — Connors needed exposure to specific chemicals to transform — but making it a Hulk-like emotional thing made it easier to revive the Lizard any time, anywhere.
It feels like the Maggia’s changed a little here. Up until now, the Maggia’s been presented as an international criminal cartel, though with branches in America. Silvermane’s operation feels much more like a conventional crime family consumed by internal power struggles (though I’m not reviewing all the Maggia’s previous appearances to confirm if I’m right).
In any case, it turns out Connors was the perfect person for this gig. The reason nobody’s been able to decipher the tablet is that the symbols aren’t from any language — they’re scientific biochemical symbols! Which makes no sense whatsoever. I’m guessing Stan was thinking of math being a universal language but that doesn’t work with chemistry (and even in math, not every written symbol used today would be universal). Despite my pettifogging objections Connors is able to create the ancient formula for Silvermane to quaff.
And then we see why that old fart wanted it — it’s the fountain of youth! Marko is understandably skeptical—
—but Silvermane makes him see reason (and in the process, slaps around someone who can go toe to toe with Spider-Man. Another point in favor of my argument above).
Is it just me or does Silvermane look a lot like Peter in the fourth panel?
As you may be able to guess from Marko’s talk about the clock moving backwards, the formula has the classic weakness of youth potions: it doesn’t stop. Silvermane goes back to a punk kid, then a kid, then a toddler …
…and finally he’s just a gleam in his dead mother’s eye, RIP (yes, he got better later). It’s all over except by this point Connors has given in to his lizard brain and will keep Spidey busy for the following couple of issues.
Meanwhile things keep bumping in Peter’s private life, as they always do. Harry’s started looking hippy and gets irked Peter barely notices. Gwen wonders why her man’s never around. With Jonah in hospital, Robbie Robertson cuts Peter a check for what his photos are worth and it’s enough to send Aunt May on vacation. Overall it’s not a bad arc but it ain’t peak Spider-Man either.
Covers by Romita, interior art by Romita and Mooney.
A run I’ve actually read! And remember!
I think you’re right about ordinary people in the Marvel Universe being superhuman.
It applied to superheroes, too (No duh), as evidenced by the Captain America cover (#350, recently homaged as a poster for Captain America: Brave New World) showing the Hulk punching Cap’s shield while Cap is holding it.
By all rights, Cap should be squashed like a bug in that situation. His shield would do nothing to prevent that.
“even in math, not every written symbol used today would be universal”
Wait… are you trying to imply ‘IV’ and ‘4’ do not look exactly the same? How dare you!
IIRC I read it in reprint in the 1970s.
No, I’m afraid IV and 4 do not look alike even if you squint.