The Comicon Advent Calendar 2022: Day 17 – A Perfect Spidey For The Holidays

Back to the Comicon Advent Calendar and for today’s festive treat we have Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone’s ‘Twas the Fight Before Christmas from Spider-Man’s Tangled Web #21 (2002).

Tangled Web was a modern updating of the Marvel Team-Up idea, without always needing the whole team-up thing. Mainly it was there for some ace and unusual comic stories about Spidey. Some great, some weird, some bad. Some bits of all three.

But this was the best. (Well, there was also the Darwyn Cooke Valentine issue, but we’ll save that for another day shall we?) Cooke and J. Bone – two amazingly talented artists and such an incredible team on whatever they did together. And still such a tragedy we lost Cooke so young.

From what I can gather, despite the joint billing on the splash page, this was co-plotted by the pair, but this time it was Cooke inking over Bone’s art, rather than the normal team-up of Bone inking Cooke. Of course, either way it just looks sumptuous.

It’s just such a fun tale, including the Fantastic Four looking for a missing Medusa, a group of lost kiddies turn up at the Daily Bugle offices with NY in a snowstorm, Crystal, Sue Richards and The Wasp all out doing some holiday shopping, and Flash Thompson dressed up as Spidey for a Christmas thing… not to mention a mystery figure in the background who has a hatred of all things festive…

Our mystery villain ends up with Flash in his power… and he’s not the only one, as Medusa appears and sets about a rampage through the shopping mall…

Of course, it’s Christmas and it all gets sorted out, Spidey (the real one) wanders in and saves the day and everything is perfect again…

But the star of this one is definitely J. Jonah Jameson. Whether it’s his Scrooge-like grouchiness or his canny plan to get the kids to hate Spidey whatever way he can, he’s just damn brilliant all the way through…