Amazing Spider-Man vs. the Prodigy #1

You know when comic books make good public service announcements?  Never.  Or at least, this comic isn’t an example of one.  It was published in 1976 and is now in the public domain, presumably because Marvel wants nothing more to do with the thing.

It’s not at all obvious from the title or the cover, but this comic was a joint effort between Marvel and Planned Parenthood.  Or, if the first page is to be believed, “Planet” Parenthood.

 

I was gonna make a joke about the typo, but given the plot, I’m not so sure this was a mistake. 

Our tale starts—where else?—in New York City.

 

Hee.  Pan Am Building.  Maybe later he’ll go shopping at Woolworth’s or take in a show at the Hippodrome.

As per usual, the peace doesn’t last very long before trouble rears its ugly head.  A helicopter stops nearby to pick up a group of teenagers.  Spider-Man responds with pop culture references that no one understood about six months after publication.

 

 

Meanwhile, we skip ahead to the helicopter’s destination: a secluded mansion.  The mansion guards exposit about how their super-special boss-man has already managed to brainwash thousands of teenagers, none of whom have been reported missing apparently, by using only his voice.  Oh my Rao IT’S THE MUSIC MEISTER!  QUICK, GRAB THE BAT-EARPLUGS!

In the mansion itself, we finally meet our villain, the Prodigy.  I am going to post the entire page panel by panel because it is solid 14-karat gold.

 

Intellectia: the poor man’s Vulcan.

 

 

That sticker on his mirror doesn’t make any sense, since Prodigy only cares about his own planet and not the galaxy or the glory-gaining thereof.  Maybe it’s the name of his favorite rock band.

 

I love this.  Not only is this entire page nothing but exposition, but they actually gave Prodigy a long and complicated backstory for no reason and then shoved it into a footnote.  For a comic that’s trying to teach teenagers about family planning, this comic sure doesn’t look like it was planned.

 
The shoes, you guys.  THE SHOES.  They’re so ugly even Lady Gaga wouldn’t wear them.  There’s gotta be a better way of making yourself taller, guy.  Maybe talk to Kim Jong Il about this.

The next page is even more exposition, revealing that the Prodigy’s plan is to give teenagers the wrong information on birth control so that they’ll have lots of kids that will then be exported to Intellectia as child labor.

…

One: Given this guy’s modus operandi, I keep wanted to type Progeny instead of Prodigy.

Two: Um, far be it from me to question the great Prodigy, but if you need child labor that bad, why not, oh I don’t know, KIDNAP CHILDREN?  What’s with the convoluted brainwash-stupid-teens-into-becoming-baby-machines plot?  Kidnapping ready-made kids seems much more economical…

Three: I’m still not sure what the plan is.  I know Prodigy has mind control, but just convincing teenagers into thinking unprotected sex has no negative consequences isn’t going to guarantee that they’ll actually go out and have unprotected sex.  What if they just are not ready for sex, or are not heterosexual?  All the bad sex ed in the world won’t convince them to go make babies.  Or does this plan involve making every American teenager an insatiably horny heterosexual?  Because that’s a whole other level of ick that I don’t want to get into here.

Back at the helicopter, Spidey decides to hitch a ride, and he arrives at the mansion in time to eavesdrop on the Prodigy’s rather dubious sex ed class.

 

Spider-Man’s Twinkie expenditures have skyrocketed since he began using them to distract his enemies.

Some of the kids seem skeptical and ask silly questions about STDs and birth control (nice hypnosis there, smartie), but the Prodigy blows them off by insisting pregnancy is great for your health.  Yeah, tell that to the guys from Alien. (Hey, if they want outdated pop culture references, I’ll give ‘em outdated pop culture references.)  Still, you gotta love Spidey’s rant of righteous fury when he finds out about the Prodigy’s plans.

 
And no, I have no idea what’s going on with his right arm there. 

Apparently, Spidey was fuming a little too loudly, because he attracts the attention of the guards.  He spends a few pages running and fighting—pretty typical action scene, really.  The guards end up tied in webbing, and Spidey quickly leaves to crash the Prodigy’s private TV studio.

 

…One of what?  A human?  Yeah, you’re on Earth right now, buddy.  You might wanna get used to us because short of an extinction event, we ain’t goin’ no place.

So, question.  How did Spider-Man know this guy has a hypnotic voice?  And if his vocal chords really are made of bad science, then why does Spider-Man appear to be immune to it?  He listened to Prodigy’s entire speech from outside the window!  More importantly, why does Prodigy appear to just give up after Spider-Man tells him his mind control trick won’t work?  Spidey hasn’t actually done anything yet, so he could easily open his mouth and make with the mind control, but nope!

 

Um.  Wow.  Um.  I thought you were going to gag him over the mouth, not down his throat so it suffocates him on television.  I know the dude is evil, but aren’t you usually against killing?  Are we sure that isn’t Doc Ock in Peter’s body?  *This has been your predictable joke of the week.*

And so ends (with perhaps more finality than was technically necessary) the inauspicious career of the Prodigy. 

 

This comic is… screw it, I don’t even know what this is.  From a purely narrative standpoint, yeah, this is pretty effing bad.  Prodigy’s plan has so many holes even Spider-Man’s webbing can’t hold it together, the dialogue is stilted and contrived, and the art, while certainly not the worst I’ve ever seen, is incredibly awkward in spots.  The only thing it does decently is provide information about pregnancy and birth control, which means that the writer technically did her job, but I just don’t get the point of all this.  If you’re going to do a PSA about, say, anything, let’s keep the story simple and plausible, yeah?  How hard would it be to have had one of Peter Parker’s high school friends thinking about dropping out of school to have kids, Peter overhears her plans, and decides to talk to her about it as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?  No platform-shoed aliens required!

Next Time: New drinking game—any time the new Batwoman would have punched the old one and/or anyone around her, take a shot.  Better make them really tiny shots.

Images from The Amazing Spider-Man vs. the Prodigy #1 (via scans_daily)