I gotta be honest. There is definitely an appeal to having an indefinite canonical origin for The Joker. It's just better if he comes out of nowhere, really. Now, Venom is from an era when villain origins could be built to last, and his had a lot of build-up. It's sorta cool that in 1984 you have the first half before you even know you'll have a second half: I'm talking, of course, about Spider-Man's black costume, and the symbiote from space it was revealed to be. In our discussion, aside from a distaste for the inconsistent depictions in Todd McFarlane's earliest issues, my partner Anji was more perturbed at how the alien costume only had a 'heel turn,' because Marvel intended to dispose of the design. Before it was really in any stories, the new black design had evoked a vocal backlash. A few months in, and seeing Spider-Man in action in the new costume was grabbing new fans. Her point though: In Web of Spider-Man #1, the costume/ symbiote h...

It's not where I first noticed it, but going back across Stern's run, this is the first place you see it, when the Black Cat targets purveyors of black market high art. ASM # 232 Mister Hyde stalks the Cobra Then you have Tarantula picking up where Cobra left off. Cobra chasing down Nose Norton was yet another instance: ASM #231. Ned Leeds and Marla Madison are caught in the middle of this one! Then, Ben Urich's caught up when Tarantula picks up the trail. So Norton is sort of the second hunted villain in a story line, in that someone besides the cops or Spidey is tracking a character who we'd agree is not deliberately on the side of angels. But the next storyline has even more villains chasing each other. Will O' the Wisp returns for revenge against Brand and ends up fighting their latest, fatal experiment. Tarantula's transformation scared the heck out of me! I just got to peep a few pages while I waited on Mom at the grocery store. I didn...