Adventures in Reading Starring the Amazing Spider-Man #1

[vanhornluke]

Adventures in Reading Starring the Amazing Spider-Man #1 (1990)
By Louise Simonson

APPEARANCES:
Dwane, Mike, Cara, Spider-Man, the Troglodyte, tyrannosaurus rex, pterodactyls, Professor Summerlee, Challenger, Challenger’s men, Shefferton townspeople, Martians, Baloo, Shere Khan, the Lame Tiger, Akela, the Lone Wolf, Free People (wolves), Mowgli, Bagheera, the Black Panther, Curtis, Mark, Bryon, Angela, onlookers, horses, Sir Brian de Bois-Gilbert, knights, Rebecca, King John, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, onlookers, Professor Eaden, cops

SYNOPSIS:
The Troglodyte steals Professor Eaden’s transporter device and Spider-Man attempts to stop him and return the transporter. Hit by the ray emitted by the device, Spidey finds himself and the Troglodyte in another city and tries to protect three friends, Dwane, Mike, and Cara, from also being hit by the ray by rushing them into a public library. As a shelf tips over and the books fall on the four, the ray hits them all and they find themselves with the books in a place filled with dinosaurs and Professor Challenger. They decide to pick up the books and carry them with them, since if they’re stranded in the past at least they’ll have something to read. When the ray hits them again, they find themselves in Shefferton as Martians attack. They quickly realize that they are being transported into the books they have with them, and as the ray repeatedly hits them, they move to The Jungle Book, That was Then, This is Now, and Ivanhoe. They finally wrest the transporter from the Troglodyte and shoot Dwane’s library card to take them back home. The Troglodyte is arrested and admits that he stole the device because he’s illiterate and so can only experience the adventures in books by transporting himself into them. Dwane, Mike, and Cara want to know how the stories they experienced end, so they check out the books from the library, and Spidey wonders how he’s going to get back to New York.

NOTE:
The device is a transporter, so it seems very unlikely that it is creating simulacra of fictional characters. Instead, it appears that it is literal teleportation that is taking place. I would propose that what’s actually happening is that Spidey and the others are actually being sent to alternate realities in which the stories in the books really happened. The fact that Ivanhoe takes place in 616 is no problem, since Spidey and the others alter the events of the book due to their interference, so I would think that they were in an alternate universe where Ivanhoe played out slightly differently than it did in 616. I wonder if it would make sense to say that the world they visited where the events of The War of the Worlds occurred was Killraven’s world?

I’m not familiar enough with the various Spidey stories published in 1990, so I’m not sure where to place this story in his chronology. Hopefully someone else more familiar can suggest a placement.


Chronologies:

CARA
ARSASM 1

DWANE
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EADEN, PROFESSOR
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MIKE
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SPIDER-MAN/PETER BENJAMIN PARKER
See note above

TROGLODYTE
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On Unnumbered Alternate Universes Page:

IVANHOE-VERSE:

DE BOIS-GUILBERT, SIR BRIAN
ARSASM 1

KING JOHN/JOHN LACKLAND
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REBECCA
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WILFRED OF IVANHOE
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THE JUNGLE BOOK-VERSE

AKELA, THE LONE WOLF
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BAGHEERA, THE BLACK PANTHER
ARSASM 1

BALOO
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MOWGLI
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SHERE KHAN, THE LAME TIGER
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THE LOST WORLD-VERSE

CHALLENGER, PROFESSOR GEORGE EDWARD
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SUMMERLEE, PROFESSOR
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THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW-VERSE

CURTIS
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DOUGLAS, BRYON
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JENNINGS, MARK
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PONYBOY CURTIS
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SHEPARD, ANGELA
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[ShadZ]

The covers of this comic can be seen here: https://www.comics.org/issue/113851/cover/4/