I'm doing something a bit different with today's post, because I feel it merits it. Namely, addressing the lack of chronological continuity.
First off, here's the strip for Friday the 9th:
I'm glad to see that, even within the comic, people realize that the Persuader's tactics are less persuading and more common thuggery. I also like Robbie's labeling of the Persuader as "hoodlum." Remember that, at this point, the Persuader is entering the Daily Bugle building. In any case, onto the strip for Saturday the 10th:
It looks like we'll never know why Spider-Man decided to go to the Daily Bugle building, but there he is. Supposedly, the Persuader is just now entering the elevator to get to Jameson's office. For some reason, the Daily Bugle has really shoddy security despite the fact that weirdos in masks with super-powers are constantly barging in demanding things of Jameson, not to mention Jameson's hatred of Spider-Man.
All right, we've established that the Persuader is in the Daily Bugle building and Spider-Man is sort of hanging around and waiting for some reason, on the Daily Bugle building.
I'll ignore the fact that the Persuader thinks he could do anything to Spider-Man. Then again, Spider-Man does have some
odd weakness against large men in suits. I'll also allow for Spider-Man visiting our friend, King of the Newspaper Jockeys. He's a super-hero, and he was no doubt investigating things on behalf of his employer. Instead, I'll focus on the final panel. That's the one with the Persuader in it.
The Persuader, who was just entering the Daily Bugle building mere moments ago (comic time). There's no logical reason to why he's there, other than to think threats at Spider-Man. In a physical sense, the Persuader can't be there because web-slinging is faster than walking, and even if the King of the Newspaper Jockeys was only a block or two away, the Persuader would still had to have run pretty fast (super-humanly fast, in fact) to see even part of Spider-Man's spiel. In a narrative sense, the Persuader would have been in the Bugle's elevator by the time Spider-Man even left. The Persuader wouldn't even know Spider-Man had left. What the heck?
So, what we have here is either sloppy storytelling or subtle hints that the Persuader is more than a man. Perhaps he wields some sort of precognition akin to Spider-Man's spider-sense (which, come to think of it, would be giving off minor twinges right now) that allowed him to know that Spider-Man was leaving the Daily Bugle building. If so, then we'll have to assume that the Persuader either has Olympic-level sprinting abilities (maybe he's some sort of Captain America-esque super-soldier?) or has some sort of travel-based super-power like teleportation, flight, or super-speed. If we allow for that, than the Persuader's threat against Spider-Man is perhaps a little more serious than previously thought.
Then again, maybe the Persuader has a Venom-type symbiote which would cover pretty much everything at this point.
Well, I hope you all enjoyed the Blog stylings of our friend, Land Captain. As you may know, he has his own blog that you can take a look at if you want to. Today, I'd just like to say that there is no possible way Peter is going to get to the State Prison and back before Mary Jane's opening. Even if the whole trip goes off without a hitch, something will happen and his sense of responsibility will kick in forcing him to help out. We'll see how often I update over the next few days, considering how I'll no doubt be getting a bunch of new DVDs, books, and video games tomorrow. Last year, it didn't go too well, but who knows about this year? Certainly not me.
