Spider-Man's Tangled Web #20
Behind the Mustache
J. Jonah Jameson has arrived at the Daily Bugle and is unimpressed to learn that it’s bring your child to work day. Navigating his way through the newsroom, Betty Brant tells him that Joe Robertson is having a hard time trying to figure out what to put on the front page of the next edition. Jonah asks what’s wrong to his Spider-Man piece, and Betty explains that Joe thought it was too sensationalist for the front page. The whole time he is ranting and raving, Jonah becomes more and more upset by the children he is seeing in his office. The final straw is when he notices that the daughter of one of his employees is a huge fan of Spider-Man and wears clothing that either features or are patterned after the wall-crawler’s costume. His anger goes through the roof when suddenly, Jonah suffers a heart attack and collapses on the floor. In the hospital, Jonah’s doctor insists that he seek professional help to get over his hatred of Spider-Man. Jonah balks at this, but Joe reminds Jonah that this is his second heart attack and that the Bugle’s insurance refuses to cover his hospital expenses until he sees a psychologist.[1]
Two weeks later, J. Jonah Jameson grudgingly goes to see a psychologist but doesn’t take it very seriously, asking the psychologist to just tell him he’s sexually repressed so he can get out of there. However, the psychologist want to get down to what he classifies as borderline psychotic hatred of Spider-Man. Hearing his editorials about Spider-Man getting criticized in such a fashion sets of Jameson who goes on a tirade about why he thinks Spider-Man is a menace. The psychologist picks up that Jameson dislikes Spider-Man because of his chosen profession. When he refers to Spider-Man as a hero, Jonah scoffs at this, saying his father — a soldier in the United States Army — was a real hero.[2] When Jonah then turns things around to try and antagonize the psychologist instead of talking about his own problems, he decides to use hypnotherapy to get to the roof of Jonah’s hatred of Spider-Man.
In a hypnotic state, Jonah is aked to talk about his father and he thinks back to his childhood. He recalls a time when he was a boy and he had a loose tooth. His father, a former soldier and an abusive drunk, wanted Jonah to yank it out by tying it to a doorknob by string and slamming the door closed. His mother (Betty) tried to convince his father (David) to not do this as their son is scared. Seeing his mother getting berated angers Jonah who decided who then channeled his anger to kick the door closed, yanking the tooth out. Seeing his son doing this, David Jameson is proud of his boy and suggests he smoke a cigar until his wife protested against it. When their arguing caused Jonah to stop crying, Jonah was beaten until he stopped. In relating this story, Jonah figures that this is normal behavior and why he belives that grown-ups don’t cry. From there, Jonah would react in an aggressive manner whenever someone tried to ask him what his father would think of him. When a Scout leader criticized Jonah’s campfire, he used gasoline and the leader’s backpack to make a larger fire. As a teenager, Jonah got into boxing and when the gym teacher couldn’t believe that he was David Jameson’s son, Jonah knocked him out with a single punch.
The psychologist asks if this behavior created an impossible standard to live up to and if that disconnected from his peers, Jonah dismisses this. He talks about his time in high school. He recounts how he was forced to join the photography club after ripping a teacher’s pencil sharpener off the wall. When a trio of the school jocks tried to pick a fight with him. Thrown into another one of his rages, Jonah lashed out knocking out all three. This was all witnessed by his future wife, Joan, who was instantly smitten by Jonah’s show of strength. When the psychologist tries to change the subject and asks how Jonah’s relationship with his son, Jonah mentions how his son John is currently recovering from lycanthropy.[3] This revelation is so shocking to the shrink that he decides to change the subject, as he is unqualified to deal with the issue.
Jonah continues talking about Joan, and remembers one night when the pair went out to the school dance. Jonah wasn’t having fun until Joan manages to convince him to dance. Returning home, Jonah and Joan are interrupted by David who returns home drunk and begins mocking his son. Jonah, getting fed up his father’s abuse decides to prove how much of a man he is by smoking an entire cigar in front of him. Impressed, David decides to leave the couple alone and goes to bed. Soon after, Jonah was out in the back yard throwing up because the cigar was so disgusting. When Joan calls his father an asshole, Jonah found it the most romantic thing he ever heard. The couple eventually got married once Jonah was out of high school.
Hearing all of this, the psychologist theorizes that Jonah’s hatred of Spider-Man has become the embodiment of his father. In that, since he saw his father as a hero, he has imposed his subconscious anger and hatred for his father on Spider-Man and that he stopped believing in heroes because of this. When he tries to point out his wife Joan saw him as a hero, Jonah points out that Joan is dead and he has since remarried.[4] The psychologist apologizes and asks how his first wife had died. Jonah says Joan died alone because he was overseas covering a war for the Daily Bugle.[5] He talks about how one night Joan was out and she was murdered by a mugger. He then says when he heard about his wife’s murder all he could do was buy a cigar like his father and smoke it. He took up the habit thereafter. The death of his wife convinced Jonah that there was no such thing as heroes and refuses to accept the idea that he could be one himself. He decides that he doesn’t want to be hypnotized anymore, but that’s when the psychologist tells Jonah that he failed to put Jonah into a hypnotic trance and that he divulged all this personal tragedy willingly. Shocked by this, Jonah dismisses everything and tells the psychologist that he is a quack.
When Jonah eventually returns to the Daily Bugle he is about to lose his temper when he notices that everyone is wearing Hawaiian shirts. He is told that it is casual Friday and instead of losing his temper as usual, Jonah loosens his tie with a smile and goes ff to work without another word, much to the shock of his employees.
Recurring Characters
J. Jonah Jameson, Joe Robertson, Betty Brant, (in flashback) Joan Jameson
Continuity Notes
Joe Robertson reminds Jonah that this is his second heart attack. Jonah suffered his first one in Amazing Spider-Man #70. This won’t be Jonah’s last heart attack either, he’ll suffer another more serious one in Amazing Spider-Man #546 and a fourth in issue #554.
The man who Jonah refers to his father in this story is actually his uncle David Jameson. As revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #578-579, his biological father was J. Jonah Jameson, Sr. (or Jay Jameson for short) As explained in that story, Jay Jameson left his family when Jonah was still young leaving him to be raised by Jay’s brother instead. Jonah went on to think of David as his father. Jonah doesn’t mention his actual father here out of shame because his father — who also served in the military — went AWOL as explained in Amazing Spider-Man #596.
This is reference to the fact that John Jameson has on occasion turned into the Man-Wolf. The first time this happened was in Amazing Spider-Man #124.
Mention of Joan’s death was first mentioned in Amazing Spider-Man #189. He has since married Marla Madison in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #18.
Jonah specifically states that he was sent to cover the Korean War. This should be considered a topical reference. Per History of the Marvel Universe #1, one could assume that Jonah was sent to cover the Sin-Cong Conflict, the fictional war that Marvel created in order to explain the wartime activities of characters who exist in the modern age that are affected by the Sliding Timescale.
Topical References
The Daily Bugle is depicted using old computers with CTR monitors. This should be considered topical because such technology is obsolete.
J. Jonah Jameson is depicted as smoking cigars in the Daily Bugle as well as the office of his psychologist. This should also be considered topical as indoor smoking was banned in the city of New York in 2002.
