Spider-Man's Tangled Web #5
Rhinoplasty
A gang of mobsters has kidnapped Stella Pavlov, the daughter of a rival gang boss. That’s when the Rhino comes crashing in to save her. After making sure he’s got the right girl, the dimwitted Rhino tells her who she is as he charges out of the warehouse, shield her from the bullets. As he races out of the building, the Rhino notices that the girl is smiling but realizes that she is not smiling at him when he sees Spider-Man who starts giving him chase. Taking a corner, Spider-Man hands-off Stella to her boyfriend Romeo, who is waiting in a limo. After seeing Stella off, the Rhino doubles back to prevent Spider-Man from interfering. Having become smitten by Stella, the Rhino keeps the image of her smile in his mind and decides that he will not allow Spider-Man to defeat him this time. Unfortunately, all the confidence in the world won’t save Rhino from a humiliating defeat as Spider-Man tricks the Rhino into running into a wall covered with webbing making him stuck. Romeo and Stella watch this defeat on the limo television as the battle was being covered live on the news. However, Stella is more interested in knowing if it’s true that her father is really a mobster.
The Rhino soon finds himself shackled in a massive chair at Ryker’s Island. He tries to keep a brave face in this emasculating position, but the laughter from the guards cause him to cry.[1] This sadness turns into pure rage when one of the officers tosses a newspaper in his face. Seeing that the front page features a story about his defeat at the hands of Spider-Man fills him with so much anger that he is able to break free from his restraints. Having grown tired of being the Rhino, the villain decides that he wants to be free from the nearly indestructible hide that he has been trapped in since first becoming the Rhino. However, before he leaves, he gets revenge on the officer who mocked him by goring him on his Rhino’s horn.
The Rhino later sees a criminal scientist who first developed the Rhino’s invulnerable skin. After seeing a demonstration of the scientist’s experiments to enhance the intelligence of apes, he tells the scientist that he wants to have his hide removed, even though he was told it would be permanent when he first had the skin bonded to him. However, the scientist tells the Rhino that there have been no new advances in science that could allow them to remove the Rhino’s skin.[2]
Returning to his cellar apartment, the Rhino thinks about how much accommodation he needs to live as the Rhino. From concrete reinforced furniture, having to live in a basement, and using a blow torch to shave, living for the Rhino is far from normal. He then goes to a bar where he is even more depressed than ever and ends up spending over two hundred bucks buying girls drinks just so they’ll talk to him. That’s when he is found by Romeo who tells the Rhino that his boss, Fyodor Rebrov wants to offer him another job. The Rhino tells Romeo that he is thinking of retiring, but changes his mind when Romeo says the job involves Rebrov’s daughter Stella. When he meets with Rebrov the Rhino is told that he is needed to help protest Stella. Fyodor explains that he has always tried to shield his daughter from his criminal dealings, even going so far as to have her use her mother’s maiden name, and now he needs someone to watch over her until the current danger is over. However, Romeo wants the Rhino to prove he is up to the job after his humiliating defeat at the hands of Spider-Man and tells the Rhino that he has the job if he can defeat the men he has place as her security detail.
The Rhino goes to Stella’s apartment and easily trounces her bodyguards and calls out to her. Stella, who actually went out for coffee, arrives to see the Rhino shouting her name and is unimpressed to see that her father has hired him to protect her. Since learning that her father is a mobster, Stella wants nothing to do with him and tells him the only reason why they hired the Rhino to be her bodyguard is that her father is incredibly paranoid and believes the Rhino is far too stupid to double-cross him. She then goes on to say that the only reason why Romeo agreed to this is because he doesn’t see the Rhino as a potential threat to his relationship with her. When she asks why he isn’t getting angry or trying to hit her, the Rhino says he doesn’t want to do such a thing. She realizes how sensitive the Rhino is and apologizes for her angry outburst, but the Rhino tells her not to worry about it and leaves. However, having all this thrown in his face angers the Rhino that he goes on a rampage, running through buildings, but nothing he does can shake the hurt he feels. He contemplates committing suicide by jumping off Brooklyn Bridge but decides against it when he figures that he needs to become a smarter Rhino.
The Rhino then returns to the scientist who gave him his hide and asks to have his intelligence boosted. The scientist is reluctant at first reminding the Rhino how painful it will be trying to cut through his armor to get into his skull, but the Rhino doesn’t care. Put on an operating table and given a rope to bite down on to focus away from the pain, the Rhino braces himself for the surgery to being as the doctor starts up a massive drill.
Recurring Characters
Rhino, Spider-Man, Stella Pavlov, Mindworm, Kangaroo, Rocket Racer
Continuity Notes
Among the superhuman prisoners being locked up is a criminal who is depicted as Frank Oliver, the original Kangaroo even though he has been dead since Amazing Spider-Man #126. To explain away this mistake, the Kangaroo profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #6 reveals that this is actually Oliver’s successor, Brian Hibbs, whose incarceration added so much stress he had a mental break and started thinking he was the original Kangaroo.
As a point of clarity, this isn’t the Rhino’s first hide. His first one created in Amazing Spider-Man #41 it was destroyed in issue #43 of that series. The Rhino was given a new hide with enhanced durability in Incredible Hulk #104.
