Spider-Man's Tangled Web #6
Cornocopia
Seeking to gain the respect of others, the Rhino has come back to the scientist who first gave him his powers to artificially enhance his intelligence. After a few days of surgery, the scientist runs a test by having the Rhino try to get out of a massive mage. The Rhino isn’t sure he can figure it out until the scientist tells him to use his head. Inspired, the Rhino charges through the walls of the maze instead of trying to get out the conventional way. In the next few days the Rhino tries to increase his intelligence by reading the newspaper and learning words out of the dictionary. However, he soon becomes restless and leaves before more tests can be run. Realizing that he abandoned his job to protect Stella Pavlov, the daughter of a mobster, the Rhino rushes back to her home and accidentally runs through the door. Despite his concern, Stells is perfectly fine and has been spending time with her fiancee, Romeo, a mob enforcer. Stella notices that the Rhino has a bandage around his head and asks what happened and he makes up a story about falling off the toilet.
When the Rhino asks for his job protecting Stella back and when Romeo takes offense to this, Stella is impressed when the Rhino uses the words infer and imply correctly. The pair then have an exchange on the importance of using proper grammar. Seeing the Rhino bonding with his girl, Romeo asks Stella to leave them alone for a moment to talk. Romeo then tells the Rhino that he can help keep Stella safe by attacking the men who are gunning for her saying that his gang was going to hit them at a restaurant called Marlon’s. However, after the Rhino charges off to do this task, Romeo places an anonymous call in the hopes of tipping off Spider-Man so the Rhino gets captured again. Having overheard all of this, Stella scolds Romeo for betraying the Rhino’s trust and questions how she could ever love him,
Meanwhile, the Rhino attacks Marlon’s restaurant where Spider-Man is waiting for him. However, the Rhino manages to sneak around Spider-Man and knock him out. As Stella arrives on the scene to warn him of a set up, the Rhino has a photographer take a picture of his defeat of Spider-Man and tells Stella that he already knew that. She is flattered that he went anyway, for Stella and hugs him. That’s when Romeo pulls up in his car and orders the Rhino to leg to of his girl. In response, the Rhino swats his car away. Recovering from his beating, Spider-Man notices a gas leak and warns everyone to get clear before there is an explosion. When Romeo orders Stella to leave with him, she asks the Rhino to carry her to safety instead. After the explosion, Romeo vows to get even with the Rhino. At that same moment, the Rhino enjoys his newfound confidence and figures he’s actually starting to get smarter.
Later, in their jail cell, the Kangaroo and Mindworm are reading about the Rhino’s victory over Spider-Man.[1] That’s when the Rhino comes smashing through the wall. He tells them that he is organizing a criminal gang and offers them a place within his organization.Soon a more sophisticated and intelligent Rhino has his own criminal organization.[2] His newfound intellect also helps him bond with Stella and soon a romance between the pair blossom. One day after seeing a performance of Hamlet, the Rhino gets a call from his creator telling him that he needs to speak about his operation. Returning to the lab, the Rhino is shown the ape that the scientist first tested upon. The ape has suddenly taken its own life. The scientist warns him that the ape became so intelligent that it lost interest in everything leading it to commit suicide. However, the Rhino is unconcerned over himself, thinking that more intelligence wouldn’t be a bad thing for him. However, the Rhino soon realizes he’s wrong as his ever-increasing intelligence makes him more and more insensitive to the point where he dismisses Stella’s need for affection. Realizing that he has gone too far, the Rhino decides to do something about his current situation.
First, he calls a meeting with Spider-Man where he reveals that he deduced that the wall-crawler is secretly Peter Parker. However, he promises not to tell anyone and hands over the discs of data that contain all the work he did to figure out Spider-Man’s secret identity.[3] He then tells Spider-Man that his life has grown so pointless that there is no reason for him to fight the web-slinger anymore. The Rhino then finds himself atop the Brooklyn Bridge contemplating suicide once more. However, he decides against jumping as he has come up with a solution to his problem. Using his intelligence, the Rhino comes up with a process to return himself back to his old self and has the scientist who first made him intelligent perform the surgery to restore him to normal.
Later, Romeo meets with his lieutenants after marrying Stella to discuss mob security. That’s when the Rhino, now back to his normal dumb self, comes crashing through the wall. Finding a new appreciation for who he is, the Rhino enjoys knocking things down.
Recurring Characters
Rhino, Spider-Man, Stella Pavlov, Mindworm, Kangaroo
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.
The original twin towers of the World Trade Center are depicted as part of the New York City skyline here. This should be considered a topical reference per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616 because, you know, 9/11.
The Rhino’s work is depicted as being recorded on 3.5” floppy discs. This should be considered a topical reference since this is an obsolete technology.
