Spider-Man's Tangled Web #6

[cyberghostface]

Warning for suicide

The doctor is attempting to test Rhino's intelligence to see how he can maneuver himself out of a maze. The doctor tells him to use his head, to which Rhino responds by barreling through the maze with his horn.



As he becomes smarter, Stella starts to warm up to the Rhino. Jealous, Romeo leaves an anonymous tip for Spider-Man about his whereabouts and leads Rhino into a trap. During his encounter with the webslinger, however, Rhino manages to outsmart and defeat him. Eventually, Stella chooses the Rhino over Romeo.





The doctor's monkey, it turns out, has committed suicide. The doctor believes that the chimp became too intelligent for his own good and lost interest in everything. Rhino is not concerned; "I can't see the problem. I mean... how can one be too intelligent?"





Once again, the Rhino considers ending his life when he thinks back on his operation.



Romeo and Stella have married, with Romeo taking over Stella's father's organization. The Rhino crashes into one of his meetings. Something catches his attention, however. A book written by "William Shake-something". It reminds him of something that he can't recall. Then he throws it aside and remembers who he is.

Comments

[lordultimus]

I always did wonder if this story could be used to explain Rhino's varying intelligence. Like the second operation didn't quite take or whatever.

[dan_ingram]

That would be a good explanation. He certainly became very Bane like

[tinygaylaura]

Peter caring more about whether the Rhino is okay because it's clear he's extremely depressed here than about the fact he knows his identity here is really sweet actually

[onsokumaru]

Is it explained while he still wears the Rhino costume?
I believe it is bonded to hum, but with his enhanced intelligence, he should have found a way to remove it.

[cyberghostface]

Given his status as kingpin it would make more sense to keep it on.

[starwolf_oakley]

In some ways, this isn't that different from how Samuel Sterns became the Leader. After getting exposed to gamma radiation, he read more and more. Until he passed out and woke up green.

[tinygaylaura]

"Beware the danger of reading" is an odd message for a story told in a print medium to have

[janegray]

Aww :(

On the bright side, at least she didn't die. Didn't they kill off a girl he had fallen in love with?

[cyberghostface]

Yeah, his wife in BND.

[janegray]

Something I find interesting.

In the original Flowers For Algernon tale, the tragedy was that Charlie lost his intelligence, yet remembered what it felt like to be intelligent, and was left forever yearning for that mental state he could no longer achieve. Being intelligent was meaningful, its only ache caused by cruel close-minded people who never cared for Charlie to begin with, and losing it was misery and an hopeless sense of emptiness.

Yet, every single adaptation of the tale, Every. Last. One., portrays intelligence as a burden that essentially turns the character into a cold-hearted sociopath, and becoming dumb again is a relief.

How is it possible that, out of countless adaptations, not a single writer could see becoming smarter as a good thing, nor could they imagine intelligence and kindness coexisting?

[sabertoothlotus]

because status quo is king, and any change to a character there's any chance of reusing has to be temporary. God forbid characters grow and change or plot has long-term consequences.

[cyberghostface]

That’s true In most cases but there’s no way you could do this as anything but a self-contained story.

[janegray]

But that's not my question. Even as a temporary thing, why always portray it as a bad thing?

Writers are always going on and on about The Sacrifices Of Being A Hero. To the point that they routinely bring back old secondary characters, or introduce new ones, just to fridge them so the hero can be hurt by their death. Spider-man characters in particular can't be happy for five minutes without a narrative anvil falling on them.

So, if hurting the hero and their cast is a desirable outcome (metatextually speaking), then why does no writer ever present the loss of intelligence as a sad thing? Why is it always "being smart makes them an asshole, what a relief that it's gone, they are so much better as idiots!"?

[cyberghostface]

Maybe in stories like this they think the alternative would just be too depressing.

[tinygaylaura]

That could be it. They might change it so that the character losing their intelligence at the end doesn't feel quite so heartbreaking. Yes they lost their smarts but they're happy and a good person

[lego_joker]

If it interests you, there's a story somewhere in my childhood collection of Chinese Disney comics (almost certainly translated from European editions) where they do this plot with the Beagle Boys. Suffice to say, they don't end it on that note. I'll see if I can haul it out sometime.

(It's not a straightforward stop-the-upgraded-villains story, either - the Beagles are the protagonists and Scrooge is never even mentioned.)

[janegray]

I'd love that!

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Same here.

[tcampbell1000]

That sounds great.

[garth2the2ndpower]

I remember reading this story a while back, and IIRC, Rhino's problem wasn't his intelligence in itself, but that his operation caused his intellect to grow endlessly and beyond his control. In his suicide scene, he mentions how he can't enjoy anything due to his brain's tendency to overanalyze his every sensation. At least that was my takeaway from the story.

[tcampbell1000]

I like this particular story and how it works, but I don't disagree. It's true in real life that a lot of people with high IQs are prone to depression... and you could use that fact to draw some equally depressing conclusions about life and the world: "Only the blissfully ignorant can't see how hopeless and pointless it all is!"

I don't see it that way. Intelligence is not wisdom, and I think wisdom incorporates self-knowledge and the ability to find happiness in most circumstances, even those that other people might deem tragic. Hyperintelligence might give you awareness of all the problems of the world and the fact that no matter how smart you are, everything will end. Wisdom is about making what meaning one can out of the spaces and experiences one can. That said, wisdom can and often does increase (or decrease) in parallel to intelligence, so that take is worth exploring.

[numeronone]

Because in a capitalist society, a fantasy where the worker empowers themselves and transcends hierarchy is treasonous. Better to default to stories in which the lower class is made unhappier in receiving the same beenefits that the upper classes enjoy through private education.

[numeronone]

After all, as "Idiocracy" taught us, most discourses about the hierarchy of 'intelligence' - a quality which is not hierarchical, and exists on a complex and nuanced spectrum - is really just a cypher for neo-eugenecist shitting on the working class, people with disabilities, people of colour, and other minorities

[deh_tommy]

I can’t speak for other adaptations of Flowers for Algernon, but to be fair to this comic, as garth2the2ndpower points out the problem Rhino suffers is he can’t stop thinking and obsessively pours over every last detail a hundred miles a minute to the point that gets overwhelming. That’s kind of like Cortana’s rampancy in Halo 4.

[numeronone]

I mean, sure, but that's hardly better. Speaking as a neurodivergent person with diagnosed anxiety, I don't think traumatic brain surgery/a lobotomy is the answer to my tendency to hyperobsess.

[deh_tommy]

Of course not, but speaking from my own experience at least there’s lulls and breaks and outside help. Rhino here doesn’t have that luxury, he’s just going to keep thinking and thinking and hyperfixating on every last detail, every moment stretching on for eternity as he breaks down the history of every single solitary letter that leaves his mouth (or even for whatever he chooses not to say).

[imitorar]

In the original Flowers For Algernon tale, the tragedy was that Charlie lost his intelligence, yet remembered what it felt like to be intelligent, and was left forever yearning for that mental state he could no longer achieve. Being intelligent was meaningful, its only ache caused by cruel close-minded people who never cared for Charlie to begin with, and losing it was misery and an hopeless sense of emptiness.

Yet, every single adaptation of the tale, Every. Last. One., portrays intelligence as a burden that essentially turns the character into a cold-hearted sociopath, and becoming dumb again is a relief.

That... is rather a misreading of Flowers for Algernon. Even there, Charlie finds himself becoming isolated from other people. He loses respect for the doctors who experimented on him as he intellectually outstrips them in their understanding of their own work. His former tutor, who he falls in love with, he begins to grow impatient with because her mind works so much slower and she can't understand anything he says even when he's trying keep things simple. He never gets depressed, because he still enjoys culture until his intelligence starts to revert. But he is isolated.

Most important, though, is that Charlie was happy before he was intelligent. He had friends, and he was useful to people. He loses all that when he begins to realize that his former "friends" were mocking him and playing tricks on him, and when they petition to have him fired from his job because they're scared of him. At the end of the story, even after he's dumb again (his words), he's happy that his friends have started to stick up for him and he appreciates them. Yes, Charlie felt the loss of his intelligence as a sort of torturous death, but that was only while he still had it. Once he actually lost it, he's not really any less happy than when he started. The story ends with his saying that you have friends if you let people laugh at you, and he's going to make a lot of friends. It reads as tragic to the audience, and it would read as tragic to Genius-Charlie. But to Dumb-Charlie, things aren't so bad.

The ideas of "ignorance as bliss" and extreme intelligence as isolating are right there in the original. If anything, I think the issue here is that Flowers for Rhino hews a bit too closely to the original source. The key difference is that Rhino chose to do it all to himself, both to increase and to decrease his intelligence. But in terms of how it affects his personality and his life, I think Flowers for Algernon is matched beat for beat.

[sabertoothlotus]

When was this published? I ask because Rhino appears to be handing Peter 3.5" floppy disks. Which seems weird for anything happening after about 1998.

Also, wasn't there a limited series called Identity Disc about a bunch of villains trying to get a disc that had all the super-hero secret identities? It sounds like that's totally something Rhino could have created during this plot.

[cyberghostface]

2001.

[repto]

Also, lol at "algebraic equations" revealing Spidey's secret identity. Marvel needs some better technobabble.

[tinygaylaura]

According to Gorgon's backstory, math can prove or disprove the existence of god.

In the Marvel universe math can do anything

That's why we should be wary of mathematicians.

[stubbleupdate]

My brain just read that as "algorithms" and moved on

[agent8]

how many hero's even have "secret identities" these days anyway? None of the X-men do. Capt America doesn't, not the FF, I don't think any of the Avengers do (whos on their roster these days anyway?),

In fact Spidy and Kamala Kahn are the only two I can think of off the top of my head.

[cyberghostface]

Daredevil’s identity is secret again.

[numeronone]

I personally headcanon that Rhino knows to this day that Peter is Spider-Man but never did anything to hurt his loved ones because "I ain't an asshole".