TAC 099

Well, there’s that. If you don’t know The Spot, you see what you’re in for. The Spot is testing his powers, which allow him to put a black hole in the air and then move through it, like a Looney Tunes character. He’s been a supervillain for like 5 seconds and is already thinking of double-crossing The Kingpin. Meanwhile, Spider-Man gets home from last issue, changes to Peter Parker and heads out for The Daily Bugle, but…

The last one is Bambi. This is not the last we’ll see if Peter’s new neighbors. However, the Komedy Business is cut short when Sha Shan shows up distraught. She’s getting pretty frantic about Flash’s weird behavior (Her wonderful friends having left her alone since she called them together, I note). As they walk around outside, Peter tries to make her feel better, and swears he’ll find out what’s up with Flash. Here’s the thing about that, though:

How mysterious! At The Bugle, Peter mentions that Betty has been hanging out with Flash lately, and she gets super defensive immediately.

You got that right, Peter. He goes to have the same conversation with Robbie he’s been having in most issues of TAC lately, but it changes a little when Robbie asks Peter what’s been troubling him lately. Robbie was such a father figure to Peter in the old days, but that seems to be mostly over in this era. Not entirely, though. He gives Peter some words of encouragement, and then…

So the “Joe Robertson has been really hard on everyone since he became E-i-C” subplot that wasn’t really going anywhere is just stopped right here, I guess. That was something. Next we skip ahead to the evening, as Black Cat waits for Spider-Man to show up. They’re going to go confront The Kingpin about her powers, but she doesn’t really want to. Her thoughts are interrupted when he arrives.

Very subtle physical acting there, Trimpe. Spidey’s still way too freaked out by the alien ordeal to want to wear that suit. Felicia is crushed, but Spidey says maybe he’ll try it on soon when he gets over it (Spoilers: Oh, he will alright), and then they take off. Cat is still irritated that they’re even doing this, and then…

He recovers and brushes it off, but Felicia is pretty sure he bad luck powers caused those mishaps because she was mad at him. Now she’s on-mission, hoping to get more information about her powers from this evening’s confrontation. Kingpin’s at home, overseeing the reconstruction after the big Silvermane battle, when…

Johnny Ohnn has also heard the alert, and looks forward to testing his new power. He wonders whether he should work for Kingpin or strike out on his own, and never once worries that he looks like a weirdo now. We then cut to a quick interlude:

Goodness, that doesn’t seem like a positive development at all! Back at Kingpin’s, Spidey & BC encounter some defense systems, and while they don’t pose a threat to them, BC’s bad luck powers once again put Spidey in a bad position. She now really wants to break away and confront Kingpin alone, but Spidey won’t hear it. Then an automated gun pops up and starts shooting at them, but the bullets all miss Felicia because of her power (That’s handy!). And then…

In that moment, we were all Spider-Man. Spot then tries the “throw a punch through the hole” gag, but he was just an ordinary scientist yesterday, he doesn’t hit very hard.

Coming up with a goofy villain who stole his gimmick from Road Runner cartoons and then pointing out that he is goofy and stole his gimmick from Road Runner cartoons is a strange choice. This nonsense continues until Spot knocks Spidey into one of his holes, causing him to fall into the “spot dimension” and back out again, slamming into a wall.