Another knockout Charles Vess cover! From the ashes of MTU, Louise Simonson, Greg LaRocque, Jim Mooney and George Roussos bring us a 3rd monthly Spider-Man solo title. And it picks up just moments after TAC 100 ends. We join Peter Parker reaching into his closet for his Spider-suit, thinking he can’t shake the feeling someone’s out to get him, even as the alien looms over him. He’s not looking, though, because he hears the girls next door up on the roof again.
Sneaky. Peter thinks about the alien, recapping how he found out it was alive. He thinks it must still be trapped in the Baxter Building, and the rumors he’s heard of a shadow going around possessing people must be unrelated.
Oh, yes. We cut away to 3 hooligans, and this is a comic book from the 80s, so their names are Gripes, Pigeon and Sugar Face. Really. Sugar Face notes that it’s “Social Security Check Day” as they see an old lady walking alone, and they rob her for her social security money. Pigeon is not into this, but goes along. Turns out they work for a guy called Honcho, and…
So this guy’s copied The Vulture’s wingsuit, and he’s got a whole gang of Vultures now. They take their wing suits out for a test run, Honcho telling everyone not to engage Spider-Man if they see him. If they did, though, they’d find him pretty distracted.
Spidey tries to force the alien to shoot webs to swing to the Baxter Building, but it shoots a web in the wrong direction, and then, since the webs are part of it, just let’s go in mid air. He drops out of the sky and manages to swing on a lamppost, but the suit takes control once again and throws him through a window using his own arms. That’s rough. Meanwhile, Mary Jane runs into Aunt May shopping. Rather delightfully, Aunt May is trying on the hat from MTU 149.
I don’t like them walking back Aunt May’s change of opinion about Spider-Man from the Wolfman run, but I guess that’s superhero comics for you. At that moment, Spider-Man is stuck to the side of a building, trying to talk his way through his panic and yelling at the suit, with a guy sticking his head out the window yelling at him to go away for comic value, when one of the Vulturions (That’s right, that’s what they’re calling themselves) spots him. He follows orders and just keeps an eye out ‘til the others can get here, so he gets a front row seat to Spider-Man fighting himself.
It’s Gripes who turns out to have been the one watching him. He can’t help himself, and swoops down and grabs Spidey. He notes the suit moves like it’s alive and thinks Spider-Man is crazy as he keeps talking to himself. Then the other bird dudes show up.
Spidey flips up and kicks Gripes in the face, steering him into one of the other ones, then using the momentum to leap onto a 3rd. He grabs onto his back and demands a ride to The Baxter Building as the other 3 fall into the river. His ride is being really uncooperative, though, and he begins to worry he couldn’t get to Reed Richards in time, when he hears those bells from the church again. The creature is vulnerable to sonics, after all, so he steers his new buddy toward the bell tower. The suit begins to rebel again, but they’re close enough now, so Spidey rips some pinions out of dude’s wings so he can’t steer and hops off the ride.
Peter passes out as the alien slithers away… for a moment. But we’re told spending time bound to a human has made it more emotional than its kind normally are, and it can’t stand to see him die. It goes back and drags him out of the bell tower.
Thus does The Saga of the Alien Costume truly come to an end. It was really fun experiment, and I applaud editorial for not dragging it out too long. And now, as you well know, the alien is dead, and we’ll definitely never, ever see it again. Certainly not in a movie that was infinitely more successful than common sense would dictate.
In spite of the fact that Web of Spider-Man was announced with much fanfare as a vehicle for Louise Simonson and Greg LaRocque, Weezie will be gone in just 2 more issues, as Danny Fingroth steps down as editor and takes over writing this title himself. Greg will hang around few more issues, and then he’s out, too. Pretty weird.
Next post will be our next time jump. We’ll hop forward to the beginning of David Michelinie’s time on ASM. Some big big stuff coming in this section. It’s gonna be fun.