Carrion’s outfit defies explanation. And he got it at a store! Pull your pants up a little higher, grandpa. Welcome to the chilling conclusion of this dumb crap. We open on Gwen Stacy’s grave.
Bags didn’t get the ring in there, but it’s our mystery man. So he knows Gwen. Y’all guessed who he is? If you didn’t already know, of course. Anyway, back at the McBride Residence, Shriek says she’s pretty sure Spider-Man is in love with her, and Beatrice begs him to save her son.
Spidey beats her unconscious, and then Carrion leaps at him. His mom stops him, begging him not to be a bad guy. He’s all messed up and confused, not sure what to believe, but then Spider-Man tries to get Beatrice to flee while he’s distracted, and crazy-violent new Spidey scares her. Sensing his mother’s fear gives Carrion his groove back, and he starts wailing on Spidey, wanting him to suffer.
Meanwhile, back at the hospital…
So, she says, she’s leaving. Going to see her sister and her dad, to confront her rocky history with her family. She asks how she can fix her life if she hasn’t made peace with her past. She says Aunt Anna is coming up from Florida to be with May, and promises she won’t be away long. And that’s that. I don’t honestly know what I think of that bit. I can certainly see why MJ would walk out on Peter, he’s gunning hard for World’s Worst Husband 1994. But not on May, when she could literally die while MJ is gone, with Peter out pretending to be a tough guy somewhere instead of being there for her. MJ’s all May’s got, and she’s ghosting. That doesn’t feel right to me. Ah, well. I can’t judge her too harshly, she’s in a really awful situation. Back at the house, Spider-Man and Carrion are beating the crap out of each other.
Beatrice actually gets through to him. His walls come down and he starts saying he’s sorry. And then Shriek zaps him, disgusted by his show of weakness, before making Carrion choose between her and his mom, once and for all. And he can’t, so he turns his decay powers on himself. Beatrice reaches for him.
Why the HELL would Shriek do that?? I guess this is supposed to be reality getting past her insanity, but come ON. She’s an unrepentant mass murderer who only came here to goad Malcolm into killing this woman, and she saves her? Nonsense. But because she loves Carrion the way Beatrice loves Malcolm, she gets down on the ground with him and starts doing… something… with her “can do anything” powers. The captions are way more interested in opining about the scared little girl inside of her at the moment, so we don’t really know, but…
But she’s dying now, having I guess absorbed the Carrion virus or whatever. Spidey picks her up and says he has to get her to the hospital, “The Spider” whispering to let her die. Beatrice says she’ll get Malcolm back to Ravencroft, don’t worry about them. He thinks that Peter Parker may be buried alive (GET THE REFERENCE?)…
The stranger vanishes before the guard can finish his sentence. Spidey delivers Shriek to a hospital, and realizes it’s the same one Aunt May is in. He goes to see her.
If only MJ had stuck around, this comic could stop being stupid. Can’t, tho! Come back next time for a return to the relatively painless world of Adjectiveless Spider-Man.