I don’t want to sound like an old man… Although I guess I am an old man by some metrics… But they really don’t make covers like this anymore. Covers that dare you to open the book. Today’s covers are very pretty and professionally done, but they usually don’t have much to do with the interiors, let alone throw something like this at you.
We got Chris Claremont joined by Sal Buscema and Steve Leialoha on this one. And that’s really interesting, actually, because Leialoha renders Sal Buscema almost unrecognizable, softening all his trademark edges and beefing up all his trademark thin lines. You’d often have to be told it’s Sal except for one crucial thing, which I’ll hit in a minute. But look at this:
If you’ve ever seen Sal Buscema draw, you know this is really crazy from page one. So, here we have this lovely lady wandering the street in the middle of the night. She sees this Daily Bugle headline referencing MTU 79 and thinks she feels like they’re friends, but that’s crazy, since she’s just a school teacher from upstate. Mm-hm. Somebody’s brainwashed Black Widow. She continues walking down the snowy street in the middle of the night and is, naturally, accosted by a group of ne’er-do-wells. And here’s where you can tell it’s Sal Buscema, no matter what Leialoha’s decided to do:
Panel 2. Something I have been ardently not commenting on in the past, but there’s no choice now: Buscema hands. Once you see them, you’ll never unsee them. He draws those hands, like, every other page, for his entire extremely prolific, decades-long career. That big punch was delivered not by our brainwashed BW, but by a just-arrived Spider-Man. I really can’t get over this. I’ve seen a zillion Sal Buscema Spider-Man drawings. We’ve seen a ton on the blog so far, from the 70s to the 90s. I’d never know this was him if not for the hands, of which there’s at least one on each of the following pages. As Spider-Man has the bad luck to slip in the snow and a goon gets the drop on him, BW knocks him out cold. Realizing something is up, Spidey tells her who she is, and she gets really scared and passes right out. Spidey casually mentioning how hard he’s been working for the Bugle lately even though he doesn’t work there anymore (Whoops!), and reluctantly decides to take her to… a place. I assumed it was his apartment, but it looks like an abandoned warehouse, which is eventually revealed to be at the top of a skyscraper? What… is this? It’s not explained at all. She eventually wakes up pretty freaked out. I think I would, too, if I woke up in some random room a superhero took me to while I was unconscious. Spider-Man appraises the situation and picks a tactic:
Spidey sees he’s pushing too hard, and eases up, trying this one:
She puts on the suit, and it doesn’t make her feel anymore like Black Widow. She asks to be taken to the nearest hospital, and that’s when SHIELD attacks.
An all-female SHIELD unit, lead by Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, herself (She got all the names at birth!). She’s Nick Fury’s number one gal, and she’s here to apparently just randomly shoot at things. I mean how hard would it be to just trrrrry to hit either Spidey or Black Widow from there, yet nary a VORP! nor a ZARK! comes near our heroes. Spidey webs onto one of their vehicles, and uses the momentum to get far from the attack, BW in tow. They’re making some space when one of the SHIELD agents finally decides to shoot at them and wings Spider-Man. He hits the ground for a second, and one of the agents lands to deal with BW personally. And once again, her innate fighting instincts kick in, and she demolishes the agent. But, this doesn’t help her mental state.
Spidey sends Nat to a stairwell to make a break for it while he holds off SHIELD, which only lasts until The Contessa crashes her whole flying thingie right into him, taking him down. That’s rude.
That’s even more rude! Good thing Nat can’t help but jump in. Spidey thanks her for saving him yet again, and Nancy decides she has to know who she really is. And then Nick Fury just walks in and shoots her. For real!
Good grief. This is the part where I usually joke about how they’re definitely dead, but even I am taken aback by this crazy ending. How in the world is Claremont going to explain this? Tune in next time and we’ll find out together. Until then, remember:
Buscema hands.