I believe this is what they called a “chromium” cover. To date, I don’t know what that actually means. So, years prior to this, the Spidey titles ran an interminable 14-issue story called Maximum Carnage, pretty universally considered one of the worst Spider-Man stories even by people who worked on it. I do not relish the thought of revisiting that one (In the far future block 43). This name is a pretty weird play on that. Also, around this time, The X-Men did a very successful event called Age of Apocalypse which began and ended with Alpha & Omega issues. This is the beginning of marketing trying to repeat that success in the Spider-Office without a story to go with the gimmicks. This crossover is attempt 1 of 2. So this is how they get a 6-issue Spider-Man story out in one month, with 2 of those 6 issues oversized and wildly overpriced. This story began as the first attempt to end the clone saga, but, well, it obviously didn’t. This one is produced from a plot by Tom DeFalco & script by Todd DeZago, pencils by Ron Lim, inks by Al Milgrom & colors by Tom Smith. It begins in Springville, Pennsylvania, where a man on a park bench opens a sci fi canister and soon everyone in the area drops dead. Real fun times, you know, 90s comics.
So, The Jackal’s plan is apparently to kill everyone in the world except clones. Which, it has been established, degenerate and die young. Does any of this make sense? Does any of this sound like it should be a Spider-Man comic? Emphatically no. But it’s what we’ve been given. As The Jackal leads his clone friend through the town babbling in his bargain basement Joker style about how the virus kills humans but not clones, we see 1 guy wake up in an alley, seemingly unaffected. Cut to wife beater and scumbag Peter Parker, crouching next to a gargoyle like Batman and thinking about how his life is a lie. Sure am glad to be back to this kind of dreck. He flashes WAY back, he goes back to, like, the 380s of ASM, hitting every milestone since: Why he was an emo douche in the first block of this era (Which I am still trying not to spoil), Aunt May’s stroke, the clone, Aunt May’s death, &etc., all the way through the trial story, with Ron Lim dutifully recreating panels from these stories as faithfully as possible, but in his style, which is the only cool thing about this comic or this entire story.
We see Ron do recreations of work by half a dozen artists and nail it over the course of several pages, it’s really neat. While Peter wallows in all the stupidity of the mid-1990s, Ben is out looking for him as The Scarlet Spider, hoping to find some way to talk him down, but also grappling with the fact that he’s the real Peter and he lost this whole life for 5 years. Then we cut to Mary Jane. What’s she up to? How does she look after having her face smashed by her husband, our so-called hero? How does she feel about him right now?
No worries! She’s fine, nothing happened, forget about it! Punching the shit out of her was conveniently omitted from Peter’s recap, and look, she’s fine. Nervous about her child, but fine. Don’t worry about it!
And we’re literally right back where we started in this block, Ben at MJ’s doorstep, MJ yelling at him about Peter, who isn’t there, Ben saying he just wants to help. This is so lame. Back in Springville, CDC teams are trying to figure out what happened, and in a van speeding away, The Jackal is somehow listening in on their conversation when they discover that guy who survived. Jackal tells his clone Peter they’re going back. Now it’s time to meet The New Warriors.
As alluded to in the previous comic, the 3rd Peter was sent into their book to steal something in issue 61. Didn’t read it, don’t know, don’t care. The New Warriors were introduced as the cool, edgy new teen team for the 90s (With art by one Mark Bagley), and were interesting for awhile, but their book is in its 60s now, its creators long gone and its characters no longer feeling terribly new or edgy. We Got Justice, Firestar (Created for the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon, but unrelated to Spider-Man in comics), Speedball (Created in a Spider-Man annual), some lady I don’t know and Nova (Created as a doomed attempt to make a new Spider-Man for the 70s) on deck here. 3 members with vague ties to Spider-Man. Original team members Night Thrasher and Namorita apparently gone now. Back at The Parker home, Ben’s trying to joke and make MJ feel better and it’s obviously not working when she sees a postcard card, addressed to Ben, from Springville, that just says “Wish you could have been here.” Ben gets it.
Kaine escapes into the night. You may have assumed Kaine’s vision was in relation to Peter punching the crap out of MJ last issue. That would’ve been reasonable. But no, we’re still dangling this plot thread that obviously won’t go anywhere. So little actually happens in these comics. A lot of stuff happens, but so little means anything. Then we see the guy who survived The Jackal’s massacre wake up and burst out of the medical facility he’s in, now much larger than he used to be, and soon he’s out into the night, too. But he doesn’t go unnoticed.
It most assuredly is not. Last issue, we saw The Jackal make him this costume. Now he just morphs into it or whatever. So consistent. Doesn’t feel like much effort went into this costume design. He sees The New Warriors arrive, realizes they’re after the same dude, and decides to let them do all the work finding him. But Ben has also arrived, hitching a ride on top of a semi truck and he just happens to find the guy first.
The New Warriors, of course, assuming this Spider-Person is in league with the Spider-Person they encountered in their book. As reasons for Two Heroes Fight Over A Misunderstanding go, better than most. Elsewhere, MJ once again decides she can’t just sit around waiting for Peter or his clone to show up and goes out walking, like she did several issues ago. This time, Peter is waiting for her to leave, totally back in emo lame mode. He sneaks into the apartment, intending to get some supplies and disappear, just like Ben did 5 years ago, but also thinks he can’t take any of the money MJ & their child will need without him. Yes, he is once again ready to abandon his family. We’re just going in circles here. Nothing is happening. So he just puts on his Spider-Man suit and leaves.
Turbo! Her name is Turbo! Incredible. This kinda begs the question: Suddenly there at at least 3 Spider-Men, as far as The New Warriors can tell. They’ve all met the real Spider-Man, either individually or as a group, multiple times… except maybe TURBO (We’ll see it later). Nobody finds this weird? No one’s got any questions? “Hey, you seem to be just like a much more famous guy we know, only in a sweatshirt. What’s up with that?” Nothing? While Ben tries to avoid fighting the Warriors, seeing they mean no harm, Peter #3 finds the survivor, and then all the good guys hear a scream.
So sad! So emo! So boring! A kid walking down the street with a boombox playing a news report about Spider-Man being at the Empire State Building (Is that news?) catches the ear of The Punisher, and the same report plays in The Jackal’s van. Elsewhere, Ben & The Warriors catch up to the others, and the big evil spider tosses his prey into the sky as a distraction because The Jackal told him not to mess with Ben or Peter. But the guy just grows bat wings, he’s cool. So we can get back to the fightin’.
As, ugh, “Spidercide” escapes, we cut to Spider-Man, who is contemplating Aunt May when The Jackal appears. Spider-Man attacks, saying he stole his life and whatnot. Back at wherever it was, the winged guy is being loaded in a truck to be sent to Project: Pegasus. They’re just treating him like an experiment instead of a person? This is very gross. Also, the Warriors make up with Ben, facilitating him joining their team in the next issue of their book. This is because Marvel has been split into 5 separate fifedoms in this era, and The Spider-Man portion of the company was also made responsible for The New Warriors, for some reason, so they began trying to make them Spider-Man-adjacent. Mixed results. What about our Peter? Anything we could do to make him even less appealing right now?
Sure can! Suuuure can! You know, I called block 9 the worst stretch of Spider-Man comics ever made, but that might’ve been hasty. Literally every comic in that block sucked. Pound for pound, it was maybe the single worst run in the history of the title. The stuff since then was less utterly horrible, including the start of this block, no matter how offputting it may be. But Peter the wifebeater coupled with just how utterly stupid this clone stuff is about to get… It’s in real competition. It doesn’t last as long, but it’s maybe worse.