Last book for this block, and it’s illustrated by Ron Frenz and his best inker, Brett Breeding. The team that made Frenz look way better than usual on ASM 252 is back. And, obviously, so are The Lizard and Batwing. It occurs to me they could’ve gone with the modern, pointy-toothed Lizard for this, and I’m glad they didn’t. As these books tend to do, this one begins with a splash of The Lizard tackling Spider-Man out a window, and then we back up to see how we got there.
This is weird, isn’t it? The Lizard’s actual 2nd appearance, in the far future of this story/past of this issue, in ASM 44, begins with Peter taking Aunt May to the train station and seeing Curt Connors there. Why… do basically the same thing?
Now that’s just silly. And this REALLY seems like something that would’ve come up in ASM 44. This is seeming like the most awkward story to deal with so far. Although, on the other hand, I guess, maybe this makes it more plausible for Peter to instantly pick Curt Connors out of a crowd years later. Well, regardless, that brings us to Spidey & the Lizard plummeting out a window, so we’re all caught up. The Lizard uses his claws to slow his fall and then smacks Spider-Man away. Batwing swoops in to try to help, but he’s out of his element dealing with ol’ Liz. Lizard pounce son him before Spider-Man can intervene, and takes him to the street, saying he has to learn a lesson. He chucks a whole car at spidey for following him, but then disappears as our hero avoids dying. And Batwing blames himself, but of course, Peter blames himself, so everyone’s blamin’ themselves. Next day, he’s brooding about it and punches a lamppost in half in his frustration on the way to school (Whoops!).
Sally & Jason wander off without any further explanation, allowing Peter to keep beating himself up. He goes to The Bugle, where Betty still isn’t back yet, and then makes the weird choice to ask if JJJ would pay for pictures of The Lizard. I mean, of course he would. JJJ is sticking by his claims that The Lizard is a hoax from ASM 6, but Peter thinks Aunt May really needs money, so he’s got his mind made up. As Spider-Man, he goes to Curt’s lab and makes up some Lizard antidote off-panel, and then we join him & Batwing searching for their reptilian quarry around the city. Then they hear a news report that someone’s broken into the reptile house at the zoo, so you know, hot tip. They find the reptiles escaping into a sewer, and go down to investigate. But some aggressive snakes & alligators and a sudden surge of water send then zooming down a sewage waterfall, which sounds like a great time.
Spidey sets up his camera, makes some jokes, and gets Lizard off guard by talking about his family before hitting him with a haymaker, but it’s not enough to take him down. Their fight is interrupted by Batwing being menaced by gators, and while Spidey’s back is turned helping him, Lizard of course belts him across the room in true Buscema-by-way-of-Frenz fashion.
An abrupt departure for Batwing. One assumes this title will wrap his story before it ends, but then again, I don’t actually remember, so who knows? And who knows who Commanda is? We’ll have to wait for our next trip to this period to find out. For now, it’s back to the early 1990s.