This one’s tough to say, but I think the hologram might be John Romita, Sr. Only right to get him in here. The poster of the much-hyped upcoming debut of Spider-Man 2099 is by the great Rick Leonardi, as you’d expect since he’s drawing that series.
I had a much larger version of this on my wall for years as a kid. I’ve been wondering if I should do all the Spider-Man 2099’s I have for this website. To me, the title/mission statement of the blog implies “Peter Parker Spider-Mans,” but I certainly have a lot of the 2099 run and every Miles Morales comic. Luckily, it’ll take me a million years to do the Peter Parker comics. I can figure the rest out later. Anyway, it’s the usual Web team, Howard Mackie, Alex Saviuk, Bob Sharen, only Sam De La Rosa subs in for Keith Williams on inks. Or maybe he’s taking over the book, I don’t remember. Oh, wow, this comic starts with Max Schiffman, Spider-Man’s short-tenured wrestling manager. I totally forgot this. He’s in his office in LA thinking about Spider-Man, and, uh, it looks like he thinks about Spider-Man a lot.
Interesting structure. I literally do not remember this a bit. They just happen to drive by where Spider-Man caught the burglar, and Max thinks about how that was the beginning of the end. Wonders why he had to play hero. Thinks it was him who tipped off The Daily Bugle, hoping to control the story. How, despite JJJ ruining Spider-Man’s career, Max went out to LA, and the publicity opened a lot of doors for him as a producer. He & his wife have done well for themselves. But it’s implied that their return to New York is bad news for Spider-Man. Speaking of whom, he’s swinging through the South Bronx after some kind of car full of guys shooting when he suddenly comes upon an unusual scene: Galactus towering over the defeated forms of basically all the other Marvel heroes.
Is this Mysterio nonsense? I hope not. I’m really shocked I don’t remember this. I remember the TAC one, and the ASM one. I don’t know the other one offhand, either. We’ll see, I guess. Spidey lives through a nightmare version of his origin, all the figures distorted and evil, then a pretty typical parade of people he’s failed or watched die accusing him, then a mob of his villains. This sort of thing happens to Spider-Man a lot. Then someone yells cut and everything goes dark. As Spider-Man comes to, blurry figures talk about giving him some air and such, until the blurry form of Max Schiffman tells him he got hit in the head and needs to snap out of it.
Mysterio it is, then. That otherwise needless shot of the fog on Spider-Man’s foot’n’all. Why’d he need Max to appear in person, tho? That “eeeek” is due to Green Goblin, Hobgoblin and Demogoblin smashing through the window looking for revenge as “The Goblin League.” Which is the germ of an interesting angle. Too bad it’s just a bunch of nothing. They start blowing everything up, and Max tells Spider-Man this isn’t like one of his choreographed fight scenes, this is real, and they have to go.
Spidey leaps into action, and finds getting up in the air clears his head (Really spell it out, Howard) as he dispatches the goblin trio way too easily. Then he drops back down, demanding to know why he can’t remember anything from Max, who blames the bump on his head. Then a pumpkin bomb rolls over to them and explodes, almost getting them. The goblins toss 3 more, but Spider-Man redirects them back where they came from, to the tune of a huge explosion.
Too much, indeed! But a pretty amusing visual, at least. This is basically just a 90s version of ASM 100. And 150. And so on. Ven-alactus reaches into the fog and picks up Mary Jane, of course, and Spider-Man swings to the rescue, only to discover it’s not her, but someone dressed up like her, which… begs a lot of questions… But Spider-Man’s ffffffiiiiinally figured it out, smashing the robot and webbing Max to demand answers again.
Big yawn! Every Mysterio story is the same, no wonder I forgot this. But how on Earth would he know to use Mary Jane Parker as Spider-Man’s leading lady? That is a huge issue, here. Spidey begins beating up on Mysterio, who says a bunch of nonsense ending in “life is an illusion, only death is real!” as Venom bursts out of Mysterio’s outfit. They’re really pushing Venom as Spidey’s #1 big bad here. I guess by 1992, he was.
Well, this doesn’t really jibe with any of Mysterio’s recent appearances, most egregiously Spider-Man #23, released just one month prior, but ok.
Time for Spider-Man’s big heroic moment where he starts ignoring the illusions and takes Mysterio down, talking about how all he’s been through has been real and all of it matters.
And that’s the ballgame. No 2nd story in this one. Man, Mysterio is the worst. Literally just the same thing, over and over. Even Kraven is less repetitive and boring. How did he know to put Mary Jane in there???? That is a massive problem! Ugh. They can’t all be winners.