It is 1992 again, closing in on 1993 now. A lot of weird stuff to cover this block, and a lot of stuff I’ve not read, including this issue. You think that cover blurb is meant to evoke the famous Black Panther story Panther’s Rage? Seems possible. Why’s our man in the black suit? I guess we’ll see. It is, of course, JM DeMatteis, Sal Buscema, and Bob Sharen on the 1s and 2s. DeMatteis seems to have had a change of heart here, or maybe someone got onto him, but it’s a spate of shorter stories for awhile after several very long stories in a row. I’ve always been kind of amazed by my ability to roughly remember what’s going on in each era, but it’s getting a lot easier as they run out. We open a crow flying through the city to land on Thomas Fireheart’s window and watchin turn into Puma and angrily throw a newspaper across the room while a bunch of purple prose runs over these images. We’re off and running already.
I try not to make any guesses about what’s going on in the mind of the creator and things like that, but the way this guy writes comics makes me just certain he’s got an entire bookshelf full of corny pseudo-intellectual philosophy books. At least one. The overwrought narration continues as MJ comes home to a dark and silent apartment and finds Peter standing on the ceiling with his arms folded over him like a sleeping bat. She is, understandably freaked out, which startles him and makes him drop down and apologize. Man, 9 pages in and this issue is already absurd.
Is it too late to reconsider doing this blog?
I am reacting physically to the realization that I have to sit through yet another emo depression fest. Why, man? Why? Who wants this? The average comic book reader was, like, 13 when this came out. Who do you think you’re writing for? I’m 30 years older than that and just as put off. No one reads superhero comics to see married couples yell at each other for no reason! There are plenty of dreadful looking, award winning movies I could be watching if I wanted that! Spider-Man is supposed to be FUN. But he’s not, tho, as he swings off into the darkness and past that crow with a bunch of terrible narration. The crow flies into a window and turns into a man in a wheelchair. I mean, naturally.
“Hey, could it get worse than all this mopey Spider-Man garbage?” “How about a white guy waxing poetic about Native Americans turning into birds?” I’m… not in the mood for this. This guy Jesse has visions of Natives being killed by American settlers and also of Captain America, Dr. Strange and Hawkeye for some reason, making me think this is not his first appearance, and then of course, a vision of “the spider” and “mountain lion” out to get him.
Permission to treat this comic as a hate crime, your honor.
Whatever, man. Elsewhere, Puma’s hopping around the city when a black-suited Spider-Man appears and says, “Give it to me. Your pain. Your rage. I want it all.” And in a lower case font, so this is probably a hallucination or something. Especially after a page of fighting ends with Puma shredding Spidey and biting his throat.
Whatever, man! Spider-Man buys some flowers for MJ, then the world gets all JM DeMatteis hallucinatey and Black Crow attacks him as Puma. He beats up “Puma” and the it turns into a crow and leads him on a chase with a similar bit of whatever, man, dialogue.
I hope next issue is mostly fight scenes so I can get through it quickly. My patience for this kind of thing is gone. good looking rocky terrain by Sal, tho.