Crisis for Spidey’s parents! Oh no! Looking a bit more like an old school Spider Slayer this time out. On page one, Felicia debuts her new-ish look.
It’s the 90s, so an already famously over-sexualized design somehow gets even more aggressive. Not sure why all the white parts are gray now, that doesn’t seem like the right move. Also note her hair is less crazy this issue, for some reason.
MJ pulls Peter aside to tell him to chill out with the accusations. While they’re having a fight, Richard & Mary decide to find that Shaddock guy and see if he can help them remember things. Which is a very weird thing to do. Then we jump ahead to night time, as Felicia is driving her and Peter to Long Island, partners again, it would seem. They’re going to see if they can get an audience with Mendel Stromm’s old lab assistant, currently living in an asylum. But they’re told he broke out recently, and also that that was kept from the public, and the administrator threatens to sue them if they tell anyone. So… why’d he tell them? As they leave, Peter gets the mild danger sense buz, and Felicia’s fancy new contacts allow her to spot one of the mechanical spiders up in the shadows. Soon, Spider-Man is scaling the building.
The one on the cover, of course. The faces on the screens bicker about who saw Spider-Man first even though they all look the same as they smash through the roof and dump everybody into a swimming pool in some physical therapy wing of the asylum. The water doesn’t bother the robot, but the bickering faces almost shoot it with their own laser hands trying to get Spider-Man off of them.
That’s a whole lotta guess work, Spidey! And also a terrible way to run a robot. He leaps onto a wall, and it shoots out a cable to snag him, powerful enough to rip him loose. But then Felicia’s on the scene, slicing through said cable and making with the banter. I note Michelinie is writing her more like the Mantlo/Milgrom Cat than she’s sounded in anything since then, a freewheeling adventure junkie. The admin who sent them packing earlier bumbles in, and when Spidey hears how much the various personalities hate the guy, he tries to rile them up and get them fighting over who gets to shoot the guy, and…
My goodness, what a coincidence, indeed. Spidey knows better, and he and Felicia are off to search for Smythe as we shift focus to the Parkers, taking a walk in May’s neighborhood…
Goodness, another giant shock. Well, only 2 chapters left, and things are moving along. For the backup, speaking of Al Milgrom, he’s back to write this one, with Lopresti, Hudson and Javins on art. This month, we focus on Mary Jane, who is getting ready to shoot a scene for a small role in a movie she landed. Some dialogue in the scene makes her flashback to her own terrible childhood, bringing you up to speed since it hasn’t really been a plot point in a long time. As she thinks about her failed writer dad abusing her family…
Certainly useful to people who’ve not read ASM 259, but not so much to me. MJ deep in thought and not speaking somehow nails her scene while thinking about marrying Peter and wondering if his parents are real, and they move on to another scene.
I actually remembered this one. Hudson really tightened up the linework. Not everyone is cut out to be their own inker, I guess.