Would you expect this issue to have the same creative team as last issue? You fool. Alan Kupperberg swaps in on pencils and Art Nicols is the sole inker. Danny Fingroth and George Roussos hang in there. Our two Spiders remain barely able to move as Wrecker has found them. Doesn’t seem like that big a deal for someone who’s punched out Firelord, but what do I know?
Spider-Woman gets the crowbar out of his hand with surprising ease, but the enchantment only works on Wrecker (Except when it sometimes works on other people, like in ASM 248, but you know), and he quickly regains the upper hand. He’s about to crush her when Spidey swoops in and swings them away. They hide out in a bus inside a transit garage to regroup.Wrecker sits down in the, ah, wreckage he’s created and recaps last issue, plus his origin and a brief history of The Wrecking Crew, which I don’t think is really needed, here, getting to how Thor depowered the other 3 after Under Siege and Wrecker’s been on the run since. He decides he owes it to the others to go break them out of jail, but is now considering giving up the villain biz to make his mom happy before she dies.
This is a much more sentimental side of The Wrecker than I’m used to. Elsewhere, Spider-Woman calls Clemson, who is a jerk, and her daughter, who had black hair last issue, brown hair in Avengers West Coast, and has blonde hair here, and wants to know when she’s coming home. While she’s being sad, Spider-Man’s tried to call The FF and The Avengers, but wouldn’t you know it, they’re out of town. He says The Wrecker is way out of their league (FIRELORD!), but they have to try to bring him
Firelord. I only obsess over this during this period, but I cannot let it go. Some weird body language on this page. Elsewhere, Wrecker is already breaking his boys out of jail, and even without powers, Thunderball is already plotting to betray him again as they flee the scene. Spider-Man’s tracer has led him to the prison, and Spider-Woman’s gone back to retrieve her purse and found a notebook Wrecker apparently dropped. Then she jumps across the street to visit his mom. She’s not doing well, and the EMTs trying to help her want to call the cops, but…
Not the best likeness, but I’m pretty sure that’s meant to be McCoy from Star Trek. Spider-Woman’s hair is out of control! Spider-Woman struggles with whether to fulfill Wrecker’s Mom’s dying wish, and how, even. Meanwhile, The Wrecking Crew is holed up in a secret lab Wrecker heard Baron Zemo talking about (Maybe the very lab where he and Arnim Solza created Vermin). Wrecker is talking about wanting to straight for his mom, and Thunderball is busy trying to figure out how to use the machinery to betray him. The other 2 ae in on it. All they want is their portion of the group’s shared power back.
Solid quip down there. The Wrecking Boys pretty quickly pummel our hero into submission, in a single page, despite, well, you know, and then end their truce to fight over who gets their power to himself. Thunderball wins the fight and absorbs all of the remaining Asgardian power, but when he tries to leave, he runs into one of Spider-Woman’s weird psionic webs.
Wrecker has Thunderball at his mercy, but Spider-Man won’t let him kill him. Wrecker says he owe Spider-Man for helping him, and if he’ll just leave, Wrecker will forget any grudge against him or Spider-Woman, but he can’t do that. So he charges in, but he’s hit instantly and on the ground. Wrecker’s ready to deliver the killing blow.
The rather-too-convenient-end. If you are intrigued by that one breadcrumb and want to read that Spider-Woman limited series, well, it didn’t get made. Makes me wonder, tho, if it was to be written by Roy Thomas, and if he just folded all his ideas into Avengers West Coast 4 years later, because that stuff we looked at sure did pick up this thread. Either that, or Roy just figured someone ought to do it. This Spider-Woman didn’t appear in anything between this issue and her joining that book. Interesting.