Bob McLeod! He’s been making Spider-Man’s eyes big and McFarlane-shaped for yeeeears and now is his time! The coloring on Spidey’s head here defies explanation. Is he wearing a light around his neck? Bob’s working with Steven Grant, who wrote several MTUs we’ve seen, and also wrote The Punisher’s earliest solo stuff, and colorist Kevin Tinsley here. We open on a pretty unusual scene.
Yet again, someone is impersonating Spider-Man. And pretty well, even crawling up a wall after threatening some homeless people who witnessed his killings. Meanwhile, Peter & Mary Jane are finding nothing worth watching on TV until they see something they’d rather not…
In ‘93, Image is running laps around everyone in terms of color. Even if Spawn #1 hadn’t had the draw of Todd McFarlane launching a new book to sell it a year prior, the colors in it by Steve Oliff would have caused a stir. A decade ahead of anything being published by Marvel or DC, full on digital color, and done with surprising nuance. Really striking. We’ve seen the Spider-Books adopt digital color, and how hamfisted and awkward it could be even in 1997. But Tinsely is making some tentative steps here, with those dark tones on the skin color. Anyway, rather than following Spider-Man, we go see a mob boss named Geoffery Barnett heading to his office, where he has an unexpected visitor.
Barnett seems to think he can work this angle, and orders his men prepared as we catch up with Spider-Man, who’s decided to ask some homeless people what happened. He doesn’t know “Spider-Man” threatened to come back and kill them too, and they flee for their lives. Our confused hero webs one to try to find out what’s going on.
Alrighty. Spider-Man swings over some random cops hassling some goons, and for some reason, the goons assume he’s with them and surrender, worried he’ll kill them. Spidey stops at a payphone to call MJ, and then he’s off. And in the air, that reporter is hounding him again, via helicopter. Rather persistent. He flashes his belt signal in their faces and disappears. They hear that Spider-Man has just been cited scaling one of the World Trade Center towers, and take off to investigate. Turns out, our man was just hiding on the bottom of their chopper, but having heard where they’re going, he just hangs out. At the scene, The Master of Vengeance (Needs a shorter name) is scaling the tower with that Vicary guy over his shoulder, explaining that he can do this by way of “amplified static electricity,” which… Ok, why not. It makes more sense than how Spider-Man can do it, I guess.
Excellent page. MoV has blasted his way into a window and is running in terror now, having been completely unprepared for Spider-Man’s speed and strength and panicking because he’s mask is webbed to his face. I always appreciate it when jobber villains have a realistic reaction to a superhero. Spidey delivers Vicary to the firefighters below, and then the cops show up, so he’s off. Cut to Barnett instructing his minions to wait til they can take out Spider-Man, only for a mysterious shadowy figure to appear at the hole in the wall and start ventilating everyone. Gee, who could that be? Back at the WTC, Spider-Man has caught up to his fleeing foe.
MoV starts feeling himself after zapping Punisher, and turns to face Spidey head on. And our man easily dodges 4 zaps, quipping away, before socking the guy down the street.
Frank instantly clocking that he wasn’t looking at the real Spider-Man was a nice change of pace, and now this. Next issue, we’ll see if he kills our hero. It could happen!