Now there’s a cheery cover! And where this is headed is spelled out on the splash.
I continue to be struck by how you get the Todd McFarlane feel from art that’s not copying him in Pat Olliffe’s interpretation of Spider-Man. Only Spider-Man, really, not the other folks, but it’s interesting.
Spidey comes to realize Sally is just expecting him to keep her safe every time she goes out superheroing, so he stands by and lets her get a punch in the gut. She goes down hard, and Spidey mops up the rest of her mess. When she demands to know why he didn’t help her, he says it’s because he won’t always be there, and this is serious, and she could die. She says she gets it, that she’ll quit.
Spidey leaps into action, recapping how Black Knight is another lame Ant-Man/Giant Man villain (This Black Knight isn’t the heroic version who’d be running around later and possibly appearing on this blog, I can’t remember) as they trade blows and quips. Meanwhile, Sally’s got a new angle. If she can’t be a superhero, she’ll be a news photographer like Peter. She has Jason driving her to the fight, pressing him to be reckless and get there faster, dreams of fame and fortune in her head, when she makes him run a red light.
I am a very big Kurt Busiek fan and typically enjoy this title, but Aunt May’s flip reaction to one of Peter’s classmates dying feels super, super off. Not only should she be more willing to comfort Peter in his sadness instead of glossing over it, but what happened to Sally should have her utterly terrified the same thing will happen to Peter. Not could, WILL. She’s Aunt May! She worries he’ll catch a cold if he doesn’t wear 4 jackets! Now his friend dies trying to do what he does for a living and she’s like, “Hey, bro, it happens?” This just does not play. A rare misstep for this book.
Spider-Man goes to save the girl, internal monologuing a lot of self-pity and self-loathing, offhandedly learning Black Knight is working for a mysterious “baron” but not really caring right now as he tears into the goons. BK sees Spider-Man’s kind of insane right now and runs for it. Spidey pursues him across the city, only getting angrier, dodging everything Black Knight can throw at him.
Spidey makes a web net below them, and once BK’s fallen into it, begins battering him senseless in his own self-loathing and grief. We’ve seen this kind of thing so many times. And he’s stopped by The Human Torch, of all people.
A lot of stuff going on in this one. Not my favorite issue, that’s for sure. An ad on the back reminds me they had a retro X-Men 99 cent book, too, Professor Xaviier & The X-Men. I looked it up. Instead of doing what Untold did, it just remakes the original X-Men comics, with no real star power, while not being able to maintain a creative team, and is canceled after 18 issues. They would eventually let John Byrne do a book called X-Men: The Hidden Years that’s more in line with Untold, telling you what The X-Men were up to during the period when their book was reprints. I hear that wasn’t very good, either, but at least it was a better idea than subpar remakes of Kirby/Lee material.