Time to see how this wraps up. Spidey’s looking chunkier than ever. Electro’s stunt first blacked out the city, and is now lighting it up white hot and blinding and he stands on the roof yelling to no one in particular to look at him.
But… none of them know it’s him right now. I guess he’s betting on the news helping him out, but right now, it’s just a weird light. Meanwhile, inside, it’s pitch black, and the people at the function are starting to panic and stampede, and Spider-Man’s having trouble trying to keep them from hurting each other.
Spidey almost had it, but now everyone’s panicking again, including Charlie, who’s decided that, since his scam flopped, he’ll try to steal some wallets on the way out. But he’s grabbed by none other than JJJ, ranting about making a citizen’s arrest. Sarah tells him to stop trying to impress her and just get out of there as Spider-Man makes it to the roof.
Whoops! Meanwhile, inside…
Everyone’s on the ropes. Spider-Man is falling to his death, as usual. He tries to web a gargoyle, but it snaps off the building and comes with him, forcing him to try to crash it into the roof next door instead of the street, landing it in a couple’s bedroom. He is very embarrassed. Back on the roof, Electro realizes he’s rather literally drunk with power, becoming unsure on his feet, but he keeps on absorbing energy, trying to get even brighter.
An interesting turn! Back at the stampede, Sarah is about to be trampled to death when she’s rescued by… Charlie.
Another interesting turn! On the roof, Spider-Man tries to talk Electro down, which makes him angry and attack again, until he remembers he’s going to die and gets scared again. Spider-Man’s trying to come up with a way to handle this.
Corny or not, it works. Electro believes Spider-Man understands him, and is willing to listen to him. Sort of. Spidey webs up his hands and plugs Electro back into the building (How’d he get unplugged?), urging him to let the power flow back out of him. Spider-Man says if he can believe in Electro, after all they’ve been through, then anything’s possible. And slowly, the power starts to come back on in the city.
Now there’s an interesting concept literally no one will do anything with. That’s a shame. You could try to reform Electro, you could make Electro try to be Spider-Man’s sidekick and drive him crazy, there’s a lot of fun places to go from here. Instead, just a month later, Electro is menacing She-Hulk in her book. Then no one uses him for almost 2 years, and then he’s back to being a Spider-Man villain in Spider-Man: Funeral For An Octopus, a tossed off filler miniseries around the death of Doc Ock so inessential that I didn’t buy it even for this blog. Kind of a shame. But what of the other principals for this story?
All’s well that ends well, one assumes. This lil story was actually pretty fun. I wish DeMatteis had done more in this vein instead of the usual wallowing in misery. But he will next surface in ASm 390, and boy, the misery is comin’ with him.