And so, we reach a big milestone in my personal comics collecting habits: the moment when I stopped individually bagging comics. I decided it was both easier and more convenient to put a bunch of books in a single, larger bag. The bags made for Silver Age and Golden Age comics are significantly bigger than modern ones, allowing you to put usually around 6 books in a bag. It’s easy to pull a whole storyline out of the box and read it if it’s all in one bag. Like this one! Here we begin our journey into what is definitely one of the craziest stunts I’ve ever seen in comics. While the basic elevator pitch might not be all that revolutionary, the practical result is… well, we’ll see. And yes, this issue is drawn by Joe Bennett. Why? Who knows? The cover, tho, is by Weiringo, and I find it noteworthy because the Spider-Man on the wanted poster is clearly styled after John Romita, Jr.’s Spider-Man, while the real Spidey is in Ringo’s style. Very interesting choice. Anyway, Al Milgrom & Dan Green pitch in to ink this one, with Gregory Wright & Mark Bernardo sharing color credit. Things are happening pretty fast now. We’re only 9 months away from the whole line being canceled and rebooted, and one assumes they know where they’re headed by now. A few odd detours aside, we’re headed for the endgame.
Seems weird! As does bringing back these losers:
The bounty on Spider-Man’s head has been in place for several months, our time, by this point, and yet it hasn’t really come to the forefront. Which, given what’s coming here, seems strange. I guess they wanted to let everyone get to a stopping point in their own stories before this. We see some skinhead guys get some laser weapons from a “Mr. Crier” before a 2-page spread of Spider-Man having to dodge a bunch of lunatics on rooftops trying to tag him for the money. It’s really getting out of control quickly.
A guy is about to shoot Spider-Man, and he knows there’s kids in a window behind him, so he’s gotta do some fancy webbing to stop him without moving. The guy starts losing it, having read that Spider-Man’s webbing people up and suffocating them to death these days. Spidey tells him not to believe everything he reads as he leaves. Soon, Peter is at The Bugle, recapping furiously as his new pal Billy Walters walks in, and then…
Peter naturally assumes this is another part of Osborn’s plan to ruin his life, which Osborn confirms with an evil grin over his shoulder as he ushers Flash into his office. Peter thinks about how Osborn is poison to everyone around him as he sees JJJ dejectedly locking himself in his office. Then Billy says something’s going down and they gotta go. That turns out to be a woman who was being rescued from a fire when the burning building collapsed on top of the firetruck trying to help her, leaving her stuck on top of a ladder with nowhere to go. Billy says no one could ever get to her in time.
Always glad to see Prowler show up. Spidey does as suggested, clocking and webbing his attacker, but thien his webshooters short out due to Override’s powers, and the 2 jobbers are on him. I had genuinely already forgotten their names again and it’s only been 16 pages. Well, Aura’s power is a force field, and she smashes our hero into a wall. He picks up his previous attacker’s rifle and throws it at them…
Very Ditko-y panel at the top. The battle is interrupted by a whole gang of idiots on a nearby roof opening fire on everyone. Spider-Man flees, but the skinhead guys from earlier (Lead by a guy with long hair, I guess he just likes to be different) hit him with a “sonar tag” so they can track him. That’s usually his department!
Meanwhile, at Norman’s estate, Liz is being informed that she & Normie will be moving in with Norman. When she objects, she’s told it’s not a request. It’s all very much like the Harry stuff near the end of his life. Which I guess is fitting, but also makes it feel stale and done already. Also, Bennett is drawing little Normie with the inexplicable family cornrows. Speaking of, he’s playing in his room when an unseen figure opens his window, and Normie reacts by saying, “Daddy?” Surely not. They wouldn’t, would they? They might! At their hotel, Aura & Override argue about continuing on this stupid bounty, Aura worrying they’ll get hurt, but her husband overriding her feelings. Eh? Eh? Fine, whatever.
Funny how reality can hit you in the face like that. Peter rides the subway home, thinking that it took that moment for him to finally hear what MJ was saying earlier, and to begin pondering if he really should stop being Spider-Man. But as soon as he emerges from the subway, those goons are after him with the lasers (From a distance, so they can’t see who he is), and he’s forced back into the suit immediately.
Spidey flees to a park, where he quickly webs up the space between some poles in the hopes of using it like “a big ol’ pest strip.” Then the dopes are on him, and a beat cop wanders in, too. Spidey get one of the dopes into his web trap, but then the cop distractions, and then Aura & Override show up, Aura’s wild blast collapsing some masonry on the cop. Things are getting out of hand. But Override is actually helpful…
“Slazer?”
Well, that’s grim! But wait, there’s more!
So Norman would even use his grandson as a pawn in this stuff. What a cool guy. A pretty explosive opening round to this crossover. Unusually light on horrible “comedy” for DeZago, too. More next time.