Is one of them Ja Rule? That’s a very old reference. Love that the parent thing is back on the cover. And Maximum Carnage fans: This one’s for you! I’m not sure I believe you exist, but this one’s for you! Al Milgrom pitches in on inks this month, and page one is a Juror (Do they call them that?) about to rip off Spider-Man’s mask.
“We’re men of honor! Forget about the whole ‘willing to let a kid die to go on this witch hunt’ thing!” Jowls over there said the magic word, and Peter is off and running recapping his origin to himself for a page. Then he returns to the matter at hand.
“We’ve got our eye on you, guy who refused to let a child die!” I don’t know if it’s coming across, but I’m having trouble buying into this. Meanwhile, MJ finds out her job on Secret Hospital is being reduced to a recurring role. She is, obviously, very unhappy, and goes to have an angry lunch at a cafe, casually mentioning to herself that Peter didn’t come home last night.
A shocking turn in this non-starter of a storyline. I can’t believe this was the best they could do for MJ. 4 writers and twice as many editors at any given time and nobody could come up with plots for her? Once the most vibrant character in the cast, now she’s purely a sex object or a nag, depending on the scene. I’ve said it before, but when people say they hated Peter & MJ being married, I have to wonder how much of that comes from MJ having her entire life removed from the book to become a frequently unhinged housewife who does nothing but worry Peter is dead. You almost wonder if they hoped fandom at large would demand they break up or something. That seems a little much, but it’s a better explanation for all the terrible choices made around the character in the 90s than just /shrug. At any rate, Spider-Man is currently being given a soda through a straw by Ramshot, who explains why they’ve come after him. Spidey can tell Ram-Man isn’t into this, and starts trying to talk him into helping, but then the bossman comes in and gets angry that someone on his team isn’t a delusional psychopath.
What if they revealed Richard & Mary were real, but Aunt May was an imposter? That would’ve been pretty wild. Elsewhere, Spider-Man remembers he’s Spider-Man and tears himself loose. He’s still very groggy, though, and barely keeps ahead of the various lasers and such when his captors realize he’s free. He tries to just bail out a window, but he’s still tangled in those cords, and one of the Jury dorks grabs a trailing line and drags him back inside… and then the comic is completely hijacked by advertising. First there’s a 5-page pitch for you to buy Suicide Run, the crossover between Punisher’s three(!) monthlies that tried very hard to make you believe he would die at the end (He did not). This only a year after a crossover called “Final Days” in which he also didn’t die. Good Christopher Golden covers, tho, as I recall. Then 7 pages (SEVEN PAGES!) pretending to be a magazine called “Juice” highlighting The New Warriors for some reason. And all this bookended by 2 pages desperately trying to get you to come buy video games from KayBee Toys. 14 pages of uninterrupted ads in the middle of Marvel comics this month. Holy hell.
When that lady says it’s all because of Venom, this prompts Spider-Man to spend SIX pages recapping how he got the black suit and it later became Venom and Venom later begat Carnage and then Maximum Carnage happened. A lot of history in this book! Then a 2-page ad for a SNES game. Man, this issue has zero chance of flowing well. I stopped reading for a few minutes to do other things after the 14-page ad section without even really realizing what I’d done, I was completely taken out of it. As that lady yells “how could you do it!?” at Spider-Man, we cut to his parents fresh out of getting jobs as Russian translators at the United Nations. They seem very happy. Then, back to the flashbacks, as that lady recounts how she is the mother of the little girl Venom tried to comfort in the toy store in ASM 374. Yes, all the people Venom really did kill who didn’t deserve it, and this is what we’re doing.
Boy, am I hatin’ this story. This is maybe a new low for Michelinie’s entire run. LOVE that the coming emo Spider and clone dreck are touted here as the “most sensational” era of all. How’d that work out for ya, fellas? At least Michelinie got out of that one unscathed. Picked the right time to hop off the train.