This striking cover by Mark Buckingham is the egregious swipe of Joe Bennett from SMU 18 I caught last time we were in this period. I always liked this cover, it stuck in my head. A simple, dynamic Spider-Man. And he stole it, precious. Who is Spider-Man in ASM? Why, he’s Ricochet, the most 90s looking of the 4 heroes.
Exposed hair for no reason? Leather jacket? That’s the 90s ,baby. He also feels more like a DC character to me, but maybe he just reminds me of Spider-Boy. It’s Tom DeFalco, Joe Bennett, Bud La Rosa & Bob Sharen, here with their take on an undercover Spider-Man. Ricochet is already fighting some guys on page one.
Going to the trouble of dying his hair to be this guy seems like a lot.
I like how Bennett is still very much using the body language of Spider-Man. It’s not as easy to maintain with a character like Hornet, but here, if someone really familiar with Spider-Man saw this guy fighting, he might get suspicious.
There’s also the matter of the eyes on the mask looking very familiar in these closeups. Peter flashes back to how he was at work talking to Ben Urich, who turned up info about Black Tarantula going back to before World War I. Another ludicrously overpowered, seemingly immortal villain? Then MJ showed up to remind Peter he promised to take her shopping. But before they could leave…
Bennett came so far on this book. He’s reached a point where his stuff looks like its time and also almost looks like it would fit in in the 60s and 70s. He doesn’t really do the Romita, Sr. house style or anything, but he evokes it in his own way. Really nice. Norman’s reaction to The Robertsons’ itinerary is because Joe is secretly on a fact finding mission. He and Martha happen to be going to places where Joe can look into Osborn’s missing years, like confirming he owns a particular yacht. This is gonna blow up when Martha figures it out. But right now, she’s having a blast. Also all that happened during Peter’s flashback even though he didn’t know it, which is very weird storytelling. The flashback continues:
I like their banter on this page and the next.
Just nice to see them having fun again. Back in the present, Peter recaps that MJ came up with the suit and the name, and that he wasn’t planning on making Ricochet a “less-than-law-abiding” character, but it seemed like a good way to get Black Tarantula’s attention, especially with someone following him. To that end, he doubles back and confronts the woman who turns out to be Delilah. She tells him the guys he busted up work for BT, then says she works for a rival organization looking for new recruits as she begins attacking him. When he reacts in shock, she says there’s no better way to determine if he’s got what it takes. But then there’s this…
Well, seems like that’s it for her. And of COURSE there’s a mysterious figure watching. So, did she just give those guys Baby May? Seems like she should have. Back in New York, the battle continues, with Delilah repeating the notion that Black Tarantula is “virtually immortal and unkillable” in her signature too many fonts and type colors styles. Elsewhere, Fortunato is mediating for BT and The Rose, who gave up his part of the hijacking business to BT and wants payment. It seems like it’s going pretty well. Someone should maybe tell Delilah…
One assumes! Meanwhile, MJ & Shantal are getting out of class so we can be reminded that Black Tarantula’s little crony is stalking their professor. And in Italy, would you believe the yacht Joe was secretly trying to check out just blew up? And would you believe the woman who sure looked like she died on it just washed up on shore, still alive? What were the odds?? And back in New York…
Seems like a dangerous move to pretend to work for The Rose. But, with only one issue left, probably can’t amount to much. We’ll see in a few posts. For now, we’re off to see what the Adjectiveless crew are doing for this. And that one should pretty obvious given the most recent issue.