Still seems weird to me that they got John Romita, Sr. for the Prodigy covers. I’m not complaining, but why just these? Or why not celebrity guests for all of them? Well, our hero is where we left him, being towered over by those losers, and he’s being written out of this predicament by Glenn Greenberg, one time assistant editor, now writer on this title. For a bit. Editor Ralph Macchio is inexplicably credited with “Waste” this month. Why? Well, our hero zips around, avoiding being crushed by the very large villains while recapping for us in his head. The recapping continues as the villains get even bigger until Jack finally snags Prodigy.
Right-o. Back at the Sufindian Embassy, Norman reassures the ambassador (And Flash) that he thinks Prodigy can bring back his daughter, and reassures himself that he can manipulate the new hero. Him wanting to control 2 of these characters has gotten too much screen time for a moot point.
I have to admit, Luke Ross is getting pretty good at this. His stuff has moved a lot from the bad J. Scott Campbell impression he came in with. Kind of a shame he’ll move on to the next trend (Photorealism) in a few years. With his eyes closed and his Spidey Sense guiding him, Prodigy gets the upper hand, but then Jack distracts him and throws his cat at him. Certainly not a typical supervillain move. Jack summons up a teleport or whatever he does, and as Prodigy pulls the cat off his face, his utterly pointless fake nose goes with him. Jack & Maguire port out, and Conundrum is about to ghost himself, so…
Conundrum IMMEDIATELY breaks loose from the cops, but Prodigy once more closes his eyes and knocks him out before he can vanish. The cops love it, Billy loves it. Prodigy does some Superman dialogue about rescuing the girl and then bounds away. One of the cops wonders if he could join the Avengers.
She gives him a kiss on the cheek and he wonders where she was when he was single (Probably somewhere being half your age, if I have read this story correctly, creepy!), when who should appear but Jack O’Lantern.
Kenneth: Hero bodyguard. Norman gives a long explanation of how they got there and whatnot,, and Prodigy is outraged. Norman knows way too much about the supposed power of that relic, also.
Pretty solid bit. Kind of thinking like Osborn to defeat him. With that handled, our hero is off.
Ross isn’t even really aping McFarlane’s Spider-Man anymore. This has really become pretty reasonable 1998 comic book art. And all’s well that ends well. Mostly.
Even the bad guys are having a great time. The letter page mentions that DeMatteis is done with Spectacular, but not with the Spider-Office, and his next project will be coming out soon. We’ll see some of that eventually, but not all of it. I find it extremely strange that they went to all this trouble for just 2 months. I mean, I guess you don’t want to go too long without Spider-Man appearing in any Spider-Man comics, although this particular situation is different from, say, the “Where Is Spider-Man?” stunt from 1986, what with Peter very much still the hero of the titles. But even so. You build up to the idea that he can’t be Spider-Man anymore for months, you introduce a solution that requires all sorts of new development work, and then you drop it in 2 months. Feels pretty weird to me. But, of course, this isn’t the last time we’ll see these costumes, either. And I wonder if that wasn’t the point all along…