This year, Marvel tried something weird with the annuals and made them all team-ups. One Jack Morelli writes, Joyce Chen draws, Andy Lanning inks, Christie Scheele colors. Jack Morelli is actually John, and Joyce Chin’s name is spelled wrong. John apparently worked a lot as a letterer, but only wrote 2 comics. He’s also married to Christie Schelle and in the Spider-Man suit on the cover of MTU 128. How bout that?
Oh man, he’s gonna be a WRITER writer, ok.
If you have to explain your figure of speech, maybe you shouldn’t use it. The Silencer says some stuff in Italian, injects something into this guy, then breaks his neck when he won’t talk, all under a lot of florid language. As we see Asam laid out under a big poster revealing he used to be a boxer called Big Bear, we’re told this story is called “The Night They Killed Big Bear.” I wonder if Spider-Man will be in it. Not yet, we’re off to see a guy called Max Igoe, Daily Bugle sports writer. A page full of text tells us he’s a very decorated writer with a screenplay he wants to write as he climbs out his window and jumps to his death. Except Spider-Man catches him on… a 2nd title page? “…It Was Written In The Stars.” Ok!
Everyone who’s ever made fun of Brian Michael Bendis for putting too much dialogue on a page owes him an apology.
Well, you can’t say this book doesn’t have personality. Now we’re off to meet Mac Stewart, who’s apparently a player in Elektra’s monthly in this period, and who’s been beaten almost to death in her book by The Hand for some reason. And now he’s home from the hospital in a wheelchair, contemplating a package from Sam. But, of course, some goons bust in looking for it, and after the work him over a little, they find themselves dealing with Elektra. Who apparently has a bounty on her head (It’s going around lately!), so the goons are keen to kill her.
Elektra has no problem with goons, but then The Silencer appears in a cloud of captions talking about how scary he is. Elektra fights, anyway, but her attacks go right through him. Meanwhile, one of the goons finds the package, but the boss is busy grabbing Elektra’s sais and crushing their blades in his hands.
Is Mac dead? Who knows? Peter Parker is at home with his lovely bride, where he’s telling her he’s been copying the Bugle’s back issue files, so he has a big archive on their computer (I have never seen them with a computer), and he’s looking up Sam’s back story. A pretty standard deal involving coming up from nothing, becoming the champ, being told to throw a fight, getting kicked out of boxing. He’s almost Matt Murdock’s dad, except he lived a lot longer. Peter decides there’s nothing in his files he doesn’t already know and to just go see that Scarpetti guy. Not sure why that wasn’t option 1.
Mac gives Elektra more of Sam’s backstory, then sets her on the path to Scarpetti, also. Scarpetti’s at his rich people house, about to open the box Sam sent Mac. Spider-Man’s in his window watching, but then Elektra crashes through the door on top of Scarpetti’s bodyguard, so Spidey comes in through the window.
That was somewhat hard to follow. Next page, Elektra’s back in her nurse costume, knocking out a goon also impersonating a nurse trying to kill Mac. Spidey comes in the window, and Elektra tells Mac the package was a tape, but they don’t understand the message on it. So she plays it for him.
Sam talks like a 70s Jack Kirby character.
Well, I don’t know much about Elektra, really, but I’m bettin’ Mac didn’t make it out of her 90s series alive, ‘cuz I’ve never heard of him. Oh, looking it up, her title ended the same month this was published. Anything can happen here, as long as it happens to Mac! Well, the heroes sneak into the planetarium, and Spider-Man finds the spot he was looking for, and what do you know, there’s a key and a note hidden in one of the “stars.” The note points them to a locker in a boxing gym, but before they can go check it out, The Silencer shows up.
Over the years, Art Adams’ drawings of women have become more and more aggressively, embarrassingly sexualized. Joyce Chin is his wife. I guess it’s just a family business.
Elektra keeps Silencer’s focus on her while Spider-Man picks up the meteor that inexplicably hurts him and chucks it right at him. For a guy who abhors killing, he sure seems to have killed the guy as he kind of disintegrates or maybe gets absorbed by the meteor, hard to say. This comic is too hard boiled to say.
Pretty certain yes, finito, but I’ll look it up, sure. Nope. finito. This was fun, tho. A different flavor. If you’re gonna be 6th Spider-Man comic out this month, the least you can do is try to do something different.
