I get what Ringo was going for with Black Cat here, and it’s a funny idea, but it doesn’t quite read properly. Felicia briefly seemed to have bad luck powers again last issue, seemingly out of nowhere, but if that’s true, she should do pretty well in Murderworld. This month’s line artist is Javier Saltares, who seemed to be kind of a pinch hitter around the Marvel offices at this time. A splash page recaps the situation as Spidey and Black Cat wake up in the world’s most cost ineffective way to assassinate people.
When did she get bad luck powers again? I mean, it could have happened, she’s had her own series since she got her cybernetic replacement powers and stuff, but I didn’t see it. Spidey just webs a laser and makes it shoot the other ones. That wasn’t so bad. Arcade reveals he has the kid they’re after, so they have to survive to get him. Meanwhile, JJJ has come to see Billy Walters at home. JJJ assigned him to look into Norman last block, not knowing Robbie is doing his own investigation, and Billy has produced some evidence: a paper trail linking Osborn to “like, real trouble” (Zoinks, Scoob)…
Wait, JJJ DOES know about Robbie’s secret mission?? Shouldn’t that have been covered somewhere else?? We don’t get to hear what Billy tells him next, because we’re back to the A plot. Arcade demonstrates that he now has them in a maze where the rooms explode if they stay in them too long. Felicia almost calls our hero Peter for some reason, even tho he should always be “Spider” to her, and they begin running through the maze, dodging explosions and trap doors and whatnot.
Har har. Why not… remove the sensors??? But also…
The subplots are way more interesting than the main plot this month Murderworld is stupid and there’s no threat that either hero won’t make it out, so who really cares? Back at the fight, Spidey and Cat wind up fighting the robots of each other rather than their own duplicates. Spidey takes down fake Cat, but BC herself is hit in the back of the head by the Spider-Bot and knocked out. Spidey has no choice but to pick her up and run for it.
Every time a 90s writer uses “dweeb,” an angel loses its wings. Spider-Man surprises and horrifies Arcade by chucking Felicia’s unconscious form into the blades, revealing it to be the robot Felicia.
How very Scooby Doo. That makes not a shred of sense. How could Arcade not notice the switch? It was plainly not shown to the reader, either. Well, day saved, the heroes go looking for their kid, telling us that Arcade told them that he’d been hired by some drug dealer to take out the competition, and picked up Dougie by mistake. And then they find him in a room full of corpses. That’s a pretty grim ending for an episode of Scooby Doo. The traumatized boy begs them to get him out of there. Sheesh. And the, abruptly and awkwardly on the next page…
It’s never not funny to me when comics have these long internal monologues while people just stare at each other.
Well, there’s a rushed and unsatisfying end to that subplot. I suspect that’s because everyone needs to be finishing up their business while they still can. And to that point, the next issue of ASM promises some big revelations…