Will we really learn who’s under those masks? I don’t remember. I bought this issue, even though most months I was only buying Adjectiveless at this point, just to see who those guys were, and yet I don’t remember. Which, I assume, means either it’s fake or underwhelming. Yay! We open extremely in medias res…
With off-brand Frank Miller 1st person narration. What’s going on?
I mean, you might not believe Spider-Man, but seeing the other mangled exo-suit would probably be a good tip off. Whoops! This must be Fortunato’s place, given his alliance with Hydra back in SM 73 & 74. Fortunato was Howard Mackie’s guy, it’s weird DeFalco grabbed onto him so hard. Anyway, Tarantula rips the thing open and chucks the guy out, and Spider-Man takes the chance to flash back to how he got here. Sort of. First he flashes back to showing MJ the photo from last issue and begging her to leave town, but she won’t. They both agree her teacher is the most likely target in the photo, and MJ says she needs to go talk to Marina to find out what’s going on. So the next day, she does, and while she does, Spider-Man finds that weird little Chesboro guy staking out her place, as he does, and drops in for a chat. Chessy says he’s obviously here on behalf of his employer, and leaves when Spidey tells him to. But he says Spider-Man will regret this, which we have seen he does!
CARLOS THE DEATH? Come OOOOOOOOOOON, man!
Well, that’s that. It seemed extremely unlikely that Black Tarantula would wind up being someone we knew, and so he isn’t. Wonder if he ever met one of the other Tarantulas. Would be funny to see this all-powerful immortal whatever whup Mr. Pointy Toes. This Dante’s godfather has to be Fortunato, which is just ridiculous, but that’s how these kind of things go. So Marina fled a marriage to a dangerous crimelord and IMMEDIATELY jumped into a different crime family? What a dumby. This entire comic being a flashback is really annoying. Marina and Dante fled, and MJ insisted on going with them, which is very plucky and courageous of her, but also really, really stupid, and she should know better. She knows Spider-Man is on the case, why place herself in danger? Well, anyway, Spider-Man follows that car, ruminating on how he can’t beat Black Tarantula, and then there’s this, STILL in flashback…
I don’t even know what to think about this. Conover??? That really doesn’t fly for me at all. This from a man who thought Roderick Kingsley was too much of a weakling to be Hobgoblin!? What, did he want his own Frederick Foswell? Ugh. What a lame reveal. Altho I guess it’s nice Richard Fisk wasn’t this particularly lame and ineffectual version of The Rose. Whatever happened to Fisk, anyway? We saw him in witness protection in SM 43, after being arrested in Web 100. And that’s it until Brian Michael Bendis’ Daredevil run begins in the early 2000s. Well, I guess Tom might’ve told Roger Stern about it so Conover could be extra weird in Hobgoblin Lives. This still feels super weak, tho. Conover wrote the in-universe article “The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man,” this is doing him dirty. At any rate, Spidey figures out where they’re going, and then BT smashes in through the front gate of Fortunato’s estate, making me think yet again that there’s a lot of John Buscema in Bennett’s art in this period, but with a contemporary twist.
Spidey’s pretty upset as those guys go up in a fiery explosion, but when he attacks, Black Tarantula grabs him by the ankle and smashes him down on his arm, bringing him to the injury from page one. Maybe we’ll get out of the flashback soon. Then we see BT wreck the first big mech suit, and then Spider-Man run in and find out Marina’s kid is BT’s son, since he wasn’t in the room when MJ found out, and hey, we’re back in the present.
Still using his tranquilizer version of Ben’s stingers, eh? Or were Ben’s also drugged? I don’t even remember. As Tarnatula’s son tells his mom how scared he is and Conover worries about his immediate future, Spidey deploys Ben’s impact webbing to pin his foe to the wall for a second. The real Spider-Man having to adopt new toys dreamed up by his clone is lame to me.
BT made it personal. Man they keep referencing that baby they were told to never mention again. They keep at it for awhile longer, and Spider-Man’s running on fumes, but he’s being more obnoxious than ever, trying to sound like he’s ok.
Ok, but we still don’t really know if BT is immortal or whatever. He said Black Tarantula has been passed down through his family for 700 years, but how much of that time was him? Ah, well. They really did unmask them. Good of them to make good on their promise, regardless of the outcome. But with DeFalco on his way out the door, it was either rush into this or lose the chance to unmask a Rose for the 2nd time. Had to get in where he fit in…