I mean this doesn’t look good, right? What the hell is that Vulture costume? A tux with tails? How did this get published? Joe Andreani takes over as colorist this month. Page one, Spider-Man is about to drown, and we’re told he’s just suffered his first defeat. Then we roll back in time. Do NOT know why this unpleasant trope of comics past has reared its head again at the end of the 90s.
Yes, the Tinkerer story from ASM 2 doesn’t even get to be a story. Since Byrne’s made the insane decision to jam some of ASM 3 into a comic that already had 2 stories in it, something had to go.
No surprise Roger Stern’s retcon that the aliens weren’t aliens and Mysterio was one of them gets to stay, both because he and Byrne are long time friends and because it was a good retcon. I will say, because I really do try not to be too negative around the bad ones, and because I try to be fair, producing a Spider-Man origin that takes into account accepted changes, like MJ knowing and this Mysterio thing, is not a bad idea. Something that was closer to the original while also incorporating these changes would be cool. So, now we get right into the Vulture part of ASM 2. Peter goes to school and Flash is annoyed that all The Bugle talks about lately is the Vulture, wanting more about Spider-Man. Liz notes that it says they’re offering $2000 for good pictures of him, and that gives Peter an idea, as before. Then we check in with some diamond couriers as they’re about to be robbed.
I suppose the thought process is, what grown man would wear the Vulture costume, but you could say that about basically all superpeople. This is not a solution. He looks like he hosts a terrible variety show. Vulture bounces that guy off a bunch of buildings till he’s not there anymore, which is pretty hardcore. A footnote tells you if you want to know Vulture’s origin, make sure to look out for the zero issue that will end the series. I don’t remember that. I don’t have it. I read this, so I guess I knew about it, but I didn’t get it. Looking it up, it appears Byrne pushed the origins for Vutch, Lizard AND Sandman into this zero issue as part of his “streamlining.” Awful. Anyway, things proceed more or less in the original, as Peter asks Aunt May if they own a camera, and she produces a little one she says Uncle Ben bought at Coney Island a long time ago. Then Spider-Man goes out looking for Vulture. As before, he sees him, takes some photos, but the sound of his camera alerts Vulture, and Spidey ends up in a water tower, which is where he was drowning on page 1.
Note that Peter didn’t make his device to neutralize Vulture’s wings like he did in ASM 2. After JJJ tells him he’ll take all the photos he can bring, Peter leaves, returning to the school and Dr. Cobbwell’s office, wanting to recheck that radio now that he’s got a better handle on his danger sense. This is a brand-new sequence, and it continues like this:
While there has been some inconsistency over the decades, Flash is obviously not blond. Certainly not in ASM 2. You’d think Byrne would be a stickler about this. As before, Vulture’s next gag is popping up out of the sewer to steal more stuff. Byrne has skipped a lot of things in in issue 2 due to his dumb decision to cram in part of 3, so we skip Vultch’s escape into the sewer and Peter hearing about it on the radio and get right to him finding Vulture for round 2.
That actually makes less sense than him flying, if you asked me. But now Vultch and Tink are connected. Another solution to a problem that didn’t exist. JJJ’s assignment for Peter is to find out what happened to Dr. Octavius. We’re told no one’s seen or heard from him “since his people whisked him away from the hospital,” but also, JJJ somehow knows where Ock is holed up, in some science facility. How he knows is not explained. Of course, in ASM 3, we got Ock’s now already shown origin, and then he held the whole hospital hostage. Instead…
Another downgraded costume. This is a very 90s looking Doc Ock.
And so we end this issue roughly halfway through ASM 3. This is very chaotic.