The book they were calling Peter Parker: Spider-Man in November started as just Spider-Man, and I always thought of it as such. But this is Peter Parker: Spider-Man, and shall be PPSM henceforth. Despite my randomly deciding to call Spectacular TAC as a kid, I have always loved its unwieldy official abbreviation PPTSM from before it dropped the “Peter Parker,” so now I can see how the other half lives. Does any of this matter? Not a bit! This issue also features a wraparound cover, and I gotta say, Romita didn’t exactly swing for the fences.
Byrne teased every single character who appeared in his book, Johnny just drew our hero. Which, actually, is going to be very much in fashion at Marvel in about a year. He’s ahead of the game! PPSM is the SM dream team, Howard Mackie, Romita, Jr., Scott Hanna & Gregory Wright, keeping the band together in this bold new era. Here’s to consistency! To start, Peter Parker “youthful” photographer (Mackie still hammering on how young he is) has stumbled on the new Spider-Man fighting armored villains who call themselves the Agents of Anarchy, who, he’s heard, at trying to break an international terrorist called the Ranger out of jail.
Peter continues critiquing the new Spider-Man, thinking he would’ve used more webbing or made more jokes, but this guy seems to have it under control. He almost wonders if it’s a clone before forcing himself not to. Then he sees one of the goons has slipped by Spidey and is freeing this Ranger guy.
Peter having some fun talking trash about Spider-Man is really amusing. Peter actually being around when Betty shows up, as opposed to leaping away, is unique. When this was coming out, I think I was annoyed about the idea of yet another person replacing Peter as Spider-Man, but as with the first salvo of Ben Reilly issues, knowing what happens and being so far away from it makes this much more fun to read. And, of course, I am a broken record on this, but the book looks phenomenal.
JJJ’s really gone over the edge again. Mackie said in that magazine I keep referencing that he wanted to make JJJ more of an antagonist for Spider-Man again after several years of softening up. In retrospect, this has kind of a FOX News feeling. If you don’t like the facts, just substitute your own. JJJ is Rupert Murdock. Anyway, Robbie lets us know Betty has an interview scheduled tomorrow with a Senator Ward, who Robbie says is probably going to be our next president. He says Ward came out of nowhere to take the country by storm, and not even Jonah could dig up any dirt on him. He suggests Peter go with Betty, and he’s up for it. But right now, his beeper’s going off, and he excuses himself.
Well, that sure doesn’t seem like a guy who, to quote Robbie, has no skeletons buried in his closet. That’s going to turn out to be a funny choice of words. Meanwhile, Peter is on the roof of the Bugle, and realizes he was about to just leap off out of habit. But then, deciding he could never get a cab and worried, he does so, anyway, and travels home by rooftops, worrying that May needs full-time care and he never should have been gone for so long.
Cute stuff. The quality of the inking takes a nose dive on the next 2 pages. Jimmy Palmiotti is credited with inking assists on this issue, but he’s no amateur. Maybe it was an emergency rush thing. Well, now it’s the next day, and Peter and Jill Stacy… STILL hanging around in this book!… are waiting for MJ at the airport. Security is unusually tight, as Peter has forgotten about Ward. MJ comes running out of her plane and leaps onto Peter (wearing her big goofy beret from SM 98), due to missing him so much. Then Ward also enters the airport. The ladies talk about how handsome he is. But then Peter notices a figure in the shadows, and I mean, who else could it be but…
Peter being Peter, he immediately compares him not stopping the Ranger yesterday to him not stopping the burglar who killed Uncle Ben. Who, in flashback, is shown as he appeared in 1962, NOT as he appeared in Chapter One. The book’s still in progress and already not legitimate. But then Spider-Man shows up, so Peter’s conscience can chill out. Spidey and the Ranger mix it up, Spidey having a tough go of it, Ranger saying he has no idea who he’s protecting.
Rangy takes them right through a window, then tosses Spider-Man into some crates and stalks toward the senator. Peter sees no one’s gonna get to them in time and tells MJ he’s got to do something. She says oh no he doesn’t, but…
And we’re off. I think this was a more satisfying start than ASM 1. And not just because of Romita. The Scorpion thing was weird and not as compelling as Ward and his secrets. But both have set things up nicely. Just how long can this new Spider-Man go unmasked? How long were they willing to keep Peter out of the suit? These were very much things I was more concerned with than any of the new plots as a lad. In that magazine I keep referencing, Mackie had 2 important points he wanted to guide this new era. One was he felt that the classic villains had been used way too often in recent years, making them less special. So, by and large, he wanted to try to come up with new villains for awhile. And the other was that ASM and PPSM would be related, as they had to be, but not so deeply that you had to read both. These introductory issues not withstanding, they’re supposed to tell separate stories with the occasional crossover. Things go catastrophically wrong immeidately. But, hey, there’s more of this issue, starting with a sketchbook by Romita, Jr.
There’s also pages for JJJ and Robbie, and one for the new Daily Bugle building. Mackie mentioned they blew up the old one in SM 98 because they felt it was such a bland and indistinct building. So they took the chance to redesign it into something more unique.
And then there’s this pretty surprising page:
Modeling backgrounds is very common these days, but it would’ve been way more of an undertaking in 1999. Would this have been AutoCad? That’s legit impressive. It also kind of explains how weird the apartment is. It looks more like a church. I don’t know if the design would’ve necessarily wound up there on paper. Finally, we have a short by Mackie, Andy Smith, Brad Vancata and Mark Bernardo about a very young Peter. Short enough that I’m just gonna run the whole thing.
Andy Smith is much better at drawing kids than adults. Rare for his industry. And that’s that for issue one.