Aw, man. Ghost Rider forgot to wear clothes today. He must be so embarrassed. We begin with the new Spider-Man, who is thinking the original couldn’t fly or glide, but made this look easy. Then he does a bunch of flips and bouncing down the sides of walls and such to get to the ground, thinking the original was his idol and he hopes they wouldn’t fight if he came back. Then Spidey sees the cops chasing a guy.
Meanwhile, Mary Jane is wrestling with Peter, playfully demanding to see that he’s not wearing his Spider-Man suit under his clothes. He affirms that that new Spider-Man is not him, and that’s ok. MJ runs down the many places she has to go for her career, and then Jill shows up.
Jill sure has been integrated into their life. I wonder whatever happened to Paul. Am I so lucky as to never see him again?
Who are all these old ladies??? Since when does Aunt May have friends? I mean, it’s nice, but you’d think any of them other than Anna might’ve appeared in the last 36 years. Meanwhile, we’re off to the now struggling Osborn Industries, now run by someone called John Stone, who is not having a good time. It’s going to get worse, because a guy covered in bandages just started a fire in the lobby, and a guy with a lot of earrings thinks he’s drawing too much attention. Earrings thinks he wants what Norman Osborn stole from him. Now we’re off again.
Science! Pour some stuff into some other stuff! Science!
Doesn’t seem like a taste you’d want to acquire. I don’t remember any of these people. Soon Peter is doing whatever his demo is, pouring more stuff into other stuff, but now in a heated environment and wearing a protective suit, when his stuff explodes. The Javier guy is seeming very suspicious about it. But, outside the lab, they hear Spider-Man’s fighting a supervillain at Osborn on TV. We learn one of Peter’s new coworkers or bosses or something is very interested in Spider-Man’s powers. They don’t say who and Byrne choses to only shown them all super tiny in far-away shots, so I have no idea who. So everyone’s going to watch TV, and whoever’s interested says he wants a team on the scene and to try to get a DNA sample. That seems bad.
Fire person burns through the floor, and Spider-Man soon finds him burning through a big vault door. Catching up, Spidey sees the bandages are falling off, and picks some up and yoinks…
The billboard gag is genuinely funny.
Why, it’s Maddie Franklin, the teen hastily, barely introduced (As “Matt Franklin”) in The Gathering of Five! Who could have guessed the rushed, awkward introduction of a character who disappeared immediately would have some intent behind it? I mean, genuinely, considering how many other randos had just been showing up in the books. Remember Dr. Angst? Me, neither. They sure didn’t waste time getting Peter back in the suit. And this is where the timeline becomes SHOCKINGLY bad. How 2 books written by one person could be this badly out of sync, I couldn’t tell you. Next issue picks up where this one left off. But it continues into PPSM 3. But in that Thor crossover mentioned on the last page, Peter is Spider-Man. Which means that PPSM 2 has to take place after this, and this continues into PPSM 3. Ergo, PPSM 2 is forced to take place after 3. Unbelievable.