It’s a big month as Marvel has finally run out of gatefold covers. They gave up on the recap pages months prior, sadly, just running 2 ads on the inside cover instead of 1 since, but now that’s over. Recap pages will come back when Joe Quesada takes over in a year and stay in place through to today. The letter column for ASM 4 had the nerve to try to make you wonder who the new Spider-Woman could be. After 2 months of a superpowered teenage girl impersonating Spider-Man. Come on, guys. Seriously. Something’s gone very wrong on this cover. It looks like the line art’s not quite reproduced properly, and one assumes getting that really embarrassing 3D cityscape behind it played a role. I mean, full credit to Byrne for embracing new technologies and all, but those textures! Good grief. Without the webs, Maddie’s eye holes seem even farther apart than Peter’s. Neither of them even knows they have a 6th sense that guides them through life like Daredevil since they can’t see out of their masks. Scott Hanna’s credited with finishes on this one, rather than just inks, a role I suspect he’s been playing for most of these issues. Well, we open on cops in a losing standoff with some guys in power suits. It must be said, because I try to be as fair as possible around here, Byrne’s guys in power suits are way less jarringly of their time than the flood of guys in power suits in the mid-90s comics we looked at. These suits look perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, these goons talk about going back to “Y2K Base Camp,” so timelessness: destroyed! They’re stealing gold so they’ll have funds when the world’s computers go down at the end of the year, you see. Ripped from the headlines! Then Spider-Woman shows up and starts taking them apart. One of them asks if she’s Spider-Girl, and she bristles at that.
Spider-Woman is most assuredly not here to stay. Jessica Drew is still not in the suit at this time. Julia Carpenter has quit the biz to raise her child. So the name’s open at this point, but, uh, Maddie is not exactly going to be the next Marvel superstar. But, while Jessica Drew is out of the hero game, she’s not just relaxing. She’s a private investigator, and here she comes now!
What could this mean? I’ll give you a hint: It’s stupid. Meanwhile, in Manhattan, MJ is in a flurry of activity as she gets ready to go on yet another modeling job while Peter eats wheatcakes and Aunt May frets, just in case you don’t know the current status quo. Then MJ says she can’t find her carry on bag and is just gonna use his, sending him bounding up the stairs in a panic.
That can’t work out too well, can it? But wait, there’s more Spider-Women to cameo:
Why is someone hunting Spider-Women? Especially since none of them have anything to do with each other, or even the same powers? Don’t expect a satisfying answer. Peter stops in at The Bugle so Betty can info dump at him about the tip she got from a SHIELD contact that the other Spider-Women are in critical condition following attacks (She doesn’t know their top secret names), and JJJ is freaking out about the new Spider-Woman, and he thinks she is Spider-Man’s next target, since he’s obviously behind this. But Peter is left thinking Maddie might’ve gone after the other 2, and suits up to go looking for her. Remember Peter’s new job? Or his college classes? Those sure were things.
Our man comes on the scene just in time to warn Maddie that she’s about to get chomped by the monster she’s not paying attention to, but then she does get chomped, and THEN she starts beating up the creature from the inside, to Spider-Man’s horror. He dives into the remaining monsters as Spider-Woman emerges from hers and starts beating up other ones.
Oh, they’ve gone from “Maddie” to “Mattie.” Ok, sure. An unseen form swoops in and nearly gets them, shattering the ledge they were standing on. Spider-Man saves Spider-Woman, but then the unseen form swoops again, separating them. The 2 of them are getting pretty beat up by their still unseen foe as they wind up down on the street in an alley, still under assault.
Yes, why would a single brand-new, out of nowhere Spider-Woman appear, when you could instead have TWO? This is only the beginning of a 3-part story that’s little more than hype for the already announced newSpider-Woman #1,