You can, perhaps, intuit that we’re in for some dopey business here. Just the kind of story I like the least, personally. Fans clearly love an alternate universe, a what if, things like that, but for me, if I’m gonna pay my $2 (In 1999) for an issue of Amazing Spider-Man, that’s what I want to read. Not… well, this…
If you want to present some goofy world where Flash is Spider-Man’s beloved, vaguely Adam Strange-looking sidekick, do a miniseries or something, so I can skip it. Also, Flash didn’t know Gwen in high school, altho, who knows in this whatever it is. Some energy flares and Flash tells Spidey they have to go, rushing into battle without his hero. This is all clearly some kinda fantasy Flash is living in, and someone’s commenting on it in captions. Doom has the FF all wrapped up and plans to open a portal to the Negative Zone (Hey, that part sounds familiar), but Spider-Man swoops in and starts fighting him, and then Flash appears to free the FF (Except for Sue, for some reason? That’s very Lee/Kirby of you, Flash).
That Spider-Man on the last page is bugging me. I don’t think Byrne swiped it or anything… whatever his faults, that’s not his style… but I do think it got reused somewhere. Probably in 2000s-era mass market packaging. From the 90s onward, it became standard practice to have a commercial artist copy a bunch of comic art for action figure packages, birthday decorations, shoes, etc, giving it all a uniform look. For example, this Mark Bagley Spider-Man…
…becomes this piece of promo art for a cartoon (I think drawn by Ty Templeton)…
…and this… whatever it is… (I think drawn by Scott Johnson)
Johnson, in particular, was the look of Marvel outside comics for the early-to-mid 2000s, but most of what he did was based on existing art. I think this is one of those. Maybe it’ll come back up. I just want to have it on the blog to refer back to. I’m so disinterested in this comic that this is the part I’m most invested in so far. Well, Flash and Spidey save the day while the FF watch, Reed saying they have things under control as usual. Then they get a parade, wherein Flash is seen wearing Thor’s helmet, Mayor Osborn gives them the key to the city. Blah blah blah.
I didn’t put Flash Thomspon: Super Jock on my pull list at the comic shop. I didn’t want this. My absolute least favorite trope. And it gets another issue next time.