See? It’s basically Superman. Scott Hanna is back.
“Look how tough and cool our new villain is, that he can so fully overpower Spider-Man’s greatest foe. What are you doing? Taking bets on which one will still be a going concern in a year? Stop that!” Superman has yanked one of Ock’s robot arms out and taken him to some super science place and restrained him, all the while making it clear he knew Otto before he was Ock, but Ock doesn’t know him. He then announces his new name is Captain Power. I guess the ™ must’ve run out on that toy line from the 80s.
Kinda just want to see Ock whup this guy without Spider-Man. Byrne legit is just drawing Superman, tho. No stranger to the character, there’s plenty to compare to. What a bizarre choice. Peter Parker is at the crime scene, furiously recapping what happened last issue, the new version of his origin, the fact that he’s Spider-Man, etc, before thinking the cops and staff surely won’t let him or anyone near Rickman now, so he might as well go check in on his alleged job at Tricorp and then see Aunt May. The area with the weird cut out of Ock’s head on the previous page continues here, with a tiny Peter walking away, and on the next page, as Ock’s severed tentacle kills a cop and flees the scene, and again on the next page, as Peter really does go to his job for the first time in seven or eight months of TWO comic books!
Spoilers: He is totally going to blow this one. But also:
Guy-with-sucker makes his first appearance. And I am telling you now, we will genuinely never find out who he is. Oh, this plotline will get resolved, but in a way that is so obviously not as it was intended, it’s crazy. Well, Jill shows up at the Parker residence terrified of whatever’s goin’ on with her dad and Senator Ward, and Peter’s so distracted he’s not paying much attention when he suddenly has an idea about the Ock situation. Then Paul shows up to exposit how he hates Spider-Man and Peter for the deaths of Gwen and George, which is maybe fair considering how little screen time he’s gotten in the last year, and drags Jill away.
MJ with the overalls! What a look. I can’t imagine how difficult it was for one of comics’ horniest artists to draw her this way. Meanwhile, Spider-Man returns to the scene of his new origin, still understandably traumatized by being blown up as a 15-year old, to see if there’s any clues. And perhaps inside (I sure don’t remember), Superman’s still doing whatever he’s doing as Ock calls him “Chris,” revealing he’s figured out who he’s dealing with.
Right-o! Spider-Man shows up in time to see Superchris burst out of the roof so fast Spidey couldn’t see what he was (Faster than, perhaps, a speeding bullet?), and goes inside to find Ock still strapped to the wall, saying he helped “the bad guy” figure out who he was after, and maybe even saved some lives in the process. But then his loose tentacle gets our hero in a chokehold.
Boy oh boy. Somehow, the rampant coincidences of Chapter One extend to this. Dr. Twaki’s secret past with Doc Ock revealed. Blllluh.
So yer tellin me that the explosion that gave Doc Ock his powers, and gave the spider the ability to give Spider-Man his powers… also allowed this woman to turn into “Captain Power?” This is too much. It’s not Superman, it’s Shazam, and she’s Billy Batson. What an insssssssane idea. Spidey smashes in just in time to save Twaki by calling Superman by his full real name. I’m back to Superman because he starts attacking with his heat vision, Shazam doesn’t have that one. Spidey manages to attach some pseudo-science jumper cables to the villain as he bounces around.
I literally believe a guy can stick to walls more than I believe this woman has a “mutagen in her blood” that turns her into Superman. Come on, dudes. Also, the attempt at scifi explanation really doesn’t land too well.
But.. if there’s only 3 of them left.. Where did Superman go? Who did Ock tell him/her to go after? Was it Rickman? Is Peter not suspicious? Boy, this sucks.
But Peter was totally getting photos of Spider-Man while he wasn’t Spider-Man… Well, whatever.