Pow, right in the jaw! How much could that really hurt in a suit of armor? That webline taut against Spider-Man’s throat sure is an odd choice. And yet, one assumes a guy who can lift a city bus probably has the muscle strength to not even notice. I don’t know how superheroes aren’t just constantly ripping doors off their hinges or falling through walls they try to lean against or crushing people’s hands to powder in a handshake, just by accident, not even thinking about it. Being Superman would be like if every doorknob in the world was an egg. No inker is credited this month. Did Jr. ink this himself? He’s inked so little of his work, but when he’s done convention sketches or something, his inking style has usually been a lot rougher than any of his collaborators. I’d totally believe they just accidentally left off Scott Hanna’s credit. It looks Hanna-y. Well, Doom has blindfolded military guys reporting to him, and he’s really mad about last issue., and he’s probably just a Doombot, and he says the resistance has gotten much more brazen since Stryfe showed up in Lateveria. Stryfe is an X-Force villain, the real son of Cyclops, of whom Cable is a clone, and I have no idea why he was in Latveria. The “Next Issue” blurbs in ASM & PPSM 14 seemed to indicate he’d play a bigger role in this. Anyway the point is
John Romita, Jr. rules. As Spider-Man hides like last issue, Doom(bot) sends out the army to wreak havoc on the city. Spidey recaps things as they do terrible things to the populace, and when the big explosions start, our man thinks he’s got to get out there.
I have no idea how old this girl is supposed to be. She seemed to de-age like 15 years during last issue, and now she looks even younger.
Peter kicks the Doombot and then hustles the girl out of the city. To what end, I’m not sure. But soon they’re in the countryside, waiting it out, when 3 jets fly overhead and start bombing the crap out of the city, and Peter can’t stand by another second. Things aren’t going well for the home team, either.
The Doombot is executing friends and foes alike, and is about to kill the girl’s dad when another awesome 2-page splash happens:
The Latverian military leaps into action, and through a couple of dazzling pages, Spider-Man dodges and leaps through their attacks to get back to the Doombot, tricking them into shooting a big hole in its chest to reveal its true nature.
Ok, sure. Whatever. This month, they got some mail wondering if the fallout from JJJ having the chance to unmask Spider-Man happened in some other title or something, since they just dropped it without a word. And their response is that they left it a cliffhanger “to toy with you.” Yeah, no. You just dropped it for awhile, and it’s jarring and lame.