Man this is weird. “He’s fought the Sinister Six all at once, and now Spider-Man’s going to have to fight them… in various smaller groups!” Seems like it should be the other way around. Byrne once again gets top billing as we find Sandman reforming in an alleyway, the dopey slapstick of last issue forgotten. Now his predicament is deadly serious, and he blames Mysterio. Somehow.
Ooooohkay. Meanwhile:
Peter decides to walk to this new job opportunity while recapping his recent trials for 2 pages. Then a woman who barely speaks English runs out into the street looking for help and pulls Peter inside.
Given how insane Peter’s life is right now, you’ll never guess what happens.
Peter is arrested and put in the back of a squad car, improbably caught up in some kind of drug raid, but then the cops respond to another call, and it’s Sandman tearing up the street and anyone on it. Then the last part of Fast Lane appears. Why did they take a month off? Well, ANYWAY, Peter yanks the cops out of a maelstrom of sand, which shreds his suit and breaks his watch, then gets into character and chases Sandman into a warehouse… and through the door, finds himself in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan. As Sandman rages at the as yet unseen Mysterio, Spider-Man is slow on the uptake. As usual in Mysterio stories. Which is why I don’t like them.
Then Electro appears and starts zapping at the both of them, then Mysterio finally shows, just standing in his smoke as usual. Our man finally has an idea.
Spoilers: he’s going to. This month, they run letters about MJ’s death. They say a lot of people are very mad at them. They at least have the decency to run a letter by someone sarcastically bringing up how Norman and May just came back from the dead, and guessing that MJ’s stalker is Gwen Stacy. But they mostly run people who are mad MJ is dead. Their last letter is by a guy saying he knows she lived because an emergency door is shown blown off the plane in the explosion, and they joke about how that’s a misprint on his copy. So cynical.