Pitched battle begins on the splash page this month. Spider-Man, Lizard and Boomerang take turns recapping as Lizard tears around the room. Liz says the effects of the tablet have given him “a better understanding of his very reason for being,” but that just lead to the usual “reptiles will rule” nonsense, so maybe not that much better.
Random joke about the recently released X-Men movie, which Spider-Man will, indeed, way outperform in a couple years.
Spider-Man makes off with the Eel, but we turn our attention to Boomerang licking his wounds in an abandoned warehouse. The funniest gag in this entire series is him producing a phone which is also a boomerang to call Hammerhead, who demands Boomerang find Connors/the Lizard right now. Bommy put “a tracerang” on him, so he can apparently do that. And if he found him this moment, he’d be in the sewer, listening to Lizard do his usual yammering about reptile supremacy. While Boomy gets a fix on where Lizard is, and Hammerhead and his goons head that way, Spider-Man meets Arthur and that Wilson guy who started all this at the museum. Wilson says he withheld info about the tablet from everyone “for the benefit of mankind.”
Ok! Lizard pops out of the sewer and begins scaling the side of the hospital to the panic of various onlookers, but then Boomerang catches him in a big net. Kind of stealing Spider-Man’s shtick there, Boomy. Meanwhile, in Queens, Arthur has learned Hammerhead’s sister has been a patient at that hospital for some time now. Hammy is at her bedside now, in distress, when Boomerang flies up to the window with the Lizard in tow.
Spider-Man finds his way up there as Lizard’s doing his usual about replacing people with reptiles, now reptiles he plans to enhance with the tablet. Hammerhead says Lizard’s plan won’t work with him, and he won’t do anything until his sister is saved. Even the Lizard is surprised by Hammerhead’s compassion, but then Spidey pop in to say he’s got the missing piece of the tablet in his shoulder bag (The one time someone else should have drawn Romita, Jr.’s bag, and Rude didn’t do it).
Pretty chaotic! As everyone fights it out, Hammerhead just drinks the stuff. And suddenly, the room is filled with light.
The cops are about to bust in when Spider-Man appears at the window with a little white flag. Hammy’s sister seems like she’s gonna be find, the Connors family randomly appears, with Billy saying they were being held just a few rooms down when Man Mountain Marko and the Eel sprung them just now, and all is well. Spidey supposed they were trying to get a reduced sentence. I suppose Rude threw the family into the shot and Nicieza was doing backflips trying to justify it.
Well, there you have it. The tablet will certainly never appear in another story, and Curt will never again become the Lizard. No, sir. Very consequential stuff!