I’ve had this out of whack for a long time, but PPSM is now 2 months ahead of ASM. For a second, anyway. We’re back to ASM, and 3 months of covers by the previously mentioned Frank Cho. A very buff Spider-Man, but I like the eyes. Inside, it’s the usual suspects, with the exception of Brian Haberlin on colors.
Page 2 is the rare 12-panel grid of Peter desperate but unable to fall asleep for 2 hours, until he does, abruptly. And not naturally, as a voice apologizes for knocking him out.
At least they didn’t make any promises they won’t keep in that caption this time.
Strange shows Peter how he met that spider-thing in the Astral Plane, and tells him he’s exposed himself to cosmic forces beyond his understanding. That he’s essentially made himself a target to the natural enemies of the spider. Which is all getting a bit too mystical for my tastes, but my tastes are on their way to being old and irrelevant in 2002. Strange came to warn him, and has to go, but tells him to open the entymology book on his shelf to page 35 when he wakes up.
Peter doesn’t like the sound of that, and as if on cue, we cut to a homeless guy being startled and probably killed by a void opening in the air in front of him nearby. Suddenly it’s 3 days later, Spider-Man is prowling the night, and he’s just about ready to say that was just a dream when is Spider Sense goes crazy.
Lemme tell you, I forgot all about this, but it sure is wild finding out this happened from where I sit in 2023.
So, like, realistically, how is this not just Morlun 2? Same basic setup. “You’re a spider totem, and things hunt spider totems.” More interesting character design, but same thing, really. Shaky place to be 16 issues into your run! Spidey tries one more time to reason with Shathra, who nearly rips his arm off for his trouble, and then it’s Fightin’ Time. A flying kick to the solar plexus (or bug person equivalent) and getting hit with a girder so hard she bring down much of a construction site barely seem to phase Shathra. Morlun 2. Spidey decides to run for it, to see if she can really track him, anywhere, and she can. Morlun 2! She tackles him out of the air and through a wall impossibly fast.
Spidey swings home, and stays in costume all night, waiting for the attack, never getting it. The sun comes up and he’s still Spider-Man and still hasn’t slept. So he decides to get ready and go to work, worrying that Shathra knows who Peter Parker is. And…
Ok! That’s a weird angle. No memory of this at all. I guess I’ll see how it goes.