Alright, thumbs up, let’s do this:
Hot start on page one!
What could possibly have made Peter stop paying attention at such a pivotal moment? Well… it’s understandable…
This is a delightful twist. Of all the things that could possibly happen. And I just love the idea of Dr. Doom facing that incredibly normal challenge, being stuck in an airport.
There are a lot of ways to play Dr. Doom, and many of them are as valid as the next despite being different, but my preferred Doom is a guy who really, truly believes the world would be a better place if they’d just stop resisting and let him be in charge. A lot of supervillains want to rule the world because they want to rule the world, it doesn’t go very deep. Doom wants to rule the world because he genuinely believes he could fix it. There was this thing in the 2010s called Doomwar, a very convoluted thing with Black Panther vs. Doom, and there’s a bit where mystical wards on a vault ensure only someone whose intentions are pure can open it. Doom wants what’s inside, and everyone assumes it’s safe due to the ward. But Doom opens it easily, because he fully believes taking over the world is for our own good. I just think that’s a great angle for a villain. Sometimes Latveria is portrayed as poor and backward, but it’s way more compelling when Latveria is a crime-free, poverty-free utopia achieved through brutal authoritarianism. A country Doom has made “perfect” by making everyone live in fear and servitude. That’s just more complicated and interesting. At any rate, that guy reveals and detonates a suicide vest. After tackling MJ to safety, Peter surveys the wreckage of the terminal, goes to help a guy who got caught in the blast, and finds it’s Steve Rogers, his shirt blasted open to reveal the Captain America suit underneath.
Look, I’m famously in the tank for Romita, Jr, but sometimes he draws a Spider-Man that’s just perfect to me, and there he is. The platonic ideal of the character.
Us nerds, we all came to this issue hoping for Peter & MJ to finally be reunited. Who’d have guessed we’d get this??? I loved it.
3 more mecha-assassins is what. Spidey and Cap leap back into the fray, Spidey even stealing “It’s Clobberin’ Time!” for the occasion. And and Cap each disable one, but the 3rd manages to fire some kind of small missile at Doom. Spider-Man webs it in midair, slinging it through the hole in the roof as Cap throws his shield into the assassin’s face. And as luck would have it, 2 more goons are trying to come in through the roof as the missile goes out, and that doesn’t go well for them. One of the guys inside is still kicking, but come on, these dorks are no match for two of the best superheroes.
Rather blatant revisionist history on why MJ left, but then again, from what I understand, her leaving was a hastily assembled last-minute decision made to please the incoming J. Michael Straczynski, so I guess the return is more important than the exit. But there they are. Separated for 37 issues, for more than 3 years, and unhappy together for months before that… They’re back.
That’s a lot of consecutive pages, but I think the moment warrants them. It was a crazy way to get the back together, but a lot of fun. Many of us heard JMS didn’t want them together when he came on board and were not happy about that, but he said he just wanted some time to figure out who Peter Parker was, and sure enough, here they are. Reunited and it feels so good. And despite my assumption that JMS is among the camp that thinks the marriage is a mistake, my recollection is he wrote it way better than anyone not named Roger Stern had since 1991. We shall see if I’m right about that. For now, sadly, we must return to PPSM, and… what it has become…