What’s worse than a book drawn by Humberto Ramos? Why, a book drawn by dedicated Humberto Ramos impersonator Francisco Herrera. I have to assume they knew each other. This guy showed up just after Ramos started working for Marvel, drawing very much like him, for Marvel. And he’s drawing here for Zeb Wells, who will mostly see this title out, and who sure didn’t impress a few issues back. I have to imagine it won’t be so bad when it’s not a protracted skewering of outdated pop culture references, but in truth, I don’t remember anything after #50 at all. At all. I’m thinking I didn’t buy any of these when they came out, but I can’t seem to find any evidence of buying them more recently, either. I’m fairly certain I bailed with Jenkins/Buckingham, especially when the next issue looked like this. I dunno. Wayne Faucher and Studio F hang in there rounding out the art team.
Peter Parker, the Spectacularly Ugly Spider-Man!
Everything this guy does that isn’t just jacking Ramos’ whole deal is actively worse. Which tends to be the case with these impersonator types. Your Nick Bradshaws, your RB Silvas. Take away the beloved artist they’ve made a career of stealing from and there’s not much left to like. Sometimes you get an impersonator who blossoms into a beautiful flower. Barry Windsor-Smith hit the scene ripping off Jack Kirby. Bill Sienkiewicz started out shamelessly copying Neal Adams. Travis Charest was a Jim Lee clone. They all went on to be some of comics’ finest artists. Usually, tho, when you start with stealing, there’s nowhere to go but down.
Herrera has some real weird ideas about hands. Speaking of Stilt-Man, he’s on a rampage, shouting about Daredevil, but he gets Spider-Man instead, who handily defeats him in 2 pages. Exactly how he does it, I’m genuinely not sure, the storytelling is atrocious.
Ok, he webbed a lamppost… what did that do? Stilt-Man should be about to just… stand up out of this. Meanwhile, Shocker & Hydro-Man both clock in at Hammer Industries, like in the Looney Tunes with the sheep dog and the wolf. Shocky gets suited up and outfitted with an experimental new shocker, and Hydro-Man’s powers are being tested for better application in the future. A 9-to-5 supervillain gig. Spider-Man has, for some reason, stuck around to get Stilt-Man out of his armor for the cops? What? And they’re mad at him for it, and so are motorists stuck in traffic, and he just leaves. Ok, fine.
Worst hands in the business. As they clean out their lockers, Shocky bemoans how he used to be better than this, that he would’ve wrecked that guy 10 years ago, Hydro-Man is more zen about it. Then they see Constrictor beating the crap out of the guy who fired them, and Shocker says “That used to be me.” Later that night, poor Aunt May can’t avoid being drawn even worse than Ramos did, as Peter rehashes a tired old cliche…
Hideous. Shocker & Hydro-Man are at Denny’s, talking about what to do next. Shocky is still down in the dumps. Speaking of cliches, he starts talking about one last score. Hydro-Man drops the interesting idea that he doesn’t think he’s aged a day since Spider-Man turned him into a waterguy, but is otherwise a little too dumb to get excited about Shocker’s aspirations. He mostly just wants to kill Spider-Man. Then the waitress who’s been bothering them pushes Hydro-Man one time too many.
If an actual professional was drawing this, it would be fine. Huge improvement over Wells’ first outing. But he’s stuck with this eye-bleeding art. Not fair.