The Spectacular Spider-Blob! I wonder how you draw like this. Like when you’re sketching out the figure… do you just close your eyes and make random shapes and then commit? “That’s a leg, sure, why not? Is the foot going to be literally the same size as the leg? Well, why not?” Well, anyway, we’re back with these guys:
Overselling it a bit, buddy.
Again, he never had to do this at any other job. He was a student teacher, even more scrutinized than a regular teacher. Maybe this is more realistic (Is it? He’s supposed to be able to avoid danger), but it gets old really fast. Peter wanders into the kids fighting yet again in the hall, and once again gives the bully a lecture, and is once again called out for his own wounds, and finally finds the right tack by pulling his sunglasses down and saying he won his fight. Back with the villains, they’re getting cold feet, so their as-yet-unnamed benefactor tells them it’s time to up the ante. And then the tech guy, who I guess is a very poor analog for Bill Gates, unveils his killer robot… sorry, “the BODYGUARD slash PET of the future”… the… XP-2000. I sigh. It turns out, each of the prospective investors has brought their own guy to toss at Spider-Man, and the Texas oil guy hired… the Scorpion. Ok, fine. I’m just trying to barrel toward the end of this thing. I thought it was another 2-parter and it’s longer than that and I’m upset. They team Scorpy with the robot and send them out to find Spider-Man.
Scorpion is referencing TAC 21, when Bill Mantlo casually broke Scorpion’s entire deal, a story that was promptly ignored by everyone else for 30 years until this page. Kind of amazed I remembered that. Man. I miss reading old comics. Good, bad or just ok, they were just a different experience. This may be 20 years old, but it’s “modern era” more or less. Just not quite the same. Anyway…
Fight fight fight, Wells is the first person to remember the McFarlane Scorpion tail shoots acid since ASM 319, making Spider-Man lose his shirt to keep his skin. The robot proves a bad fighter, bad partner, and bad conspirator, as when Spider-Man asks him why he’s attacking, he repeats the boss man’s explanation about Spider-Man being someone the mobsters betting love to watch verbatim. This leads the others to radio Scorpy and tell him to shut down the robot, but he’s especially unhinged in this issue, and just destroys it.
Ouch!
The cops arrive and find Scorpion kind of deranged, but now with fear instead of rage. Meanwhile, our nameless masterminds are conferring about the progress of this experiment when the screen switches back on, as Spider-Man has figured out how to power the robot’s head back up.
Can’t believe they got Batman. These comics feel like filler. It’s funny Wells referenced early 70s TAC, because that’s what this is like, a modern version of those mostly generic, easily forgotten comics. Probably not entirely Wells’ fault. He’s a placeholder here and I’m sure he knew it. On top of having to wait til ASM reveals Petr & MJ are back together, Jenkins is coming right back in 3 months, Wells is really just spinning the wheels here. But… it feels like it…