Yes, Zeb Wells is back, this time teamed with indie comics staple Dean Haspiel. Haspiel had the prestigious if probably not super lucrative gig of taking over the art for Harvey Pekar’s long-running autobio series American Splendor, among other noteworthy works he’s drawn and/or written, and he’s gotten Marvel work from time to time. This is apparently not the last time he’ll be on the blog, even.
Well, I can’t wait to see how much continuity gets ignored in this one. So, yeah, JJJ was made to go see a psychiatrist, and it’s going badly, as he is just as belligerent to this guy as he is to Spider-Man. Jonah quickly starts insulting the guy any way he can, so he tries a new tactic: a goofy little hypnosis gizmo that totally works. In another comic, I’d assume the Ringmaster made it, but not this one. The shrink tells JJJ to think back to his earliest memories of his father, and it’s as if JM DeMatteis has entered the room…
I’m not really an expert on Spider-Man after a certain point, but I can tell you for sure that JJJ’s dad “David” here has since been stricken from the record in favor of a different dad. JJJ says he took a beating for crying, and learned not to. Then he talks about being a boy scout, and later a boxer, both cases where people invoking his father drove him into a rage.
Getting nowhere talking about JJJ’s dad, the doc tries talking about his son, but after learning John is a werewolf, quickly tables that discussion. So JJJ starts talking about his little known first wife, Joan…
JJJ says he married her as soon as he got the chance, and the doc makes a whole lot of really fast connections, talking about the concept of the “god/father transference” where people’s idea of god is influenced by their dad, then talking about how some people think superheroes have replaced gods, then talking about Spider-Man as a metaphor for JJJ’s dad. A lotta leaps!
They got married and he doesn’t have a picture of them together? Oooooohkaaaaay. JJJ says he doesn’t want to be hypnotized anymore and prepares to storm out. He’s notified the hypnosis didn’t work and he just said all this stuff of his own free will, which only upsets him more.
Well, hey, that’s over. Here I was thinking a JJJ issue would be fun. What a fool I was. Next issue seems likely to make up for it.