An extremely weird cover from Tony Harris. Has he done one already? That Tangled Web block really threw me off, hard to remember. He really made his name on a Starman series at DC with James Robinson before developing this more “realistic” style. At this point, he’s about to start a book with Brian K. Vaughan called Ex Machina, and a few years out from being caught tracing, and then staging a very embarrassing photo of himself and presenting it as the “real” source of the image despite it being visibly different from the image he copied and his own drawing. I think his career wasn’t too damaged, but the whole incident was pretty cringy. Anyway.
A very new Ol’ Parker Luck. Here’s a tangent: I don’t recall anyone writing at this time making anything of Peter Parker having health insurance for possibly the first time in his adult life. I guess he probably had it on staff at the Daily Globe (Boy, that was awhile ago, yeah?), but that was a different time. We’re in an era where Spider-Man, who famously catches colds and gets beat up all the time, can go see the doctor without nearly the financial burden (Especially in 2003). Seems like something you’d use just to point it out. Anyway, Peter goes to duel with this administrator lady, who really sucks and won’t take responsibility or help at all, and mostly just deals in gossip and comments on Peter calling in sick too much, forcing him to leave with no resolution. We hop ahead to dinner at Aunt May’s, where he’s telling her & MJ about it, opining that he doesn’t understand why people with authority so delight in wielding it against people. Aunt May notes that it really offends him, and then asks why.
That’s some real 1980s, John Byrne-style cheesecake. JMS seems pretty into sexing this book up. Soon, Spider-Man is swinging toward the light, where he finds a crazy double-splash page of many of your favorite heroes fighting an overwhelming army of Mindless Ones, one of Dr. Strange’s usual problems, which seem to have overrun Times Square. Strange isn’t there, but Iron Man, Thor and the FF are.
So fun to see Romita, Jr. drawing the various heroes and going crazy on this stuff. Seeing him revisit Iron Man, whom he got his start on and did two memorable runs with, and Thor, who he only got finished with a year or two prior, is a treat, and the fact that the FF are the only major Marvel property he never did a significant run on makes any time he draws them seem special. Spidey and Thing are doing ok, but someone screams for help. Thing tells Spidey to go, he can handle this. And so he does, fretting that it’s the regular people who suffer most from things like this as he finds a woman in peril. He scoops her up and swings off, but is distracted by her voice.
The evil administrator from earlier. Not his finest moment. Our guy swings back to the fight, where a Cyclops in regular clothes has joined Iron Man and Thor in their corner of the battle. X-Men yet another book Johnny has a storied history with (TWO seminal runs, plus that insane Cable miniseries in ‘92 and a year on Wolverine after he leaves this run on ASM), Cyclops yet another character it’s fun to see him draw again. Then Reed flies in with the aforementioned doohickey and asks anyone who can to join him on a nearby roof.
So Iron Man, Thor, Torch and Cyclops fire all their zaps into the beam Reed is generating (Spider-Man proving less helpful than he anticipated), but just as Reed’s doohickey begins to explode, Dr. Strange arrives to tell them they’ve all made a grave mistake.
That’s who the ol’ Mindless Ones are usually workin’ for, yeah. One wonders why Strackzynski never did a Dr. Strange book. He was obviously trying to. He teased that mini that never happened. He couldn’t stop putting him in Spider-Man. Seems like it was something he was really into, and yet… nothing. Well, the boys are in for it now. I guess. I mean, Dr. Strange has whupped Dormammu by himself a hundred times by now. He’s got a pretty small and unimpressive rogue’s gallery, meaning he’ll have fought Dormammu way more often than Spider-Man’s fought Doc Ock or the FF have fought Dr. Doom. And this time he has many of Marvel’s marquee heroes at his side. Doesn’t seem like it should be too much trouble. But this is a 3-parter, so…