Fiona Avery is back in the saddle for a 2-parter that gave this title a dangling plot thread for a long time. Let’s see how it goes. Always thought this was a striking cover, makes Spider-Man seem creepy. This issue has a pretty unique opening.
We don’t often get the woman-on-the-street perspective of these crazy super-events.
For those scoring at home, I believe we have the Grandmaster, the Gardener, Heimdall, Death, Loki and Lord Chaos. A random assortment of Interdimensional People Who Know Things. Easily sets the stakes pretty high.
The MJ face in panel 6 looks like it’s suddenly 1987 again. Looks like the splash of ASM 291. I guess that’s pretty specific, but it just doesn’t feel like a 2003 Romita face. Interesting to me, anyway. We find Loki at the foot of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, seeking knowledge as Odin famously did once (Only without giving up an eye). This is intercut with that young lady having been completely possessed by “Morwen, First Sorceress of Chaos,” who sounds right at home with the players who just appeared, but is a new creation. Loki sees there’s a weird rift in New York, and decides he has to go see it. He’s got to sneak out of Asgard, but that’s old hat for him. He holds up a rune that looks curiously like a spider and vanishes. He becomes a little spider, and skitters out on the bottom of the Rainbow Bridge. On Earth, Spider-Man is chasing some goons shooting at him on the street as Loki, now disguised as a child, thinks it’s no coincidence he’s encountered Spider-Man after the runes made him a spider to escape.
This Morwen lady coulda easily been one of the new baddies Dan Jurgens and Johnny introduced on their Thor run. Romita, Jr. has some pretty unmistakable design preferences.
Loki-as-child appears, telling Spider-Man Strange isn’t home, but wanted the kid to take Spider-Man to him. Spidey goes along with this, but feels weird, and once Loki has them in some old warehouse, he reveals his true self and wants to know what’s going on. He traps Spider-Man in a spell, saying he knows who Morwen is and will bind Spidey here until she returns. He’s pieced together most of what happened, but doesn’t think Spider-Man deserves her power.
They dance a little more, and it only serves to make Loki angrier.
This is an odd one. But the way Spider-Man is written through it makes it more appealing than the usual Spider-Man Meets Cosmic Whatever stories. He’s trying to face all this on his own terms for a change.