These Joe Quesada covers, with the bony, emaciated, mishapen Spider-Men swooping through weirdly specific perspective experiments haven’t been my favorite. This time, pencils are by “Barry Kitson & Mike McKone,” in that order, while Mark Morales is the top-billed inker, with Andy Lanning in 2nd place. Some trouble behind the scenes, I assume. Well, anyway, this new Vulture is about to kill our blinded hero and whatnot.
What would Daredevil do, indeed? Good time to reference TAC 27, but we don’t do that kind of thing anymore.
The choice to render Fake Vulture in red and Spider-Man in pink is interesting. Cooler reds for night time, but why not the same choice on the baddie?
Fake Vulture panics and flies away, and wouldn’t you know it, our hero says his vision is starting to clear as soon as he’s out of danger. What timing! Next day, we find May & Jay having a nice stroll. They talk about how happy they are together, mostly just recapping their relationship for you, even how Betty Brant put them together. And then…
Clock’s tickin’ on you, Jay. I mean, I don’t know what happens to him, but I know he won’t marry May. I’m happy for her in the short term, though. Meanwhile, our hero stumbles in his window, vision clearing up, but still light sensitive. He strips out of his tattered costume, puts on some sunglasses, and goes to the fridge.
It’s better with the sunglasses.
Alrighty. Odds on them ending up a couple? I don’t recall ever hearing about Michelle Gonzales, but that doesn’t mean too much. From what little I knew from the outside, I fully thought Peter and Carlie Cooper would be a couple. Maybe they will some day, I guess, but this comic about the newly-single Spider-Man is weirdly disinterested in sending him on dates, so who knows? Instead of going on a date, he goes to see Adrian Toomes in prison, where he learns (Through a window) that Toomes has nothing to do with the new Vulture, but has heard rumors that he’s a guy who was “turned into a hideous freak” by the mob, and now kills “weak and wounded” mobsters as revenge. Adrian says he’d normally be upset about someone stealing his gimmick (See: Blackie Drago and also the Vulturions), but this guy sounds so scary, Adrian thinks he can actually kill Spider-Man, so he’s into it. Cut to a guy webbed to a wall, screaming for someone to save him from the Vulture, who appears.
Well, JJJ is doing a photo op at a baseball game (Remember how Peter briefly loved baseball more than anything for one random month of PPSM?), when inevitably…
Somehow, rather preposterously, Spider-Man has just gone crashing into the box Norman Osborn is watching the game from. He doesn’t do anything but plug a different comic, but people are very mad at Spider-Man. Outside, he blames that on his fatigue, and webs his feet to the floor as Vulture comes back at him.
Wait, what???
Are we not gonna talk about him breaking that guy’s arms??? Who is this, Batman all of a sudden?? Jeez, man, well, whatever, New York hates Spider-Man again, and now it’s raining, and our hero says things are back to normal. And he then goes on to think…
We’ll get to more on what Osborn is up to in our next Avengers block. I swear, between reading a few blocks out of order by accident and then taking a long, unplanned break, it’s been… I don’t even know how long since I saw an Avengers comic here. More than 9 months! Good grief! That’s crazy. And it’s gonna be along while yet. This is the last ASM in this block, but it wouldn’t be Spider-Man in the 21st Century without a ton of superfluous extra stuff, so we’re not done by any means.