Spooky. This month, we open on what is, unquestionably, an iconic bit of business:
Spider-Man and Loki casually enjoying hot dogs is really not something you’d get in the old days. He recaps Dormammu, then Morwen, and now Loki all being in his life in case you missed it.
Tough choice!
Spidey pulling Loki’s head down by the helmet horn is so funny. Morwen explains that everything Loki has ever done has been about serving himself, and creating a universe where he is in control, and control is the opposite of chaos, making him her enemy. She says her dark masters have long had their eye on Spider-Man because he’s a trickers, an agent of chaos. Loki telepathically tells Spider-Man he’ll draw Morwen’s fire so Spidey can do everything in his power to wear her down and save Tess, and before Spidey can object, Loki begins the 2nd big wizard battle in ASM this year. As the wizards shoot various beams, Spidey muses that Morwen is sort of right, he is a trickster. She gets the better of Loki in their wizard fight, and Spider-Man tears the top off a chimney to shield Loki from getting zapped before bouncing all over the place drawing Morwen’s attacks in classic Romita, Jr. Spider-Man fashion.
Man I love the action of the figure in panel 5. You can just feel that movement. Spidey leaps into action as the world fades into the background, and Loki’s spirit communicates with Tess’s, curled up in a ball in her own mind as Spider-Man and Morwen fight behind them. He’s reaching her when Morwen finally notices, and we see that she has Spider-Man trapped in various spell stuff. She says she’ll have to kill him and then get rid of Loki.
A sudden end to the battle. The next day, Peter goes to the library, trying to find any historical record of Morwen, but can’t. Then he looks up Tess Black and finds out she’s a well off stock trader and doesn’t seem to have anything magic going on in her life. Later that night, Spider-Man goes to check out Tess’s house, only to find it for sale. And to find Loki there. He explains that Tess has no memory of the encounter, and doesn’t know she’s his daughter. He intends to keep it that way, to try to avoid anything else like this happening to her.
This unlikely partnership was a crowd pleaser in its day, and is still fun now. It’s so unexpected, but handled in such a charming way. I could see someone thinking it feels at odds with Loki’s personality, but he’s been portrayed so many different ways… and will only get more complicated in the decades to come. In retrospect, the fact that Straczynski will go on to write Thor makes this feel like a bit of a test run, even tho he only has a co-plot credit. His Thor run started strong and interesting, and then he just bailed on it, mid-story, leaving Keiron Gillen to pick up the pieces and really burning bridges with comics fans. He developed a reputation for leaving things unfinished after that, like a much-hyped Superman run. Awkward. He swept into comics a conquering hero, his Rising Sons and Midnight Nation paving the way for the highly acclaimed first 2 years on this title. And then… things started to shift… But, at any rate, Spidey’s got a favor from Loki and a way to summon him in his arsenal, so the question became: When’s he gonna use it?