Mike Mayhew has the guy in this cover looking like some kinda weird composite of Nixon and Sinatra. I just realized they forgot the credits last issue because I noticed this issue finds Pete Pantazis swapping in for colors and I wondered if he did last issue also.
Tough stuff at the Daily Bugle. The guilt on Jonah’s face is really good. And it echoes how he blamed himself when Ned Leeds died, back in ASM 289, even, tho probably by coincidence. Meanwhile, elsewhere, Jessica & Luke are at a cafe somewhere, not having a nice time. Luke is not thrilled with the job Jess has been offered. She says she hasn’t taken it yet.
The faces are so good on that page! It’s the Bugle, of course, wanting Jessica to come in. Luke gives his blessing to the whole thing, says if there’s something he doesn’t want to do, he just won’t do it. They have a cute goodbye and then heads off to the Bugle, were Terri’s desk is now a crime scene. Ben approaches a detective working said crime scene, but is rebuffed.
While that banter is goin’, Kat Farrell has gone to the coroner’s office to bother a guy she knows who works there, to try to get in to see Terri’s body. Her guy tells Kat she was dropped from above, about 7 hours before they found her, but strangled first by a guy with big hands.
“Wacky on the junk” is a David Letterman reference that Bendis really loved to make. The gang takes a 2-page spread to imagine Iron Man, Hulk, the Vulture and Stilt-Man (That one’s Ben’s, obviously) dropping Terri, which seems a bit like a waste of 2 pages. Ben says if it’s a flier they have to call SHIELD, and if they call SHIELD, they lose the story. So, that night, he starts going through Terri’s desk, tearing down the police tape to do so.
Now Ben spends 2 pages imaging the Green Goblin killing Terri, and now he knows.
Hey, look who it is. I toldja this would pull Spider-Man in by the end. Ben, of course, has been on thin ice with Norman since he published Legacy of Evil, and probably woulda been sued into oblivion by now if Norman hadn’t spent some time being too insane to care and gotten distracted. This one’s gonna be personal for him.