I’d say it’s about to get X-Citing around here, but not in this title. At least the Dodsons are back. Cho will do one more fill-in, as I recall. Well, Spider-Man is now under a whole pile of cops trying to pull his mask off, and he super-punches them all off of him, and they start to demolish the entire block to get the reward money. At least Millar’s penchant for excess and spectacle is getting us a realistic portrayal of the cops for once. Lamont shows up, of all people, to tell the cops to stop blowing up people’s houses as Spider-Man swings away.
The FF AND the X-Men walking by in the background is pretty weird.
MJ’s gun debuted a couple issues ago, I just didn’t care enough to comment. Shout out to Terry for drawing their wedding bands. Very rare. Soon, JJJ is having a doofus trying to claim he’s Spider-Man for the money thrown out of his office.
Fair’s fair, that’s pretty classic JJJ/Spidey banter. Except it’s JJJ/SPIDEY banter, and Peter is Peter. We’re told John Jameson is in talks to return to the Air Force as a flight instructor, and then JJJ gives Peter $500 for one of his photos, because he knows he & MJ are in financial trouble. And that famous MJ being in financial trouble is tomorrow’s headline. Peter finally gets around to wondering who donated the five million dollars to bother him, I almost thought that was just gonna roll past without comment. Then Spider-Man is back at Riker’s, telling Norman maybe he can help figure out what Aunt May’s captor is up to.
Yeah, yeah, he’s evil and such. And there’s a conspiracy brewing, and the revelation of what it is is going to be prrrrretty stupid and never spoken of again. Next, Spider-Man is swinging to the X-Mansion, like it’s just in the city, thinking to himself that MJ told him Liz Osborn is trying to get her to go to their high school reunion despite the fact that we all know MJ didn’t go to school with them. Whatever. A young telepath leads Spidey into the school, only for him to be told Emma Frost had to run off for an emergency. I just remembered Jean Grey is currently dead again. It’s what she does, Grant Morrison having killed her off at the end of his run of X-Men. And she stayed dead a good long while this time, like maybe 12 years or something.
Ok, that clone gag was funny.
Spoilers: She is not. Well, now it’s off to the big criminal get together. Everyone’s there, it’s the Met gala for bad guys. Easily the most shocking twist of all in this series is Millar has Hydro-Man bring as his date Sadie, the girl from the first Hydro-Man story way back in ASM 212, the one him and Sandman fought over in ASM 217. That is an immensely deep pull. Well, anyway, time to learn why we’re here.
Publication-wise, it’s been less than a year since the symbiote’s “final bond ever with a host” in TAC 5. And here we are. No one cares. I don’t, either, I’m just trying to get through this.