The Last Stand! Not last enough! A real last stand wouldn’t make me read 3 more issues, and I would thank it, in this case. This month, we have Peter’s narration saying everyone he’s ever loved has died (Aunt May and MJ reading this like “EXCUSE ME?”) over an uncharacteristically tender flashback of Uncle Ben checking in on an upset young Peter.
I guess that’s meant to be the shadow of the burglar, but it kind of reads like the burglar doing a showy sneak in, like he’s Dick Dastardly. Then Gwen dying gets a page, then a page of all the other major people who’ve ever died in Spider-Man (And Frederick Foswell and Bennet Brant. I guess they had to fill the page with somebody), and to my legitimate shock and disbelief, Sally Avril IN the superhero mask she died in! For all that Millar loves shocking an audience, that’s the biggest shock in this series to me. Aaaaanyway, we are now at the meet between Peter and his mysterious tormentor, 9 months in the making. Did you figure it out? Probably not, because…
I mean, to be fair, he’s been trapped in a costume he can’t take off since 1964. HEY WAIT A MINUTE.
Gargan commands Peter to put him down or he’ll just walk away, so he does. Then he tells him they’re going to go get lunch. And… they just do. After the feat of superhuman strength, Peter just walks off and none of the people who’ve assembled to stare, I don’t know, take his picture, try to stop him, talk to him, call the cops, etc. Dreck. Now we’re at lunch, and Peter asks why Marvel Girl thought May was dead. And because that was cheap, shitty red herring, Gargan gives the only available answer: “Beats me.” Top notch writing! Jonah recognizing Peter in the Spider-Man suit one issue, then not recognizing him next issue, Marvel Girl psychically learning May is dead when she isn’t, this is a great comic book. And it’s about to get even better!
I mean, DUH.
Get ready! Even in this period where Millar was a golden boy at Marvel, nobody bought what comes next.
It makes “Bush did 9/11” look positively banal.
So, yeah, Millar just casually retcons the entire foundations of not just the Marvel Universe, but the superhero genre itself. Somehow this was allowed to be published, and then no one ever spoke of it again, because it’s obviously a stupid, restrictive choice that ruins any number of classic stories just by existing. 10/10, great stuff. But, for some reason, the 2000s is a period where it seems like almost anything can get published, like almost no editor ever says no. That’s a big “almost,” though, considering the horror on the horizon in this block. Oh yeah, this pile of crap somehow isn’t even the worst Spider-Man thing of 2004. We are on a downhill slope with no brakes racing for the trees. Well, anyway, Gargan also mentions Osborn’s the one who’s redesigned all the villains in this series and also that he’s the one who’s made Owl a big name in the underworld, too. His god-like influence is everywhere. Which anyone could have guessed from the first scene with him in jail, because it is a tired, tired cliche. Garden ends by saying Peter will do this, because he’s buried enough friends, followed by a splash of Spider-man holding Gwen. I guess at least the Dodsons probably made some bank selling the original on that, but it hardly justifies the wasted space in the book. Peter walks home to find one of his students waiting on the stoop. Apparently, Peter promised to help him with his biochem homework. He tries to weasel out, but his sense of responsibility is too great, so he sits down to help. But wait, there’s more:
Sure, man. Why wouldn’t the Venom symbiote quote Aladdin at the Scorpion? Why not? Yes, Mac Gargan is the new Venom, and this, sadly, will remain in place for a good while. Somehow, they were like, “What if we combined two classic villains? That way, we’d have… one less… classic villain…” And they did it, anyway. Well, there you go. The kidnapper revealed, the stupidest conspiracy in Marvel history revealed, and a new Venom. Now Spider-Man just has to settle up with the baddies and we can get on to the next disaster.