My suffering is almost (Temporarily) at an end. Well, as we get rolling one last time, they’re trading barbs up on a bridge with Spider-Man’s unconscious true love, blah blah blah, seen it all before.
Even the idea that Osborn has Aunt May in a closet somewhere… AGAIN… is so tiresome. Note also that Norman seems to be implying that the fight in issue 1 is the one we didn’t see in Pulse 5, which had not come out yet. While that’s technically possible, the way it played doesn’t read that way. I suppose, if you were feeling charitable, you could say they were being intentionally vague so as not to spoil the Pulse. I am not feeling charitable after reading all this garbage. And also, Norman never “escaped from Cage” in that story. He escaped from Jessica, he was caught by a combination of Spider-Man and Luke Cage. And I guess that Ant-Man crack is related to the then-current story where Iron Man was Secretary of Defense? I dunno. A lot to process on this page.
So, the mind-controlled Ock forces Norman to drop MJ. He just keeps repeating “Kill Norman Osborn” over and over as they start fighting. Rather than rushing to his unconscious bride while the two villains are focused on each other, Spider-Man webs Norman and slams him into the bridge. That makes no sense to me. And least get MJ out of there first. But, what do I know?
Well, that explanation of the big plot hole with Rachel Summers is both unsatisfying and hastily delivered, like someone reminded him there should be one at the last second.
In a truly disgusting turn of events, the kickback from the pistol throws MJ off the bridge, and Spider-Man relives Gwen’s death scene, this time shooting 6 webs onto MJ to make sure she doesn’t die in transit. He reels her up to safety and Norman keeps babbling about Aunt May’s impending doom. He’s about to smash Spider-Man with his glider. We are mercifully saved from any cliche glider things, but…
…it’s actually worse than that. A freak lightning strike. Unbelievable.
“I see no reason that would have killed either of them, and in my experience, it probably didn’t even knock them out, but I’m leaving you here, anyway, honey! Hope you don’t die!” Well, suddenly, Peter remembers a crucial detail no one shared with us. When he was moping at Ben’s grave awhile ago, there was “fresh turf” on it. Why would that be if they were only replacing the headstone. He realizes Rachel’s vision wasn’t entirely untrue. She’s buried in Ben’s grave. Spider-Man digs it up, and sure enough, she’s down there, in a coffin, with an oxygen tank. So… where’s Ben? Doubt it even gets mentioned. He coulda put her in Spider-Man’s grave on Kraven’s estate. Probably would’ve been better. Well, anyway, Peter has her out, but can’t find a pulse and convinces himself she’s dead.
As if anyone would buy that she was at this point. Especially dealing with the guy who loves his dumb twists, if you spend 11 issues telling me May is dead, I know she’s not.
What point is there in making Felicia still have a thing for Peter? No one will follow up on this.
I don’t actually remember what happens with Venom/Gargan. Hm. It appears that’s because, aside from a very minor appearance, he’s not in anything until the next thing I saw him in, a year and a half later. That seems like a long time for the new Venom to lie fallow. Maybe people thought Millar wanted to come back to it or something. I don’t think anyone else becomes a new Scorpion. I don’t recall one, anyway. JJJ thinking John is Spider-Man will never be referenced again, nor will the Bugle being Pro-Spider-Man.
So Aunt May goes back to the house, explaining why she never moved in any of the other titles. I mean, what a bunch of nothing. And why 2 randos with Crohn’s Disease in this story? Is this his idea of raising awareness?
What a stupid ending. Some people try so hard to make Green Goblin a Joker for Spider-Man. It’s not going to work and he doesn’t need one. And look how much was left unanswered. Every damn villain knows about MJ & May! Their lives should be over! Instead, the implication is all is well again, status quo restored. Plot holes you could drive the entire UPS fleet through. Ultimately (A loaded word around here), this whole mess feels like a reaction to the Batman story “Hush.” In that, Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee did a year-ish on Batman where he fought all his biggest villains (And Superman, Frank Miller ensured that replaying all the major Batfights must include Superman) while trying to solve a mystery. And here’s a year of Spider-Man fighting all his biggest villains while trying to solve a mystery. Hush was not very good, starting strong, but then somehow having the new villain turn out to be exactly who you thought it was, while also producing a last minute mastermind behind him you couldn’t have guessed with all the clues, disappointing in 2 ways at once. But it was worthy of every prize in literature compared to this. Here’s Millar’s afterword:
Lemme tell you something: Marvel Knights Spider-Man 13-18 are the only comics I outright refused to buy during this whole blog project. There’s things I didn’t get, or couldn’t find before I would’ve needed to read them, which seemed to defeat the purpose. There were things I didn’t really want, but got, anyway. But those comics I simply refused to read. Reggie Hudlin’s Black Panther was atrocious, and his run on this title has a rep, and it’s not good. His first Spider-Man story created a villain who’s essentially Evil Superman, and it sounds awful. But I was forced to buy some of Hudlin’s run for reasons that will… make me read more junk in the near future. A crossover between all the titles that has gone down in history as one of the worst Spider-Man stories ever made. Man. It’s really all downhill from here. So few bright spots between 2004 and 2022. But at least I’m free of Millar… for a year or so. My timeline is getting messy again. Now MKSM is at cover date May 2005, while I left TAC in June 2004 and ASM in August 2004. But this was a year’s worth of uninterrupted story, and there’s a lot of additional factors to juggle in this moment. Such as our next post.