They really got me with this cover. Even though Erik Larsen wasn’t involved with the interiors, my interest was piqued. That’s his character Powerhouse from way back in SM 15, his fill-in before McFarlane left. But she was just a future character in his Savage Dragon called Rapture, who is basically the exact same woman, wearing purple instead of blue. I think I mentioned it at the time, but she wasn’t even the only Savage Dragon character he did a version of in his issues of Spider-Man, it was weird. But, yeah, she was a throwaway character, a one-off, a test run. So somebody bringing her back seemed kind of crazy, and appealed to my teenage self. Had to have it. And that someone is Walking Dead & Invincible creator Robert Kirkman. He dallied in the Marvel U a bit in this era, but never had a bona fide hit. His biggest impact was a new Ant-Man, a criminal named Eric O’Grady who’s still around from time to time. When his Marvel stuff failed to catch fire, he really got serious about his creator-owned material, and thus, Invincible and Walking Dead. I never cared to read either of those books, or any of Kirkman’s other stuff, and that was before too many artists had accused him of not treating them fairly to be ignored. He’s not my guy. But here he is to bring back a reskin of an Image character, so let’s see how that goes. He is joined by his Invincible artist Cory Walker, inked by dependable Scott Hanna and colored by Bill Crabtree. We open with her robbing a bank, and the story is narrated by some shmoe who happened to be there and has seemingly fallen in love with her.
Masterblaster was the other guy in the SM 15 story. Who ever thought we’d see them again? One assumes Kirkman re-read that story for this, but… did he miss the bit where Powerhouse was a pro-mutant terrorist and Masterblaster was an anti-mutant terrorist? Strange partners. I mean, I didn’t remember that, but I looked over the old book myself before this. Anyway, yeah, so the guy is actually falling for this other young lady, then. But this is a Spider-Man comic:
There he is. Those eyes on the mask are awfully “1970s TV Spider-Man.” As Spider-Man pinballs around stomping these jokers, narrator guy defends the idea of love at first sight, knowing he’s sure about what he feels. Then Spidey throws Powerhouse into a support column, and our narrator tackles that lady out of the way in case it collapses.
There’s a bit of business where Spider-Man realizes every cliche about a bank robbery story is present, and then he leaves. As the cops cleaned up, narrator thought he couldn’t let this lady slip out of his life.
What… was the point of all that? Turns out I don’t care. Next up, we have writer Allan Jacobsen, artist CP Smith and colorist Chris Walker (Presumably no relation to Cory?). Some searching makes it seem like maybe this is the Allan Jacobsen who works in animation, notably on King of the Hill and Dora the Explorer, but no solid conclusions. Jacobsen and Smith are warming up for a series called New Invaders at Marvel here. We open on a Native American doctor who has just treated a child for bronchitis for some parents who can’t afford to pay.
These guys doing this clean, simple linework are a far cry from the weird Madureira-chasing guys of just a few years before. Comics look much more grownup now. Mostly. Except when you get Humberto Ramos. Dr. Waking-Bears says Iktomi is real, and he’s seen him, and we flashback to his time in New York. He was meeting with some patients when a flying guy who could be the Fly in a new suit smashed through his window wanting revenge for Waking-Bear not treating his son for insurance reasons or something. But then you-know-who showed up.
Two for two on weird Spider-Man eyes this issue.
Spider-Man continues to comically beat up the guy who’s driven by the death of his child in a really tone deaf sequence. I think he’s not the Fly, just a fly. But while Spider-Man is being very flip about all this, Waking-Horse was having an epiphany.
This one felt like it was almost accidentally supporting Straczynski’s spider-totem thing. Well, that’s that. Not the most consequential title, but a lot of people get a go at a Spider-Man story. I would take the whole rest of this series over what starts next post, no question.