This cover straight up looks like it’s 1997. Well, this comic opens with Spider-Man removing his mask to cry, thinking this can’t be real, but maybe it it, and he has to know for sure. But first, he has to go do this:
The schizophrenic nature of Deodato’s art in this period is really on full display here. A couple repeated panels of “photorealism” with that warped, late 90s human figure in panel 3. The 2 things don’t gel at all.
“I have to go learn the truth about Gwen’s kids. But first, I have to go not tell MJ what’s going on, so she can worry.” Ace move, Pete. To achieve his goal of getting the truth, he proceeds to 2 pages that literally do not make any sense to me. He’s arrived at Gwen’s grave in regular clothes with a long metal pole. He is weeping. He apologizes to Gwen, saying he has to know the truth, and that she’d want him to find the truth, as he drives the pole into the ground. Then cries as the watching Gabriel says he’s “just confirmed his worst nightmare.” Genuinely no idea what’s going on. How does this confirm anything other than, I guess, that the pole hit a coffin, and thus Gwen must presumably be down there? Unless, like, Aunt May is down there, you understand, she could be in any grave from now on. How did this reveal anything? I’m so confused. And then we cut to MJ at work, rehearsing a scene under the watchful eye of Robert Deniro. One of her coworkers is a class A jerk who’s mean to Deniro and to MJ behind their backs. I don’t care about this guy! As MJ goes home distracted to uncover Peter’s secret, which is the letter taped to the ceiling, even tho Deodato drew an empty space in the middle last time (And even tho his webbing shouldn’t be able to last this long, but that’s a common JMS problem, somehow), that guy keeps talking trash about MJ until his other fellow actors all roll up their scripts and chase him down the hall hitting him with them, which… ok. Nice guys, cool, whatever. I mean, it’s been way too long since MJ was an actual character in these pages, and I like her having her own plotline, but it can’t help but feel like a distraction when you’ve just casually implied Gwen had children and now they’ve impossibly appeared as murderous grownups. Meanwhile, Spider-Man has broken into a skyscraper with “QG” on the side, and has apparently procured genetic samples of Gwen with that pole (So how did that “confirm his worst nightmare?” What was going on back there!?), and is now examining that material with this place’s fancy equipment. What is QG? This comic is so full of weird turns.
Why does everyone know “QG” is the place to go for genetic testing!?
That distraction lets Spider-Man attack, and while she gets a shot to graze the side of his arm (Which Deodato immediately forgets to draw from here on out, even in the very next panel), he disarms her pretty easily and unmasks her. As on the cover, she looks like Gwen, even wearing the headband, which is just so stupid. She says Gabe thinks she looks like every picture they’ve seen of their mother, and what does he think?
Oh yeah?
And with those words, an already all-time worst idea for a Spider-Man story somehow gets worse next issue!