Is it just me or does the Spectacular Spider-Spider have at least 10 legs in this cover drawing? Paco Medina has drawn the short straw and must bring this absolutely insane story in for an absolutely insane landing. We kick off with Randy and Big John on the roof, watching helicopters and Iron Man search for Spider-Man, tho I guess not knowing that. Why did the Queen send a message to the people of the various cities via a channel the good guys could suppress? Meanwhile, Garrett is on the ground, complaining to his captain from the Doc Ock story whose name I’ve forgotten. Last issue, he said the superheroes don’t have the training for this and shouldn’t be involved. This issue, he says “the only ones trained for this are up there flying around, sans parachute.” Soooooo, which is it, Garrett and/or Jenkins? Bad writing, man. We see that the X-Men have also joined the search, but no sign of Spider-Man (This is during Joss Whedon & John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men, which originally stated that Cyclops’ new goal for the team was to go out and be superheroes to show people mutants were on their side. But it’s an X-Men comic, so it quickly devolved into them fighting aliens and their own house, among other things, instead). They don’t know they should be looking for Spider-Spider.
So this was her plan? For Spider-Man to turn into a giant, mute spider? And that’s her consort or whatever? Wouldn’t a, like, man-spider be more appropriate considering her lack of insect features?
Where has she been since 1954? How has she kept a traveling carnival of kidnapped scientists who don’t seem to be part of her hive alive? This is all so stupid. But if ya think that’s stupid…
I mean, what are we doing here? What in the world are we doing here? And this is meant to be the Scarlet Witch’s doing? This is followed by a kind of useless page of Cap and Nick in a helicopter as some guys talk on a military radio and one panel of MJ walking down the street. Ok! Then Queenie villain monologues some more, until Spider-Now-Female-Spider starts convulsing and shrieking.
Yeah, Spider-Spider just DIED. Spider-Man has died. Queen is very upset about this, and does her, like, scream attack or whatever it is, seemingly to little effect, before telling her drones to get ready to blow the bomb. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the sewer, Cyclops and Nightcrawler and some SHIELD goons find themselves suddenly surrounded by Queen’s drones, unable to escape without hurting innocent people. But don’t worry, guys…
Let’s review, shall we? Peter Parker was kissed by a bug lady. This kiss somehow delivered a “virus” which mutated him into a mindless spider-monster, an outcome the Queen seemed unsurprised by, only to then start saying it all happened too soon. Then he died. And now he’s been reborn out of his own corpse. And that’s not all!
Because of Sam Raimi’s choice to give Spider-Man organic webshooters in the movie, our Spider-Man has them too now! Because he died and was reborn out of his own ass due to a spider-virus or SOMETHING, he now has new powers!
And now even though he shredded his Spider-Suit when he turned into a big bug, they just HAPPEN to have (Some of) one in a locker here for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. This is genuinely one of the worst stories I’ve ever read, ever. Peter finds his mask, pants and boots in the locker. Goodness knows how or why, or why, if they have these bits, they don’t have the rest, as all he was wearing was tattered bits when Queen found him, but who cares? Certainly not Paul Jenkins! Spidey starts beating up the drones as other ones converge on Cyclops and Nightcrawler.
Why’s she suddenly showing her age? Oh, wait, I do not care at all. But hang on, I said Spidey had new powers, plural. Guess what the other one is?
He can talk to insects! He’s the Aquaman of land-dwelling heroes! And all this despite the fact that spiders, as you may know, ARE NOT INSECTS. And hold that thought for 2 pages.
WHY IS SHE DEAD? WHAT HAPPENED? The bomb NOT going off killed her somehow? None of this makes ANY SENSE. I literally don’t know what happened! He defused the bomb, which he was close enough to touch, and it didn’t blow up, but SOMETHING did, seemingly below or inside the Queen? What? Why? How? This is GARBAGE.
He even POINTS OUT that this doesn’t make any sense! And I say again: This was supposed to be the Scarlet Witch? “I’ll fix Spider-Man. I’ll make him fight some lady he’s never heard of and get new superpowers! Mwu ha ha haaaaa!” Like she made the Avengers fight their own friends and their worst enemies. Spider-Man gets… this? It makes no sense. Not a drop.
What kind of answer is that!? Why is she so worried now? She made him go to a wedding with mutant eyeballs! Uggggghhhhhhh! And not to jump ahead, but Spider-Man is not going to be able to talk to insects or produce webbing organically anymore, like, STAT. This is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it change. This terrible piece of crap was published alongside ASM 513, the 2nd-to-last part of Sins Past, and MKSM 7, the halfway point in Millar’s terrible marathon. This was a rough time for me to be a Spider-Man fan, the roughest 6 months since the 90s. And the worst, somehow, is yet to come! I’m not sure it honestly ever gets good again! Ever! Why did I decide to do this!? Well, at least next post begins a ray of sunshine in a dark time…