The crushing continues. It’s weird, I was thinking Absorbing Man is a pretty lame villain to pin this much story on, but he was routinely the main villain Thor and Hulk comics in the past. I guess the main difference being those weren’t 6-issue stories (Except the Absorbing Man on e Bruce Jones did because of Ang Lee’s Hulk movie, which was dreadful).
How are the eyes on Spidey’s mask somehow getting WORSE as we go? They fly a bit, and the Spidey learns Ethan has X-Ray vision, because he’s a lame Superman analog and all, and also that he’s already seen through Spider-Man’s mask and knows who he is. Spidey demands they land right now.
So where’d he get the cape? When he first showed up, I thought it might just be his coat tied around his neck, but that’s a cape. He coulda had the purple shirt under his work clothes, no problem, but did he bring a cape to work on purpose? Does he always have a cape under his shirt even tho he doesn’t have a supersuit? Or did they just really want to hammer on this “Get it, he’s Superman!” thing too much to care? Meanwhile, Absorbing Man and that lady, who I’m pretty sure still doesn’t have a name, have arrived at Aunt May’s house, a 2nd residence for Peter Parker they find is a burned out husk. So, what, Crusher Creel and Some Lady know Spider-Man’s secret now? This is so lame. They spar verbally yet again about how Creel doesn’t like her telling him what to do, but he needs her for drugs (Which seems 100% not true), then move on. Meanwhile meanwhile, Spider-Man is… in Cresskill, New Jersey? Gone to see Hank Pym? Who is living in a cabin in the woods alone? What? Because he wants Hank’s help finding his wallet!? They’re not even friends! HE LIVES WITH TONY STARK. This is so stupid, but wait, it gets worse:
Remember how, a scant 7 months prior to this, Spider-Man died, was reborn, and got organic webshooters and THE ABILITY TO TALK TO INSECTS? Yeah, one of those is already gone. Ugh. Back in Manhattan, Creel and Friend are on their way to kill Matt Murdock when… Punisher shoots Creel in the chest through the windshield of their van with a sniper rifle. What?? From the top of a bridge! Did he decide to just hang out on this bridge in case Absorbing Man drove by???? Creel is too dumb to save himself, and the lady has to tell him to become the material of the bullet. He just becomes anything he touches, that should’ve happened immediately whether he wanted it to or not. He smashes through the roof of the van, so Punisher chucks a grenade at them. In the middle of traffic! Punisher hasn’t been this much of a jerk since that one Bill Mantlo story where he was shooting jaywalkers.
Tan was like “My Spider-Man mask is inexplicably off-model, but I think I can do worse.” And look, Ethan has a suit now.. .with… with an “E” on it. For his part, our hero has gone to the Daily Bugle while all this is going on, just in time for this:
Hudlin really addicted to the “same initials” naming scheme. We all remember Laurie from her many appearances back in just kidding, she’s new for this. Mark Buckingham appears out of nowhere to draw a flashback to school, when Laurie here was, you’ll never guess, fat, and she wore glasses, AND she had a crush on Peter, even. Get in line behind Liz Allen and Jessica Jones, lady. Flash Thompson made fun of her and Peter for coming in 2nd and 1st in a science fair, and she binge ate candy bars that night out of sadness, yay, great material.
Ethan wants Peter to train him in superheroing, but Peter says he needs to find someone who can help him learn about all his powers. Then Ethan tells him his origin, and weirdly, the flashback is not drawn by Buckingham this time.
Given the whole fake Superman thing, I woulda gone for a much less Kirby-esque spaceship, but you do you, guys. It inexplicably takes two entire pages for the spaceship to reveal the baby inside to the “Kents.” Really padding things out here. Yadda yadda, Superman’s origin except with this aggressively Puritan Christian angle, the hilariously inept panel 2 of this page:
I may weep openly.
And we’re off. This issue’s letter col runs a single missive, and it REALLY reads like an old friend of Reginald Hudlin’s writing in thinking he will see it. “How’s your brother Warren? What’s he been up to lately?” And they ran it. That is BIZARRE. I cannot believe there’s 3 more issues of this. I feel like I’ve been slogging through this story for a week and it’s only been 3 issues…