A cover that could remind one of Bagley’s cover to ASM 373, if one had a truly absurd memory for Spider-Man images. Well, now that we’ve gotten Harry recapped, we can pick up with the whole “Peter learns his semi-friend was dating his girl before him” bombshell.
Things are getting weird. We are then abruptly in class tomorrow, where a teacher who looks like Nick Katzenberg tells the kids to take the rest of the class to study silently. It must be said, Peter’s class has a completely impossible to follow procession of teachers. It’s only been 9 months since the spider bite, and yet it feels like no teacher has appeared in 2 consecutive stories. That one lady with the superhero essay assignment even got redesigned between issues. In a book so carefully considered, it almost feels like they’re daring you to notice. At any rate, Peter’s giving MJ the cold shoulder, so she writes him a note, like they didn’t learn their lesson about this sort of thing.
Dang, man, ouch.
Speaking of ouch.
Not a happy time for these two. Peter’s really coming apart at the seams post-Gwen. Which, as I alluded to at the time, makes sense, and also doesn’t make for the most enjoyable comics. Later, MJ is walking out of school, almost in a daze, when Harry approaches her. She wants to know why he told Peter about them. He says he assumed Peter already knew, and he brought it up as a joke. MJ says she would like to hear this joke. Harry seems to be genuinely contrite and apologizes, and MJ worries Peter just broke up with her without saying the actual words. Harry says Peter’s not the same, not happy, since Gwen.
It’s interesting to me, in hindsight, that Bendis is doing the Peter-MJ-Harry bits of Spider-Man 3 better than it did years before it came out. When Spider-Man 2 was still new, even. Well, in the city, some guys are roughing up a hot dog vendor, and Spider-Man comes crashing in, ranting about how people make him sick, and he smashes a regular ol’ guy right through a car windshield face first. One of his cohorts says he’s not moving, and Spider-Man suddenly realizes how badly he just screwed up.
Really going through it. A chastened Peter returns to his brand-new house, and Aunt May says MJ came by. He rather comically asks “How does she know where we live?” before May reminds him they moved 2 whole blocks. MJ told her they were having a big fight, and it was her fault. She also says she had MJ help her unpack, that she took advantage of MJ’s guilt, which reminds us of the psychiatrist issue. Peter is clearly hurting, and May hugs him, saying he’s a special boy, which he disagrees with. She also says Harry called, and those Osborns are trouble (MJ knowing the new address is way easier to parse than Harry knowing their phone number). Then the phone rings.
Uh-oh. Doesn’t sound like good things coming.