A strong family resemblance. Inside, on a 2-page splash, Harry turns into that, while Peter has a full blown panic attack watching his former friend follow in his father’s footsteps (Alliteration!)
Spidey keeps wordlessly fighting Harry while worrying internally, noting Harry’s goblin form is so hot it’s vaporizing his web, as Harry smashes him through a few windows and grabs him by the hand, flinging him into a building across the street. We get some classic “Spider-Man saves himself from a fall to the death, with our hero creating a bunch of web to fall into, then Harry smashes to the ground behind him, throwing cars in the air in his wake.
The art feels a little off this arc. Rushed. Maybe being asked to do 32 issues in the last 20 months is, you know, obscene. At a time when it was becoming common for the big name artists to not manage 10 issues a year, no less. They keep running Bags this ragged til USM 88, and then the schedule finally calms down… a little. All told, Bags will produce 99 issues of USM between October 2000 and October 2006, an average of 16.5 issues per year, and there was a month with no product between USM 1 and 2, for some reason, so the reality is actually a little more insane. If he has some off months producing a 6 issue story in 3 months, I sure can’t blame him. At any rate, while Peter is about to be crushed by his old friend, his biology teacher is wondering why Peter & MJ aren’t in class, and he hopes it’s worth the detention. Then we’re back to the fight, with Spidey dodging the cab, of course, while trying to reason with Harry, which is not getting him anywhere, while refusing to fight him. The Shaw in his head, tho, tells him he can’t wuss out now, and this only ends one way.
MJ’s just in time to watch Spider-Man fight a monster up close, while hearing him call it Harry as it grabs him by the face and smashes him into a car. She yells Peter’s name, and the Shaw in Harry’s head says that will do it.
Not many things could faze the jaded comics reader of 2005, but if they killed MJ in this battle, only months after killing Gwen, it would have been the most shocking thing since the original Gwen’s death. Thankfully…
Harry has scaled the building, and Spidey launches himself at him, all restraint gone now, as they fall through the air beating the crap out of each other.
Remember when this book was fun? Remember when this book wasn’t Spider-Man having a nervous breakdown after the death of his friend while breaking up with his girl because he feels he’s a danger to her WHILE his only other friend is begging to be executed? I do. It was 16 issues ago, which, you know, in USM time, is a mere 11 months. Maybe Bendis was going through a rough patch. Douglas Adams famously destroyed his Hitchhiker’s Guide cast because he was going through a divorce, and said he took it out on the characters (He was in the process of undoing that when he died). No idea, merely speculating, but this is a lot of hurt to pile on our boy at the same time, and it’s not much fun to read.