Back to FNSM as we come to the end of this block. This book had more new suit than Sensational due to it not having him switch mid-story. Ringo and the gang are back for their farewell arc, and I know enough about it to not be… too excited. At least it will look nice. We open on teenage Peter Parker walking home at night when he finds police cars around his home and assumes the worst.
What are we doing?
Ringo’s Spidey actually got better in his 2 months off. Well, Peter talks Ben into being his manager, and then we skip ahead to the famous Spider-Man being very haughty and rude to Ben about fan mail, reading a paper that says “Goblin Revealed to Be Norman Osborn” (With a picture of him being defeated by Thor). Peter throws a fit, smashes the dinner table, etc. We have fun here. Peter David is known for writing funny things, but he always wants Spider-Man to be dark. 20 years haven’t changed anything. I don’t get it.
Poor Ringo. He just wanted to draw fun comics. Next there’s a page of Uncle Ben unable to even get a phone call through Peter’s new agency. We keep jumping ahead, and find Ben watching the end of a Star Wars knockoff starring Spider-Man, which is “Spider-Man 4 starring Mark Hammill” according to the marquee as he leaves. He talks to May outloud, like she does to him in the real world, giving us more sad details of what a jerk her nephew is, and then he finds his house burned down. Except it’s not his house, it’s “the old Parker place,” as some passing cops are happy to tell him, and it burned down “some months back.” Yes, this sad Uncle Ben from an awful alternate reality is in the prime one now.
So, Ben goes and finds his own grave, now in the rain, of course, and wonders where his life is.
I know who that is, and it’s not who you’d guess, to say the least. Spider-Man is now getting a phone call from Jarvis, explaining that May thinks she saw Ben. Spidey takes off on his way to them.
Uh-huh. From the Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man one-shot, way back when, written by, you guessed it, Peter David. This is what Ringo’s last arc on a Spidey book gets to be. Yeesh.