ASM gets the Civil War branding, but the other 2 titles have to settle for this. A visible note that they don’t really count (But they sorta do, so please buy them, anyway!). I certainly treated them as such at the time. But, same as with the 7 months preceding Civil War, the little gaps in the collection were starting to look kind of silly after all the other godawful crap I bought on purpose. So here we are. Never seen this. Other comics would get non-Civil-War-but-kinda branding as well, like a “Casualties of War” banner and things like that. Especially once the main title started getting later and later, they had to churn out product. I really don’t know how or even if these other 2 books can make sense in the larger story, but whatever they are, there’s 7 more issues of Spider-Man, 4 of this book and 3 of FNSM, before we continue the main story. Messy! Shades of the original symbiote story, in my mind. And just like back then, I’ve not read the 2 less important books. Let’s see what we’re in for. We open where you’d expect, on a little league game. The Awesome Androids vs. the Black Bolts, which is just silly enough that I love it. Mark Raxton is there, and sitting next to him, the Chameleon. Chammy is trying to force Mark into something supervillain-y, and Mark is not interested.
Weeeeeeird lookin’ face on Chameleon. The Deadly Foes of Peter Parker is a good story title for this time period. Peter noting how weird it is that both Marvel and DC have Scarecrows is also fun. Is this going to be fun? They fight as they fall, then Spider-Man swings them through a window, all while his narration explains Civil War if you haven’t seen it. Then the Green Goblin shows up, but Peter knows it’s an illusion.
Now, hold on. I’m no expert on Scarecrow, but I’ve never seen him have a fear power, like DC’s does. I’ve seen him running around with a pitchfork and a small army of crows that do his bidding. And he’s a contortionist who can escape from anything. When did he get fear power? In 1993, in Ghost Rider. Ok. Why would you make him MORE like the more famous rival character with the same name? Also, unimportant, but when he appeared in JM DeMatteis’ Captain America in the 80s, which is the only place I ever saw him besides UTS 21 & 22, he got saddled with an abusive childhood, like every DeMatteis villain. So stupid. Anyway, Spider-Man’s new suit neutralized the fear thing, so he’s fine. Then Will O’ The Wisp shows up! Man, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, here. Despite him always being an anti-hero or just hero, and despite the fact he’s not appeared in anything to change that since we last saw him in TAC 236, he’s now a villain, like Coldheart. Terrible.
Those are sure some fingers.
Ok! We see him call MJ and ask her to go home, saying it’s not safe out. He also says all the proceeding happened “in broad daylight,” which seems… not true. She’s not gonna leave her play for that, tho, and she hangs up. Her coworkers are star struck that she’s married to Spider-Man, and then… and then Swarm attacks the theater. Swarm! Just a procession of the worst villains ever. But, we cut to someone smashing a TV showing Peter’s announcement.
A BONE TIRED subplot. Let Felicia live! Well, Peters gone to see Madame Web, hoping her powers can help him for a change, but she’s been having visions of “storms of fire and hell.. Rivers of hate and damnation..” rather than, like, anything that’s going to happen in these comics. While that pointlessness is going on, Liz Allan is looking through a photo album (And Aguirre-Sacasa spells it “Allen,” like Bendis!), remembering going to high school with Harry Osborn, because I guess not one person who’s written Spider-Man in the last 5 years has actually read the 60s comics? She thinks, “Oh, Peter. All the DEATH you brought into our lives…” That seems unfair. Then…
Ok! No idea what’s going on. Also this thing were Molten Man can turn this fire thing on is not something I ever saw before. I guess no one cares about continuity, tho, so it doesn’t matter.