This month we open on a 2-page flashback showing us how Adrian Toomes had an older brother who raised him like a father, but was in a motorcycle accident that left him in a wheelchair, and he’s demanding Adrian kill him. He talks at length about how he’d be dead if they were animals, that he’s weak now, that Adrian is also weak, and he should show some backbone, like an animal. So, you know, that sucks. And is the rationale for his all-new, never before mentioned obsession with strength and weakness, and his all-new, never before mentioned obsession with being an animal, not a person. A load of crap. Whoever he’s working with has him staking out Deb Whitman’s book signing, but he knows Spider-Man will sense him there and doesn’t hang around long. He also insists on being called “Vulture,” not “Adrian,” on account of his awkwardly retconned new personality. Eaton is also drawing him built like a bodybuilder and like 30 years younger, but I don’t know if that’s part of the retcon or just bad drawing.
When people do a gag like this, I can’t help but think “That dog would have a web trailing off of it.” It doesn’t work. Why do so many people insist on giving Peter a mullet? It’s 2006. Whatever, who cares, let’s get to the thing that is hopefully going to be interesting.
A very typically terrible Peter David joke to start, great. My patience is gone. There is no reason these 2 should know each other, and also Betty’s been a reporter for 20 years.
See, this stuff interests me. Exploring the supporting cast over the years and their reaction to finding out Peter is Spider-Man. Instead of cramming a bunch of pointless and frankly impossible Spider-Man content into the Civil War timeline, the ancillary titles could’ve made this their entire mission. The dozens and dozens of people whose lives were enriched or damaged by Spider-Man and/or Peter finding out his secret could’ve filled books with interesting material for longer than Civil War ran if they wanted. Would they have seemed irrelevant to the main story? Probably. But guess what: So is this! What does Phil Chang think? Randy Robertson? Can we find out for sure whether Joe Robertson had it figured out all along? What about MJ’s Aunt Anna, what does Spider-Man’s mother-in-law think? Billy Walters, Arthur Stacy and his kids, Professor Sloane, etc etc etc. I’m way more interested in that than this Vulture garbage. Well, anyway, Flash is at school, trying to get Miss Arrow to go out with him. Then he finds out about Deb’s book signing and decides to go give her a piece of his mind, and Miss Arrow eats a spider. Ok. Then THIS happens:
Why did this happen? What in the world?
I don’t think Deb knows Flash, either. She was so segregated from Peter’s older cast. But look at this! Betty & Flash! Unlike Paul Jenkins, Peter David remembers Betty exists!
Man, Jenkins not using Betty during his coma crap was just so egregiously wrong. Using Liz for no reason. Man. Vulture smashes in, Flash punches him and gets thrown across the room, Vultch decides to kidnap Deb, and then he gets shot.
Hey, I think David even remembered the random 5 minutes Betty was a gun totin’ vigilante in Web 91 & 92! He and I may be the only ones.
Eaton’s Spider-Man is very “Joe Bennett after he got good,” which makes it seem pretty dated in 2006, but at least it’s competent. Well, they have a pretty typical Vulture fight except for him nattering about weakness and stuff, during which he confirms he’s working for Uncle Sam (Despite clearly not being a Thunderbolt, which is messy and stupid), until he gets Spider-Man with his claws, which were coated in “a powerful hallucinogen.” Oh, great. A Vulture story that’s also a Kraven story.
Oh, I guess maybe it’s not. Why a hallucinogen? It’s not often we end on both the hero and the villain falling to their deaths independently. Thrilling. I’m sure they both die next issue.