Superstar artist and Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, everyone. Aunt May looks like she’s been inflated. Spider-Man has indeterminate meat hanging off his back. I have never understood the appeal of this man’s art. Well, that’s not totally true. I probably talked about this on DD 8. I liked his earliest stuff, in the early 90s. It had a raw and angular look. But then he leaned hard into more McFarlane territory, and it’s been all downhill since. And he’s taken a personal hand in this, the climactic final story of this period. He’s joined by his preferred collaborators, Danny Miki and Ricahrd Isanove. Now we get into it. The most controversial Spider-Man story ever made. Really. The grand finale of J. Michael Straczynski’s six years on ASM, which ended up being something he wanted his name taken off of because of how much control Joe Quesada exerted over it. Maybe JMS’s contract stipulated his editor couldn’t change his words and maybe it didn’t, but either way, you can’t pull rank on the guy running the whole publishing operation. We’ll get into that. So, then. Aunt May is dying. Peter’s bloody mission of revenge full of improbable side quests has ended. His identity’s public, he’s a felon 10 times over, he has no money, the authorities are sure to figure out Aunt May’s not supposed to be in that hospital any second. He’s ruined Mary Jane’s life trying to save a dying woman who he already watched die once, sort of. Where do we go from here? Where COULD you go from here?
Boy oh boy, that is some florid prose to get us going. “Tune your ear to the frequency of despair.” There’s something they should’ve been putting on all the Spider-Man lunch boxes. We find our trio in the hospital, MJ & Peter watching over May.
Why is MJ dressed like it’s ASM 42? Why do so many artists draw women in tiny sleeveless shirts next to men in coats? Remember when MJ came back from the dead, and Joe Bennet had her in a little belly shirt and Peter in a thick leather jacket? In all my long years, I’ve met two entire women who weren’t cold all the time. If Peter is wearing a jacket, MJ should be wearing a parka.
Look at these weird, lumpy faces. This guy is considered a top flight artist. Baffling. Does this doctor just carry a copy of this newspaper around? What becomes tremendously frustrating about all this is it’s like Back In Black never happened. Nothing in this issue refers to it. In some ways, it seems to contradict it. This could have been ASM 539. Back In Black felt like filler, and then you get to this and it’s like “That totally was filler, thanks for buying it 3 times a month for 6 months.” Peter swings to Avengers tower, not bothering to suit up, thinking he doesn’t have time for games with Maye’s life on the line. Yeah? Is that why you were running around with Sandman and fighting Ms. Arrow and collecting Spider-Men with Detective Fogg? When his security code doesn’t work, he breaks in, alerting Tony.
What is this face? How is Quesafa a beloved artist? I live in a state of confusion. Still, credit where it’s due, Quesada understands this Iron Man armor. Ya never know on a case by case basis who will or won’t.
Look at that face! I only ran this page because of how awful it is. Like, as far as I was concerned, Quesasa becoming E-i-C and not having time to draw anymore was a win/win. Marvel comics entered its highest period of quality in 20 years and no one was being drawn like this. Iron Man busts out the Uni-Beam, which is just a blinding flash of light, but the Marvel Superheroes fighting game in the 90s convinced millions of us it was a devastating attack. Whoops. Peter blindly unloads his webbing, like he would have emptying the cartridges back in the day, thinking he’s never tried it with the new organic stuff. Then the light goes out, and he opens his eyes and sees he’s mummified Iron Man. Without even looking! Miraculous!
Peter smashes Tony’s mask in frustration. Tony flies home and looks at a photo of the Avengers with MJ & May. Happier times. Jarvis asks if there’s anything he can get Tony, who says there’s one thing. Then Peter returns to the hospital, where nothing has changed. He’s so desperate he’s ready to go rob banks and stuff. He’s already a criminal. Then there’s the saddest page in this book:
A drawing he made when he left Fantastic Four. One of the best guys in the biz at the time of his passing, for my money, at the height of his power, never better. Such a shame. It still makes me sad. Back in the story…
So that takes care of that. But, even as the money is resolved, the doc says there’s no coming back. He’ll make May’s last days as comfortable as possible, but at her age, and in her condition, this is the end. Peter can’t accept this, and drags MJ away, saying there may not be a chance in the doc’s world, but among the people he hangs out with, he’ll find somebody.
Back in Red & Blue. Good luck trying to parse the timeline of Back In Black, I did my best. There’s still 40+ black suit comics to look at. But I’ve split them off into their own block because they just don’t make any sense. Well, anyway. Part 1 of 4 down. What’s gonna happen?