As of this issue, One More Day is over. Spider-Man’s been out of the black suit for 3 months. And he’s still in it in New Avengers.This story could’ve easily just had the read & blues in it. Marvel would have known it wouldn’t end til after the black suit was over, and it’s not like anything about Spider-Man’s status quo would be spoiled here. “This story takes place after Amazing Spider-Man 543.” That’s all you needed. Instead, this. Well, anyway. We last saw our heroes marshaling what looks like all of herodom assembled outside the Hood’s hideout. Now we see the climax in flashback, as it is the Bendis way, with Wrecker being interrogated about what happened serving as narration. He charged into the army of heroes outside and found out most of them were illusions cast by Dr. Strange. Obviously.
Spidey has no idea how much trouble that girl in the creepy mask will give him one day. I sure didn’t at this time, Madame Masque is an Iron Man villain.
Yes, lampshade the black costume. Really draw attention to it. Why not? The blond member of the Wrecking Crew smashes through the floor, taking everyone with him (I know Wrecker and Thunderball by sight, the latter due only to his many appearances in Spider-Man, I dunno), thinking to escape in the confusion, but Wolverine, Echo, and several more illusions are down there waiting. Strange gets close enough to ask the Hood if he even knows the name of the demon whose powers he’s using, but he doesn’t get an answer.
As the confusion rages, Dr. Strange seems to exercise the demon from Hood’s, uh, hood. Spell check doesn’t like “exorcise.” Is that wrong? The Exorcist? English is so dumb.
I’ve noticed some pages printing crooked lately, but this whole spread is crooked. I don’t think it’s on purpose. Fighting continues for several more pages until all the baddies are down and the police are arriving. The Avengers find John King hiding in the rubble before they leave.
Despite what clearly looked like the demon in the hood turning into a screaming green cloud and floating away, Parker still has his vanishing act. That doesn’t make any sense. Well, we’ll see how this goes in the next post. That signature at the bottom of the page means the art team is leaving. It wa a nice 11 issues, but somebody got tapped to illustrate the next mega-event due to being a popular artist fast enough to do 11 issues in a row, even when they routinely had 400 people in them. So when we get back around to Avengin’ again, the old order changeth, as they like to say. Often, for awhile. And when a new regular penciler emerges… well, it’s not great.