Next up through this era’s revolving door, we have writer Marc Guggenheim, artist Salvador Larocca, and colorist Jason Keith. We saw Larocca on FF, Vol. 3 #9, way back when, but he’s in a different realm now, having fallen prey to the “realism” trend, tracing a lot of celebrities, tracing a lot of things from Google image search. It’s kind of sad, really. Guggenheim we saw doing the recent Blade miniseries. We open on some guys running through the Port Authority Marine Terminal and shooting at someone at night, clearly scared.
What’s all this now? Got some Goblin vibes, eh? The next day, some guys are taking most of the letters off the Daily Bugle building, as it is now called “The DB!,” when the laughing comes for them, and one of them is thrown to his inevitable death.
Not too recognizable as the same Larocca from before. He’s drawing the movie suit spider on the chest. Soon, Peter Parker is in “The DB!,” where he learns poor Jack has been laid off. Wait, who’s Jack? Just some guy here to provide some exposition. He was working on a story about a spider tracer found on a dead guy (That sounds familiar), but was told that’s “Daily Bugle, not DB.” Jack says he’ll maybe take his story over to “the Distinguished Competition” and see if they have any interest. Is this some weird reference to Jack Kirby leaving for DC in 1969? I guess it doesn’t matter, we’re off with Peter to a staff meeting.
Yes, there’s a new goblin on the block, and his name is Menace. While I wasn’t reading ASM in this period, I know about Menace, and all I can say is, don’t get too excited. Whoever Larocca has chosen to trace pictures of for Peter doesn’t look like Peter Parker to me at all. Soon we find Spider-Man fretting about what seems to be a new goblin, telling us he’s so broke he’s out of webfluid and can’t make more, and worrying about that spider tracer when he hears a scuffle in an alley… and finds Jackpot fighting a mugger. Yeeees, Jackpot, the character who sure looks like MJ and is named after MJ’s catchphrase. Is it really her? They sure want you to think so! Somehow, both she and Spider-Man aren’t able to stop this guy from getting away, AND he runs into the subway faster than they can follow, despite Spider-Man’s ability to leap 30 feet, none of which makes a lick of sense. The guy gets on a subway train, which Spider-Man suddenly remembers he can leap onto, but then his quarry produces a machine gun out of nowhere and Spidey has to leap free to avoid being ventilated.
Like a lot of your 2000s photo tracers, Larocca’s results are wildly inconsistent. There’s no style here. Even something as simple as the eyes on Spidey’s mask are extremely different panel to panel.
Peter is now with Harry, Lily and Carlie, once again evoking the Peter/Randy/Glory/Jill group of a few years prior. No one thinks MJ is back in town, and the girls make fun of Peter for being stalker-y. Harry says it’s not stalkery to look up a friend, but she’s in LA, not witness protection, and “even those people leave a trail.” This gives Peter an idea, and he leaves. Next, Spider-Man is at “the DB!” (So dumb), where he uses… a device… to… see the exhaust trail of Menace’s glider? How? What device? Larocca chooses a down angle from far away so we can’t see it, and Spidey just thinks “So glad I didn’t throw this baby out.” Ok! fine! Also it’s been, like, half a day, minimum, and you can still follow the exhaust trail? What’s in that stuff? Spider-Man is now at the warehouse Menace commandeered at the top of this issue. He thinks he sees a guard, and just hauls off and punches the blazes out of them without seeing who it is, despite no warning from his Danger Sense. Real good stuff, Guggenheim.
Face it, Tiger, no one’s buying this! Well, I guess we’ll meet Menace next issue…