Ooooh, ok! I’ve seen this cover before, but had no context for it. I mean aside from the Lichtenstein reference. Oh, to become world famous forever by simply reproducing the work of others, what a dream. Lichtenstein was lucky comics existed, otherwise he would’ve had to come up with an actual idea. “But he recontextualized–” Hush. He stole. Tell the comic book artists who worked in anonymity for crumbs and died in poverty how cool it was that he got rich & famous standing on their shoulders. Anyway.
Well, this seems bad. That poster back there is interesting. Wonder if it comes to anything. We cut to Bobby Carr being harassed by paparazzi as he leaves a hotel, and then we get to some prime, Grade-A Dan Slott. Peter is clinging to a wall… in civilian clothes… and yells to get Carr’s attention.
Absolutely ridiculous. Why would Peter do this? If he was smart, he wouldn’t But he routinely isn’t smart in Dan Slott comics. This much I know.
Is Dexter Bennett some kinda bad guy? I genuinely don’t know. We next visit JJJ at the Coffee Bean, having a meltdown because they refuse to serve him regular coffee. Then Harry appears, who is the owner, as he mentioned back in ASM 546 or something, to say Marla came in and told them not to server him caffeine. Harry thinks she probably got to every coffee shop in the area. Then his mood turns dark as he sees Peter approaching.
Weak sauce. “The paparazzi who’ve been hounding me my whole life?? Even tho they never appeared in a comic, like, even once!? They were so relentless I had to flee the country! Even tho they never appeared in a comic, like, even once!” This is the beginning of a thing I think is extremely ill-advised that I know ASM is going to keep doing, which is explaining what happened after OMD. We know what happened: Mephisto changed reality. But they decided they had to come up with an in-world series of events. What’s Harry’s deal if he didn’t die? How is Peter’s identity secret? And why didn’t he marry MJ? We know all those things. With OMD being perhaps the single most divisive and one of, if not the most poorly received Spider-Man stories ever made… a story where eventually even people involved in its creation essentially said “it wasn’t great, but it did what we needed it to”… I don’t know why they don’t just leave it. Just leave it! It’s a sore spot for everyone! No one liked it, not even the people who liked the status quo it enabled to happen. Just stop reminding us of it! And it feels like their thought process was “if we come up with ‘what really happened’ when Mephisto changed the timeline, people will be happy then.” This is foolish. People who were mad about the dissolution of the marriage weren’t gonna be placated by seeing how it didn’t happen, and people who were happy about the dissolution of the marriage read OMD and already know why they didn’t get married, no further explanation is needed, move on. That’s what I think, anyway. They did not agree with me. I don’t fully know how Spider-Man’s secret “officially” became a secret again, but I do know what they did to explain the marriage not happening, and it’s just… not worth it, in my opinion. But that’s for later, I suppose. Sometimes I can’t believe I’m actually reading this stuff. Tangent over.
While Peter and Harry hash it out, we go find Betty Brant at the scene of the murder from the top of this issue, doing her job. Carlie Cooper is there for the same reason, and naturally, so is Vin Gonzales, one of the only two cops in New York. Betty is shocked by the victim being literally flattened, while Carlie is excited her boss is finally letting her work “on a paranormal case.”
Maybe I misunderstood and the $2 million was always for the “mystery girl.” If I did, mea culpa, that certainly explains why Peter isn’t rich now. Or, you know, “Scoopy.” Glory’s face while handing him the prizes is very good. Also just nice to see her, even if she’s not rating a speaking role.
Well, there you go. Guilt, the real motivator for Spider-Man. Suddenly, the photog Bobby Carr hit in the face with his own camera earlier is covering a fundraiser, and Spider-Man is watching over him, which he says he’s been doing for days, feeling certain he was going to suffer the same fate as the waitress. And then his danger sense goes off, as soon as he’s given us the exposition.
Marcos Martin is the best thing to happen to Spider-Man in a long time.
The WHAAM! in the background as sound effect! Very fun. also like the jokes on this page, too. Paperdoll lunges after the photog, talking about how he’ll get what he deserves like that waitress did, as if Spidey really needed more evidence. She falls on Kollins to drain his life or whatever, unaware Spider-Man has webbed him out of the way and she’s zapping a statue. Spidey webs a doorway to try to separate them, but Papey just starts tearing through his webs with her weird 2D fingers, and Spidey realizes the only way to stop this is to make Kollins stop bothering Carr. So he swears he’ll drop his restraining order and lawsuit and never bother Carr again. Paperdoll then disappears, apparently satisfied. Kollins tells the press outside he’s dropping his lawsuit, that he realized life is too short when he was “trapped between that freaky Paper Doll and the Spider-Tracer Killer!” I don’t like this. It, again, feels like a return to the 70s, Spider-Man once again hunted for a murder he didn’t commit. Meanwhile, the Spider-Tracer Killer thinks he might know someone…
Do they really use box cutters to do autopsies? That seems so crude. “It can open your Amazon package or just, like, you.”
Bad news for that guy. Oh that guy, we hardly knew ye. But wait, there’s more:
Boooooooo! Boo this man! Worst rebound ever! READING FAUST! Boooooooooo!