This week… It was so natural for me to refer to comics as happening “this month,” but now we’re in thrice monthly times… we’re back at the FEAST Center.
His camera went missing “the other day?” Is this not the same day as last issue? At the stately manor, Osborn is reiterating his findings from last issue, saying Spider-Man’s targeting technology has been integrated into all his goons’ guns, so they can really go to town on the old boy. Eddie Brock is still undercover in the room, but he’s just trying to find out where they have Mac Gargan, he doesn’t seem bothered by the Spider-Man stuff. Soon, at Oscorp, Norman has Radioactive Man zapping Gargan with radiation, which, he says is isolating the “Anti-Venom” residue, allowing Norman to take samples and try to counter it. To that end, he takes the samples to his lab, which also contains…
Feel like the blood soaked pages of Romita and Mark Millar’s dreadful Kick-Ass served him on this page.
He said the name! And that doesn’t really justify it! New Ways To Die would probably be a good name for a James Bond movie, but for a Spider-Man story where, as I recall, no one dies, it’s kind of bad marketing. Someone’s been in the Goblin lair in Harry’s office? That seems like bad news!
Romita, Jr. draws such a cool Goblin. Removing his pupils remains an inspired choice. This whole Peter/Lily thing sucks. Makes him a real jerk. Well, his danger sense goes off like crazy, because Norman’s managed to track the homing beacon thingie in his Spider-Suit, and Bullseye and his goon army are outside. Bullseye says he’s in the Coffee Bean, with civilians, so he’s not sure who to kill, and Norman gives Bullseye the go ahead to open fire on his own son. so the goons squad descends on the place, shooting tear gas and telling everyone inside to come out with their hands up. Harry and Lily don’t notice Peter webbing some windows to keep some of the tear gas out as they go out the back. Peter says he’ll go look for some help. Classic Peter. Bullseye and his stormtroopers enter the coffee shop, now so full of smoke they can’t see anything (nice work!), and we find out Eddie Brock is one of them. He begins picking off goons as they proceed. And then…
Ouch!
Harry thinking Peter is trying to make money off this is a new angle over the usual “he’s a coward.” It’s not bad.
This is really well rendered. And a great use of Bullseye. And written for a penciler who’s also one of the all-time great Daredevil artists, even! Spider-Man emerges from the fog and throws a web ball at the gloating Bullseye, who catches it, assuming it’s an attack. But after it sticks to his hand, Spider-Man reveals it contains the spider emblems torn off his suit. Bullseye is now… wait for it… a walking target! Spidey gets the goons’ attention, and they accidentally shoot the crap out of Bullseye. That’s… not very Spider-Man of him! He just intentionally put at least 5 bullets in Bullseye! He even says “Bullseye,” like he’s in a Die Hard or something! “Power and responsibility!”
The 2 of them coming to an understanding… again… is so weird. I’ll grant you, it’s a little different now, with Eddie’s newfound religious fervor and all. But it’s still “Oh, I totally never noticed you help innocents, we’re cool!” for a 2nd time in their lives.
Ya know, if we’re being honest… Scorpion is far from Ditko’s best design. He’s just a stripy guy with no nose and a club on his back. And yet, every attempt to update it makes it look worse somehow. Todd McFarlane handily takes the prize here, and all he did was put a blade on the tail and change the eye mask. And Romita, for all that I will sing his praises all day long… history will show, not the best character designer. He can draw so many of these things as good or better than their creators, but coming up with his own has just never been his strong suit. I mean, it’s not the Byrne one, that looked like it just had random scrap metal taped onto it in various places, but it’s not great! Anyway. Next time, we finish this up.