I mean, right? We’re totally doing an alternate version of the game here. We are still in the flashback as this issue opens (“Several weeks ago”), but Eddie doesn’t seem to be narrating anymore. We see Silver Sable take Venom down, as she did at the end of last issue. Then we rewind to that Rhino fight again for some reason, which now ends with a voiceover telling someone they need to see a doctor.
Later that night (Still in the past!), Spider-Man is swinging around being neurotic about his medical health when someone whizzes by him.
Beetle flies away before Spider-Man can deliver his punchline, but our hero catches up to him to natter some more. So, Beetle zaps him with beams that can turn and follow him through the air.
Beetle slices our hero’s web and darts away. Spider-Man finally decides to just follow him and see where he goes. And where he goes is Roxxon, where he seems to vibrate through one of the letters in their sign and disappear. Inside, he walks up to a big fancy scifi safe and procures some vials of hazardous chemicals. But then a security guard walks in. Ain’t that always the way? Spider-Man hears gunfire.
The next day (Still in the past!), Peter is talking to MJ on the phone while at work, saying every time he Googles Roxxon, Latveria comes up. He thinks he should look into it. MJ thinks they should go to the movies. Then he clicks over to another call, and someone says “Rooftop. Now.” A very angry Peter emerges onto the roof to confront…
It’s still the past, for some reason, so Nick Fury is here. I wonder if Bendis just made all this a flashback because he had it in the pipeline before Fury got sent to waste his time in Squadron Supreme land. Doing a whole storyline retroactively jammed into the past is weird.
Having my comics reading derailed has taken away my superpower. I got behind on my drawings, so I stopped reading comics. I went out of town 3 times. I was sick. I had visitors from out of town. Next thing you know, I’ve been reading this 28-issue block of comics for 4 months. And I can’t just pull up the cross references like I used to. When is this taking place? It’s when Peter didn’t have a suit and MJ was making him one. When was that? I don’t remember. How much like the video game is this interaction with Silver Sable? I don’t remember. I can’t do it like I used to. Was MJ making him a suit when they were broken up, and he needed it after the clone saga? That sounds kind of right. I don’t know. I hope I can get back in the swing of things. Also, concurrent with this issue, yet another miniseries launched that will have a big impact around here, which was in turn followed by one with an even bigger impact, but we’re saving those for the next USM block.