Ok, so, with 600 out of the way, now we get to the issue I felt I must purchase. But not, as you might expect, for the main story. It’s for a backup story. What could drive me to purchase a fraction of this comic? We’ll get to that when we get to that. First, it’s the real, brief return of Mary Jane Watson to these benighted pages. As you can see, this is 2nd printing variant, featuring Joe Quesada’s lumpy Spider-Man in all his black & white glory. Much like ASM 600, this is also features a wraparound cover where the back is just background and a leg:
What an odd trend. John Romita, Jr. has once again flown the coop, not set to grace the book with his pencils for another 90+ issues, sadly for us, probably happily for him. Mark Waid helms this one, and is joined by Mario Alberti from one of last issue’s endless backup stories, with Andres Mossa on colors. Alberti’s art looks as Italian to me as his name suggests. European comics have their own look and feel, just like any other region., and Italy seems to produce people with a loose but very intentional line. Probably the most familiar Italian guy to American audiences would be the great Eduardo Risso, he of 100 Bullets fame. We open on a page of JJJ trying the ol’ “Spider-Man and Doc Ock were in cahoots” bit on the press corps, who are not buying it, which only makes him angrier. Then we check in with our star.
Hungover and waking up to a one-night stand with Michelle! This ain’t your daddy’s Spider-Man! Or mine, really, if I’m being honest, but I guess I’m plenty old enough to be someone’s dad.
Smooth moves all around. Spider-Man is soon swinging around fretting, in traditional Spidey style, now having apparently talked himself out of a place to live. Then he hazily remembers agreeing to meet MJ somewhere, but has no idea when or where. He’s freaking out about it until he sees a guy robbing a jewelry store like it’s the 60s. He webs the guy to a news agent and manages to make the cops, the news guy and the robber mad at him, full marks.
I guess we’ll be seeing more of the Reillys. That’s kinda fun. Next, our hardluck hero shleps over to Harry Osborn’s place, only to learn he doesn’t live there anymore. The doorman says he’s had an “economic downturn” and put his place up for sale. Peter realizes that’s probably Norman’s doing, and wants to call Harry, but having lost his phone, he’s got to go do that somewhere, and he chooses… the DB!, for some reason? Why not Frontline, where he’s, you know, welcome on the premises? He’s decided to ask Betty Brant if he can crash with her, and learns Glory Grant already is due to budget cuts hitting the paper.
I’m such a mark for classic cast members. Show me 2 panels of Glory Grant and I’m like, “this is cool!” Bennett continues to bellow that the 14th floor of the Empire State Building is now on fire, so we soon find Spider-Man swinging on in. He begins trying to help people find their way to the stairs in the smoke and blaze (After smashing through a window and saying, “Take that, window!” which I very much enjoyed), but he’s not getting very far.
Grand Central Station! That’s where he said he’d meet MJ. He even remembered when to be there, and managed to show up early, but he’s got no idea what to say to her. But as he frets about it, their appointed 8pm meeting time comes and goes. Our man Charlie Brown walks out, not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. And why didn’t she show?
I feel like it would take quite a night, indeed, to make famous party girl Mary Jane sleep 15 hours. Nice colors on this spread.
Michele Gonzales seems like a genuine lunatic. Well, this is apparently part 1 of 4 on “Redheaded Stranger,” so one assumes Peter and MJ will have more to say to one another before the end. Or not, it’s not like they didn’t totally string us along for nothing last time she came back. It’s a strange thing. As someone who quit over the termination of their marriage, I’m meant to be rooting for them to get back together, I suppose. And I mean, I know they won’t from being on the internet, and would’ve known anyway just via common sense, but even so… what’s the point, really? They’d never be allowed to truly reunite like people who started reading comics when I did might want. And ultimately, I quit not so much because of the marriage, but because of the astounding stupidity and cowardice of the way they got rid of it coupled with the threat of having to buy this title 3 times a month, usually by writers I didn’t like. So, you know, that ship has sailed for me. I remain really shocked that Peter’s love life is such a nonissue in this title, tho. They published one of the stupidest stories in the vast history of Marvel Comics to get Peter in a place he could go on dates again, and he still hasn’t been on a single one 56 issues later. Truly baffling.
Well, anyway, I didn’t buy this comic for all that, an in truth, did not remember a page of it. I bought it for our next story. It’s by Brian Michael Bendis, Joe Quesada and Morrie Hollowell, and it concerns Peter Parker and Jessica Jones. And, you know, while I was completely willing to walk away from my first series, one I’d bought almost every month for 18 years, I wasn’t about to skip a Jessica Jones story by Bendis. Times change! Shame about the art, but I was here for this.
I genuinely love Bendis being able to go back to ASM #4 and say, “That unnamed girl with no dialogue was Jessica Jones.” That’s so clean. It’s barely even a retcon. No one can say she wasn’t!
No idea why Quesada’s teenage Jessica has the face of an 8-year old. Hell, on this page, the adult one does, too. Shame about the art. Jessica is very much Bendis talking right now. These are sentiments he’s expressed elsewhere RE: power & responsibility.
Sweet stuff, right? Was that worth the price of a full comic? I mean, probably not, but I have no regrets. This issue’s letter column shows off all the variant covers for the previous issue, bringing to me attention one by the late, great John Romita, Sr.:
The most iconic Spidey artist giving you his take on Jay Jameson, Michele Gonzales and Carlie Cooper is kind of a trip. Kinda wish I’d gotten that version, no disrespect to John, Jr.
Counting ASM 580, 600 and 601, there are exactly 8 issues of ASM published between 2007 and 2022 that I bought. 4 are from deciding to complete my Roger Stern Spider-Man collection years after they were released. These last 2, obviously, for the reasons mentioned. One because it was an epilogue to a Fantastic Four story, believe it or not. And one because it was part of a crossover with Daredevil, and I was enjoying DD so much I bought issues of not one, but two titles I didn’t really want to see what happened. Comics can be cruel like that. But, yeah. A lot of comics fans swear they’ll never read a book again or whatever, and don’t even skip a month. But I was pretty consistent when I decided enough was enough for a long time. And what finally brought me back? John Romita, Jr., naturally. But that’s getting 13 years ahead of myself…