Remember how a thrice (sometimes twice, sometimes four times, one month even five times) monthly ASM was to replace the other ongoing titles? No one believed that, right? Here comes a new anthology title. Which makes it more or less yet another Spider-Man Family by a less DC-sounding name, and also pretty much doomed since anthologies don’t sell for whatever reason. They manage 12 issues of this. I didn’t even know it existed, but it ties into upcoming ASMs, so… here we are. And I already have regrets as JM DeMatteis returns to these pages to do a story about Kaine. You had to assume he’d be coming up with all this Ben Reilly: Murderer nonsense in ASM. And now get to check in with the Wallower-in-Chief about it. Oh boy. He is joined by Val Semeiks, Dan Green and Andres Mossa.
Right into it, huh?
Kudos to the art team, tho. These pages look crunchy! I mean that in a good way. Very European looking. Kaine rampages through the mysterious facility he’s in, he doesn’t know where, internal monologuing about how he liked that they kept him in a dark hole and how “the animal inside” is “screaming for death,” very DeMatteis. Then he begins to hallucinate that one of the guards who’ve subdued him is Spider-Man.
My goodness, that hair!
I had to go look this up, as I couldn’t recall how Kaine left the books. I’m a little surprised to be reminded he simply turned himself in to the cops in Spider-Man: Redemption #4 and hasn’t been seen since. Man, look at my sign off on that post. Back when I had no intention of covering a book I didn’t own on paper. How smart I was back then.
Yeah, yeah. Imaginary Kaine fights imaginary Jackal for awhile, their history is frankly somewhat misconstrued, and then Jackal asks him what if the process he’s undergoing now isn’t dying, but his cells “finding a new balance.” Because that makes so much sense.
That lady is mean.
Really nice colors. Well, the 2nd Imaginary Kaine kills the Imaginary Louise and then the 2 Imaginary Kaine’s argue. Can this be over yet? I got stuff to do. Kaine accepts himself or whatever and decides he’s ready to let go. But then he summons and Imaginary Peter Parker who won’t let him die, who says some might say Ben Reilly was the best of him, and Kaine…
Sure sure, whatever. Just more miserable psychobabble in the beloved DeMatteis fashion. Haven’t missed it. See more of this dopey mistake in ASM, soon! The middle feature of this and presumably all future issues is still more of Spider-Girl clinging to life. The thing just would not die, always like 2 readers away from cancellation, now finding a home in this book of spare parts. And I shall doggedly continue to not cover Spider-Girl, because I feel like I’d have to go back to the beginning and it’s not even good. So, then, on to the 3rd feature. This one’s by Sean McKeever & Stephanie Buscema. Yes, Buscema! Stephanie is the granddaughter of John and Sal, and is a cartoonist rather than a comic book artist. Her stuff is instantly recognizable.
Another reach back to unpleasant DeMatteis times. But it’s cute art this time. They argue about being partners for a page, and then
Tadpole goes on to try to prove how powerful he is, displaying that he’s even lamer than Frog-Man.
Well, ok. I hope people feel like they got their money’s worth out of this collection of random bits. Man, imagine you’re one of those tenacious Spider-Girl fans keeping that book limping along, and now you have to buy the middle of this every month. Even the conditions that made me quit buying ASM weren’t that bad. We’ll be seeing more of this title in our next ASM block, which is… far in the future…