Hey, look, this month, Lee Weeks is on board. That’s perhaps because Bennett & Florea are on the big finale of this story, but even so, Lee Weeks doesn’t seem like a pinch hitter. I hope his art doesn’t look too rushed. Scott Hanna will help make sure of that, and Brian Haberlin is suddenly coloring. I think of him as an Image dude, that’s surprising. Page one is a pin-up of MJ with Peter’s narration saying he remembers the moment he fell in love with her.
It’s been 10 months since Peter accepted MJ was dead. Now, suddenly, he doesn’t believe it again. Sloppy.
Weeks draws a great Spider-Man! I think of Haberlin as a pretty heavy handed colorist, and this is lining up with that.
What’s up with this guy? He goes to the door of MJ’s cell, but doesn’t speak. She begs him just to talk, says she’s been here so long and just wants to hear another human voice. He tells her he needs her to–, but breaks off. When she presses, he says she’s already given it to him, and it’ll be here soon.
Gotta get the lollipop in there! Peter is still going on about how MJ is alive, and Jill asks when the last time he ate was. As she goes to get him something, a voice says “It’s time,” and when she gets back, he’s gone. Elsewhere, The Guy tells MJ he never would have treated her like that, revealing that he knows her husband is Spider-Man. That he knows “a lot of things. Too much sometimes.” When MJ demands answers, The Guy says, “He’ll be here soon. You’ll have your answers.” She’ll certainly have some answers…
One thing’s for sure, Weeks isn’t phoning this in or rushing, these are great pages. In the moment Spider-Man touched him, this guy’s weird powers, which you would assume were mutant telepathy to this point, for some reason, latched solely onto Spider-Man. He inherited all of Peter’s memories, lived them all, absorbed his whole life. Says he saw the emptiness of his own life, everything he’d missed. MJ says she’ll never be his.
The guy says it’s almost over as Spider-Man arrives. MJ demands to know what’s going on and then her cell opens.
Somehow, there’s 2 whole issues of this left, one of them oversized. Seems impossible, right? Another thing that seems impossible is any of this having been the plan from the beginning. And I have recently read that that’s because it wasn’t. But we’ll get to that.