Woof. these covers. Colors this month are by Transparency Digital. Well, Fusion is dragging Spider-Man by the foot, like on the cover, and Spidey’s narration tells us he’s really all-in on believing it’s all over.
He wakes up in Fusion’s home base full of super-people stuff, prominently featuring a bust of Venom (?) that is shamelessly ganked from Romita, Jr., and also a John Byrne Dr. Doom head. As he regains consciousness, Fusions says he knows what Spider-Man is thinking.
Spider-Man lays on the floor, having random thoughts about not feeding Barker, leaving the fridge open, wondering what JJJ is doing, thinking how upset MJ will be when she learned he died, his thoughts bouncing all over the place. This gets 3 pages, which would’ve been unheard of just a year prior, but it’s a new era. Fusion interrupts his fugue to say he doesn’t want to know who Spider-Man is under the mask, that he’s not a person to him. Which is certainly the easiest way to irrationally hate someone. He launches into berating Spider-Man for not saving his son.
Left to his own thoughts again, Spidey thinks his Spider Sense didn’t warn him about the bomb, and something’s not right there. He begins willing his fingers to move, and slowly, they do.
It’s so infinitely frustrating that Buckingham is a good artist, and a creative enough one to do a wild layout like this, and he’s still swiping Spider-Man on this page. Like, what is this? Laziness? Did it amuse him? Fusion begins attacking as Doc Ock, Dr. Doom and Thor, but Spider-Man’s not falling for the banana in the tailpipe anymore. When he throws Thor’s hammer, Spider-Man webs it down, revealing it to just be one of Fusion’s gadgets. Fusion initiates a self-destruct on it, but Spidey flings it away.
And that’s that. A poor man’s Mysterio, indeed. But at least it made for an unusual Spidey story, which is Jenkins’ stock in trade. Ok, time to go see what’s goin’ on in ASM.