Beyond his terrible art style, one of the most baffling things to me about people loving Ramos for Spider-Man is, his Spider-Man poses are insane. Insane! Look at that one! It only gets worse! You think this issue will triumphantly bring back the Daily Bugle cast? Answer: No. That’s not JJJ. But, look, we got a guest artist this month: Staz Johnson, a name I recognize, but a penciller whose work I’m not too familiar with. The rest of the team remains in place.
Well, you can certainly see why they thought of Johnson. Not that his work is exactly like Bucky’s or anything, but there’s certainly closer together than, say, bringing in Joe Bennett.
Well, I certainly don’t know where this is going. It occurs to me, far too late, that most of the stuff I remember vividly, I read several times. This is pretty squarely in the “read it and put it in a box” era of my comics fandom that continues to this day. It was one of the things that motivated what became this blog in the first place: Revisiting all this stuff I bought. Of course I remember every panel of ASM 320. I read it like 50 times. I studied it, trying to draw like Todd McFarlane. I pressed Silly Putty into it to copy cool pictures of Spider-Man. Comics of my youth were repeat use products. This, I read once, 22 years ago. Why would I remember what happens? Anyway! As he enters a bar, Billy Fender lets us know he’s been going over all his Spider-Man data and tracking him for 6 years, and he’s right about this one. We learn the bartender, Rita, is an on-again, off-again paramore who he stands up all the time, and she says the thing about him is he always has a big day coming, but it’s always tomorrow. He says it’s for real this time. Leaving the bar, Fender thinks he’ll take her away from all this. That he’ll get millions for the TV rights alone to “Spider-Man: Unmasked and Uncovered.” Then he flashes back to how it all started. He was doing some stereotypical private eye spying on an unfaithful wife when a police shootout erupted on the streets below, and he ran down for some reason.
Rhino! How many posts has it been since I saw a classic villain? Kind of crazy, really, Evil No Name Guy and Morlun and Fusion and Eyebeams William and the Mets’ winning record have been the villains of these titles for some while now.
So, this guy stayed in NY, got a job working for an insurance company, and has been studying Spider-Man for the last 6 years. We see Billy doing his thing in an office when Galactus attacks. Not sure if it’s meant to be the first time. The FF are shown in the wrong suits, if so, as Billy and his boss watch out the window, and Billy’s boss tells him to get off his Spider-Man kick. In the present, Billy is on his way to make his fortune, and in a good mood.
But… Why would Spider-Man’s web have photography chemicals if he invented it before becoming a photographer…? Well, Billy quits his job by busting into a meeting in his boss’s office and throwing an envelope at him that he says will make sure he can’t try to take a piece of the action on this Spider-Man thing, and then he goes to… the Daily Bugle. He cons his way upstairs…. Hey, we are gonna get to see the old goat in this!
Uh… that’s the last page. That’s crazy. And we’ll presumably never see Billy Fender again. That’s the twist ending? Why even do this if you don’t get to see JJJ bluster his way through it? What a bizarre choice.