This cover shoulda been a poster or t-shirt or something. Both. I kind of think of this as the “Well, now what?” era of this run. JMS comes in hot with the totems, Ezekiel, Morlun, Peter’s new job, May learning Peter’s secret, boom boom boom boom. The blockbuster concepts of the pitch. And now, he’s gotta starting making the donuts every 30 days like everyone else. Coming from TV, he is maybe more prepared for this than a lot of the non-comics folks Jemas and Quesada approached, and maybe that’s why JMS hung around when most of them didn’t, but still, this stuff doesn’t feel as focused or as momentous as the opening salvo.
Johnny doing something of an homage to his dad’s cover to ASM 68. You don’t see him do that sort of thing much at all over 50+ years in comics. I almost wonder if Straczynski asked for it. Spidey is recapping what he’s up to, and mentioning how he didn’t find anything in web searches makes him think he’d be rich if he’d gotten some proper trademarks before the internet put the word “web” everywhere. Then there’s a weird tangent about not liking to have to upgrade Windows (??), and then we can get on with it.
Interesting thing here.
Feels like the dialogue intended for panel 1 of this 2nd page is in panel 7 of the previous one, and that continues. JR tended to move things around sometimes to highlight a moment, and I wonder if that’s what happened here. I wonder if JMS wasn’t planning for panel 7, and something didn’t get properly fixed. Panel 1 is clearly her celebrating “You said it!” while panel 2 is the sobering up “thank you for saving Johnny” moment, but the dialogue is behind the art, and then it syncs back up in panel 3. Also, again, how old is this kid meant to be? I think she’s supposed to be like 15, 16, but look at that height difference. Well, anyway, Spider-Man goes and finds Lt. Lamont, and they begin some very heightened banter.
Lamont seems to be having a lot more fun than all previous cops in the Spider-Books. Also, very Bugs Bunny Spider-Man, which is always correct. Next page, we’re at Aunt May’s house, and a family is walking down the street in the establishing shot, featuring 2 kids with their names written on their shirts, which makes me assume someone got themselves drawn into this comic. Peter is telling May the broad strokes of what he’s been up to as Spider-Man. May tells him to go get the roast out of the oven and she’ll be in in a minute. She’s writing letters to every paper and magazine in town saying people want positive Spider-Man stories. She doesn’t think anyone read her emails.
I mean, this is great stuff, and it’s great stuff no one ever had a chance to do before. May also wants Peter to know MJ is coming in on Tuesday, and only there for one night so he should meet her at the airport. Bets on that working out? Then we jump to Spidey in the car with his new pal, Lamont, learning about “the Shade,” who absolutely did not say his name during their encounter last issue, so how does Spidey know it? Lamont says the tattoo matches a guy at Latterbery’s, which is a mental institution. He’s going to get Spider-Man in to see him… wearing a fedora and trenchcoat. Classic. There are jokes about Spider-Man smelling like Clorox, and then we’re there. Spidey wonders why their guy would come back here if he didn’t have to, and then…
So the guy now sort of known as the Shade entered the Astral Plane, but this guy messed up the circle, so the connection was bad. The Shade vanished while begging for help, and this guy saw Dr. Strange stuff that wound him up in a mental institution. Lamont says the Shade must’ve been this guy’s cell mate, and he’ll try to find out who that was. Spidey, for his part, swings across town to ask an authority on these matters, because…
…no one can resist pairing Ditko’s 2 biggest creations for long, it seems. This issue frustratingly features part 2 of a thing serialized in the back of some comics (I guess?) for which I can’t readily produce part 1. I don’t even remember if I saw all of it. I think there’s a better place to talk about it, so I’ll just save it for later.