As far as I know, nearly every tie-in to House of M had nothing to do with the main book. They just fleshed out the world around it, showing how stuff like, say, this version of Spider-Man’s life went. The closest tie-in was The Pulse #10, which focused on the newly resurrected Hawkeye sifting through the world he found himself in (And running into Kat Ferrel, naturally). A Captain America one showed what Steve’s life was like having never been Captain America. But they didn’t contain any crucial information not also found in the main series, again, just fleshing things out. I skipped this title at the time. It was clearly superfluous, the costume was terrible, and I’m just not much for alternate reality stories to begin with. But I found them all in McKay’s cheap last year, and this goofy blog means I buy all sorts of comics I intentionally did not buy on release so… why not? Let’s see what’s up with famous superhero Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, in this alternate reality. Can’t be worse than those 6 issues of MKSM. almost literally just can’t. This is, for some reason, co-written by Mark Waid and Tom Peyer. I always think that’s weird. I always assume the collaboration was pretty one-sided. It’s penciled by Salvador Larroca, inked by Danny Miki, and colored by Liquid!, which was either a studio or a guy, I don’t know. Which Salvador Larroca will this be? The one who drew vaguely in the post-Joe Mad style? The one with a more superhero-y style seen in such publications as X-Treme X-Men? Maybe the one who traces photos, not too terribly far from taking on Iron Man? You never know! We open on Gwen Stacy (Parker?) and their son sleeping.
I think something went horribly wrong with the colors on this page. That weird plastic-y sheen on everyone’s skin isn’t a feature of the book. The recap page at the top said Peter feels something is strange, but doesn’t know what, presumably not yet woken up. Bit weird, then, him crying and all. Our hero walks down a hall full of newspaper articles about him & Gwen, and then starts going through a big gym, not unlike the one that used to be in Avengers mansion, putting himself through his paces.
Well… ok. That’s a lot of info dump. I was wondering if George Stacy was alive. I now recall a vague idea of what this series was about. We are next subjected to George Stacy being harassed by anti-human racist security guards at an event he’s supposed to speak at until JJJ appears, saying he’s the publicist for the world-famous Spider-Man and this is his father-in-law and this guard is about to lose his job. The way Ben set it up, I expected it to be Flash as the publicist. George goes on to his engagement, where he’s going to demonstrate a new device his daughter & son-in-law have invented. He’s made the racist guard come with him, and orders the guard to attack him.
Right-o. We then go to Osborn Industries, where Gwen Parker is overseeing the transfer of all assets to Spider-Man, Inc. Norman Osborn is not happy about this, but apparently couldn’t stop it. Meanwhile:
Man, what on Earth happened to this book? It looks like some of the coloring is on top of the line art, but not in any way that makes practical sense.
So… they gave Peter his heart’s desire, and it was… to be a rich jerk?
So, like, obviously, Spider-Man is only pretending to be a mutant, and obviously, this will all come crashing down around his ears. Except that doesn’t line up with the main story in the slightest. Thes tie-ins really were pointless.