Alright, then. You’re on the run from Uncle Sam. You have very little money and you’re holed up in a motel. And you’ve joined Captain America’s resistance, which presumably gives you a lot of things to do. What do you do in the 30 seconds left in your day? I really can’t imagine how this comic could be happening. And it’s got a new art team for a minute in the form of Scott Eaton, John Dell and Matt Milla. Scott Eaton hops from T’Challa’s wedding to Spider-Man, some pretty high profile jobs. At any rate, it turns out this one is something I read about on a wiki years ago when reading for this blog, like 2018, and I’ve been tremendously curious about it ever since. And we get right to it on page 1:
Deb Whitman! She’s back! She’s written a book about how Peter lied to her about being Spider-Man! Somehow. She… wrote a book in the, what, couple of weeks tops since Spider-Man came out, and it’s already ready to ship? Talk about a turnaround.
She’s already crying and apologizing on page 2, it sure is Deb Whitman! Oh, uh, the old saying is for every door that closes, another one opens, and that’s laid over the first panel on a page of masked goons… rushing Peter’s high school to take hostages?
Hey, it’s that guy. He’s been curiously absent from this event, but he’s not been idle. While Emma Frost said the X-Men were gonna remain neutral, even as Cable and Bishop soldiered up anyway, Wolverine went on a mission to hunt down Nitro, the man actually responsible for all this. I didn’t read that tie-in. In addition to not really following Wolverine anyway, it was drawn by Humberto Ramos (of ALL people), so no, thank you. But I know it by its reputation. I know it for blowing up Wolverine so bad he’s nothing but a metal skeleton, and he fully regenerates from that, no problem. Wolverine officially jumps the shark during Civil War. Everything is ruined by this stupid event. Well, Wolverine starts taking those guys apart, and one of them gets away, only to be picked up by the Punisher. Man, how many people are hanging around this school?
What… what? He has an image inducer, like the X-Men use? How? Why? When?
The flashback to Arrow’s absurd attempt to get Peter to keep endangering the kids continues for another pages, results inconclusive, and then we go look at Adrian Toomes, who is given his suit and free reign by unseen captors. One would assume it’s part of the Thunderbolts thing, but I don’t… think it is. I don’t know. Where’s Deb? That’s the thing I’m interested in.
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. And Peter’s boss wouldn’t recognize him A DAY LATER in that stupid disguise???? Oh, I don’t know if I can handle this.
Why is this comic cut up like a Quentin Tarantino movie? Who is served by this? Ok, he really DOES have an X-Men image inducer. Wait, is “Ben Reilly” meant to not look like Peter Parker, then? I mean, who could tell in a comic where we never saw Peter’s face drawn by someone new to the title? A cocoon, huh? So Arrow really is the Other. I guess it’s nice of someone to follow up on that. I guess. “Ben Reilly” finds Peter’s job already filled (SINCE YESTERDAY!?!?!) but he’s offered Assistant Phys-Ed under Flash, which makes so little sense it makes negative sense. When is he working this job? How does he have time to do this? Uuuuugggghhhh, I hate Civil War!! Walking home, a Bugle headline catches his eye.
The sheer amount of incident David is cramming in here when this book can’t possibly have happened is ludicrous. Ludicrous!! And he’s got 2 more, and then who KNOWS what Aguirre-Sacasa will do. What a disaster.