If nothing else, this one’s gonna look good. Dan Slott returns to the writer’s chair, and for art duties, we got Marcos Martin on linework and Javier Rodriguez on colors. Martin is one of the slickest operators in comics, and Rodriguez is not only a good colorist, but an excellent penciler himself, so we’re in good hands as we meet… Screwball. I know Screwball as the character behind all the most annoying parts of the Spider-Man video game. It’s very strange for me to meet a comic book character in another medium first, but such is my lot with Spider-Man. We get started in medias res…
Spider-Man jobbing out to a silly character with no powers. It really is the 1970s all over again. Screwball is a pretty forward thinking concept, tho, you gotta hand it to them. “Live streaming” was a much more scattered and less popular concept in 2008 than it is now, so kudos to Dan Slott and/or the Braintrust for seeing the potential there. So many comics based on some fad-ish technology end up seeming silly later, but “a villain who livestreams their heists for views” only seems more plausible today. It’s her ability to easily evade Spider-Man that’s so stupid. Why doesn’t he just web her already?
I really only ran those last 2 for those clean, clean Marco Martin Spider-Mans. It’s interesting, his stuff has a vaguely “retro” feel at first, but his considered minimalism just feels different from the 1960s “I’m drawing 60 pages this month” minimalism, and he does a lot of unusual things with page layout, like this:
It’s fun. More fun that Peter is having when he takes his photos to the DB!, only to have Dexter Bennett show him a mock-up of the front page already done. Bennett says everyone on the scene sent in digital photos while he “waited around to shoot the whole thing,” and he needs to get with the times. Then he wants to talk to Peter about where he thinks he can use him: paparazzi shots. He wants embarrassing pictures of “Hollywood bad boy Bobby Carr,” in New York for the week, and he says he’ll pay $2 million for them. Peter is stunned. Listening in the wings, Robbie is disgusted. He thinks JJJ never would’ve stooped this low. That the only reason he’s hanging around is he knows JJJ will find a way to take the Bugle back. Which segues us to…
That, of course, is Vin Gonzales and his partner, The Only Two Cops In New York. What luck that they seem to turn up everywhere! Later, Peter Parker turns up at a nightclub Bobby Carr’s publicist said he’d be going to, but botches getting any shots of him walking in. So, obviously, our man breaks into the club. It just happens to be the club from ASM 546, The Only Club In New York, so he has an idea of the layout, and creeps into the VIP section as Carr is seated. Then he settles in to wait for something to happen.
Like I said, fun pages!
Are we REALLY going to have Peter lusting after Harry’s girl? That is so lame. And very 1970s of him. The goons are ready to beat Peter up and toss him out. Harry starts to intervene, but when he finds out Peter is taking paparazzi photos, he lets them take him away. Even Lily comments on how cold that was.
Well, there’s something you don’t see everyday. Those eyes belong to a weird, gothy lady who materializes out of the wall, and who seems to be using her superpowers to stalk Bobby Carr with a romantic obsession. That’s different. Cut to Dexter Bennett thrilled by Peter’s photos, calling them “a license to print money!” Robbie points out that Bennett is acting like JJJ did about Spider-Man, and implies Peter is doing the wrong thing. Which, ya know, he kinda is. But also why isn’t he a millionaire now? Bennett said his starting price for an embarrassing Bobby Carr photo was $2 million. And then we see a montage panel of Spider-Man snapping other celebs. Shouldn’t Peter be able to retire soon?
Paperdoll, huh? I guess we’ll see, never heard of this one. 13 issues into the new regime and not one returning villain yet. I certainly applaud their gung ho attitude about this, even if Mister Negative is the only real winner they’ve yet produced, and he’s solidly C-List. Maybe Paperdoll will be cool. At the very least, Marcos Martin seems like he’s gonna do very interesting stuff with her strange powers.