Out the same month as USM 128, it’s the 3rd and final USM Annual. Like the other 2, it has a Mark Brooks cover. Unlike the other 2, it’s not actually drawn by him. Instead, please welcome to the blog David LaFuente! David brings a kinetic and expressive style that I, and perhaps only I, see as a mix of manga and John Romita, Jr. The manga influence is obvious, but his work has a precision and his figures have a mass to them that recalls Romita to me. Also the hands. But we’ll see. And we’ll see a good deal, because, spoilers, when Stuart Immonen moves on, LaFuente is taking over the book. I first saw LaFuete drawing Runaways for writer Kathryn Immonen, wife of Stuart, it’s all connected! He’s pretty good here, but he’ll really level up by the next time we see him. Anyway, we open “Last night,” with Peter asking Mary Jane what she’s thinking about.
Gee whiz, what happened? We don’t know, as we jump to Spider-Man swinging around, internal monologuing for a full page about how MJ is a crazy person until…
So few artists have gotten to draw this character. Which is highly unusual for a guy who’s been on the stands for just under 9 years, at this point. It’s always interesting to see a new version. And look at LaFuente go! Immonen is more or less the master of comics action in this moment (James Harren, working on the Hellboy BPRD spinoffs, is giving him a run for his money, tho). But having said that, look at that spread! That’s some fun action. Our hero next tries to web up a wall/net in front of the car, but it rips right through. Next, he webs up a huge mound of web in the middle of the road for the car to hit and flip, and by the time it’s in the air, he’s out of it and already spinning up a net to catch it. Really good stuff!
Speaking there is Ultimate Jessica Jones, who we may recall Bendis introducing in USM 106 and then just letting her go for awhile. Next, we find MJ running into Peter in the cafeteria. It must be noted that she is always carrying her baby around for that project that ended in USM 121, a full 8 months before this came out. Who knows? The continuity problems Bendis somehow creates for himself really baffle me. Anyway, Peter is still mad at her being “crazy” (And Kitty and Kong are watching intently from a safe distance), but MJ has other things on her mind.
Peter explains/flashes back to how the cops didn’t just not shoot at him or blame him for the car, thing, they thanked him for stopping it. Then Captain Frank Quaid, from USM 122, pops up to say they’re even for the Shocker thing, and this was the cops being played. He asks if Spider-Man has a few minutes. The go back to the station, where Spider-Man is shown the footage from the bank that driverless car sort of robbed.
LaFuente’s cartoony-ness really works for the title in a totally different way than Immonen or Bagley. Bags gave the book a kind of respectability when it was a longshot, then refined his style to suit it nicely. Immonen bring a looseness and a different kind of dynamism. LaFuente is bringing the kind of outsized emotion the teenagers really need. Different flavors all suiting the same thing. It really hits you more on a book that’s only had 4 artists (Counting Mark Brooks, of course). Well, that night, the lady with the glasses from the police precinct reports to Mysterio that they’re onto him. Mysterio is kept, uh, mysterious, not unlike the person in the Green Goblin suit in the Ditko ASMs. Anyway…
Great sequence! Everyone rushes out of the exploding building, no closer to stopping the mysterious Mysterio. Next, Peter appears at MJ’s window late at night to catch her up on how Mysterio had someone on the inside.
Bit of a weird story, the Peter & MJ part. A whole issue of them “fighting” over nothing at all. Well executed, tho. Hang on, there’s one more page:
What’s the deal with Ultimate Mysterio? Man, you would not believe it. You really wouldn’t. But that won’t be resolved for a very long time. Suffice it to say, it’s not the same guy from USM 55. It is insane how long it took me to read this block. 28 issues. I usually read one a day, sometimes 2. And yet this one was in progress from July to October. Life just kinda got in the way. Well! With this handled, we’re off to Secret Invasion. Which I read before the last block of ASMs, not remembering that it takes place after them. So I read those in, like, April or May. A long time ago. And I’m off to read my next block of ASMs. Which promises to have some ridiculous stuff in it…