Having enjoyed(?) the Electro portion of The Gauntlet, we now stop over at Web of Spider-Man #2 for background on Electro. This is apparently going to be what this book does for awhile, context for whatever villain is currently being featured. Necessary? Doesn’t seem like it! But the spice must flow! This came out between parts 2 & 3 of the Electro story. Bit awkward. due to the long gap in my reading, I don’t even remember was #1 was. Some JM DeMatteis crap? I feel like that’s true. Oh, right, about KAINE, everyone’s favorite character KAINE. That sweet, sweet wallowing in misery, ol’ JM just can’t get enough. Anyway, this time out, we’re with Fred Van Lente, Barry Kitson and Jeromy Cox to talk about Electro. Familiar faces.
People loved an “: Origins” in this period. Loved it. I bet Max Dillon loved being thought of as their best pole man. Our story begins “then,” with a mystery man stopping a shipment of Stark equiment on a bridge. Who could it be???
They used to portray Electro as a dumb mook. Now he’s a super scientist? Well, this is certainly an unexpected turn. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants showing up outside an X-Men comic, how novel! Magneto tells Max his origin is way too stupid to be real, and that he is clearly neither mutant or human, but something else. What? What??? What else, exactly? That’s not better!! “It’s not that electrical current and lightning hitting you at the same time gave you powers, it’s that you’re some biological marvel beyond scientific explanation, even in the Marvel Universe. WAY more realistic!” He tries to tell Max he’ll just get lumped in with mutants, anyway, and should therefore join the Brotherhood, but Max is not interested in taking orders from anyone, so Magneto just leaves. What are we doing, here? Electro is a new fork of human evolution? And that isn’t even the point??? How is that better????
Who’s this guy allofasudden? What’s happening? Why does he look like Peter Parker? Sure there are more than 2 hairstyles possible for white men.
THAT’S THE END???? HOW WAS THIS WORTH YOUR MONEY??? Holy CRAP. I am taken aback at how stupid this was. Well, this version of Web is still an extra-sized anthology, so in addition to this utterly pointless exercise, you also get a new Spider-Girl adventure we surely won’t be covering, which is way longer than this (!), and then…
Tom Peyer, back at it again. I don’t think he deserves to be the guy the Spider-Office calls when they have some empty pages to fill, but that seem to be how they think of him. Javier Rodriguez is back, tho, so that’s nice!
JJJ’s in trouble! He wakes up tied to a chair by this guy, one Emil Nason, who reveals that Jonah is his hero. The room he finds himself has every available surface covered in JJJ’s editorials (And a Spider-Man dart board).
Well… those sure were some pages filled. Javier Rodriguez, wasted on this. What a time. Next post: what do you think, more Gauntlet. Gauntlet is all there is! Gauntlet is forever!