Uh-oh! Hammer has sent in the clowns! You’ll remember Blacklash from being a total screwup in MTU 145. Has he done anything since then? I have no idea, but I haven’t seen him in a Spidey comic, so who cares? I got him and Killer Shrike mixed up as a kid. Similar costumes, both fought Spider-Man during this run of ASM, neither shows up very often. Seems like an honest mistake. And look, The Rhino got a makeover! More on that inside. This one opens with Spider-Man delivering a pizza. Really.
This issue is also a victim of Silly Putty, but I don’t have a better copy of it (yet?). Spidey talks to another military guy while Scorpion eats his pizza so we can get a recap of last issue, and then Scorpion says their time is up, and drags the General off to his helicopter to escape. He promised to kill the guy last issue, but when pressed, asks why anyone would expect him to tell the truth. Fair point. Spidey hitches a ride, but…
McFarlane’s action staging is not always too great. On the other hand, weird panels like these probably make it easier to deal with the twice-a-month schedule. Didn’t do himself any favors with that cityscape, though. Anyhow, at his own home, Justin Hammer recaps his deal and then summons up a visual list of his available goons…
You can see Hammer isn’t exactly bankrolling the A-List. Who killed MAN-KILLER? Meanwhile, Spider-Man arrives at Aunt May’s house. Aunt May says MJ is still out at a modeling gig. Peter thinks he’s happy she’s been able to get some work again. However…
Gasp! But wait, what’s the payoff on that Harry Osborn cliffhanger last issue?
Wah wah waaaaaah. Told you you’d never guess. Because it’s quite the letdown. I recall being let down by it as a child. “Awesome, Green Goblin!” “Wait, what?” Back at Aunt May’s, MJ gets home. Peter says he spent all night looking for someone (Which, if this is Marvel method, feels like Michelinie trying to explain why Peter seemed to abandon Scorpion’s 2 hostages to their fate earlier), and then an irate MJ says her old pal Sandy asked around about some rumors she heard, and has confirmed that the reason she can’t get work is Jonathan Caesar.
Let me tell you, Scorpion on that TV down there was extremely weird and confusing to a young me, and in all honesty, still seems pretty weird now. It’s a very awkward segue to a badly Silly Puttyed Scorpion in Connecticut, where he’s tied up his chopper pilot in… a barn or warehouse or something in the country, and has decided to try to find someone to sell Musgrave to who’d want the military secrets he must possess. I dunno, maybe Justin Hammer would be a good idea?
Nothing on Earth could explain Spider-Man’s anatomy in that bottom panel. As we go forward, McFarlane will increasingly have this bizarre problem making Spider-Man’s lower half comically huge as he wraps it around his upper half for dramatic effect. Scorpion is going to Queens because he doesn’t know how to drive and has gotten turned around on the highway, which is legit funny. Musgrave tells him to ask a nice policeman for directions, which is also great, and then Spidey webs the windshield, causing Scorpy to crash, and then rips his way into the van.
This took a strange turn, yeah? Spidey leads Blacklash on a merry chase away from the general, who wishes he could help in some way, while this page…
…exposes not-quite-10-year-old me to the word “Ayatollahs” without enough context for me to figure out what it means. I still don’t really get that line even now. Is he implying that elderly Muslim clerics would be a physical match for people other than Rhino? Why or why not? Show your work. I have thought about that panel every single time I’ve read, seen or heard a news story about Iran my entire life. It haunts me. Aaaaanyway. While Spider-Man is being yoinked to the ground, Scorpion is also taken to the mat by Rhino simply demolishing the entire building he’s standing on. A building that happens to also hold up a giant globe, which is now rolling away like this is an Indiana Jones movie.
Extremely abrupt ending! That’s some real Early-Fantastic-Four-Jack-Kirby-level running out of pages. They say steal from the best, but maybe not like this. Well, then. Join us next time for something (almost) completely different.