{"id":22630,"date":"2024-09-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=22630"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:42:27","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T20:42:27","slug":"asm-v2-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/09\/05\/asm-v2-24\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM V2 24"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After 2 years of build up, the rudderless Senator Ward saga will wrap up in the midst of Maximum Security. It felt like Ward was endlessly haunting these pages during much of that time, but the internet sez he only appeared in 11 comics, this one included. Huh. I guess they did just drop his plot for awhile after they blew up MJ. Sometimes, comics do a frustrating thing with the credits where they just jam everyone\u2019s last name in a box. I don\u2019t know why, but it\u2019s happened throughout the decades. And it\u2019s extra frustrating here, because crammed between \u201cromita\u201d and \u201cgreen\u201d (no caps) is \u201celliot.\u201d Who\u2019s \u201cElliot?\u201d The internet says it was inker Randy Elliot helping out Dan Green, but why make that so hard to know? We open on the standoff from last issue giving way to a fight, Arthur begging Spider-Man to get Jill out of there, Jill rendered with no face in one panel (What\u2019s the deal, Randy-and-or-Dan?), and the Z\u2019Nox taking Arthur and leaving with Ward in a mere 5 panels. Jill slaps Spider-Man and says he\u2019s been nothing but poison to her family, then Ranger says he can\u2019t go up against Ward alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The blue in Spidey\u2019s suit consistently being all black, coupled with the presence of a 2nd inker,  feels like evidence this job was behind schedule.  The Badoon, another famous Marvel alien race. The Badoon suddenly just flee, and Spidey thinks they seemed afraid of him, but he has no idea why. And is exhausted after being shot in the back by alien lasers, and decides he has to go try to get some rest. Then we see a Green Goblin fighting other aliens at an Osborn facility, and he\u2019s described as \u201cclumsy and unsteady\u201d as he gets shot down and flees himself. What\u2019s his deal? That\u2019s for some other time. Later, Peter wakes up on the floor again, still exhausted. Very much like the old symbiote days. But the reason for this experience this time is impossible to predict and terrible. It\u2019s comin\u2019! He goes out in the living room to find Glory and Randy watching the news, reporting the invasion of alien criminals that no one knows is an invasion of alien criminals. Randy says it\u2019s \u201ca Halloween thing\u2026 I\u2019m telling you!\u201d Ok, Randy.  Peter goes to visit Aunt May and finds himself looking through a photo album at all his dead loved ones before Aunt May chastises him for blaming himself even tho he didn\u2019t even say it out loud, so well does she know her nephew. Then he sees someone outside the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Unacceptable! Some random Z-List jobber knows Spider-Man\u2019s identity now!? And Peter just rolls with it? They went out of their way to take that away from Venom whose entire deal is hating Peter Parker, and they let RANGER know? Stupid, sloppy, unacceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A tidy recap of last issue\u2019s flashbacks. Over a montage of people at the Bugle, Ranger says the pathogen is airborne now, and he\u2019s sure Ward has an antidote ready to sell to the world to attain more power. This feels so left field. Then it\u2019s time for more exposition:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back in the beginning, in PPSM 1<\/a>, Ward was talked to by mysterious voices that seemed to manifest as fire. A mere 2 issues ago, he was talking about having aliens living inside him. Now he\u2019s just a big container for a virus? How often did this story change behind the scenes before arriving at this disappointing conclusion? Well, the boys find Arthur in some big, weird, yellow\u00a0 biomachinery, and then Ward and his homies show up and talk about how Earth has been made an alien prison, which is what brought this other Z\u2019Nox guy around. Things don\u2019t get any more concrete as Ranger, who JUST told Spider-Man Ward wants Arthur to be the new host of the virus, asks Ward what he wants with Arthur, and is told he\u2019ll be the new host of the virus. This is not exactly anyone\u2019s finest hour. Then it\u2019s fightin\u2019 time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Always about a lady. While they argue about who deserved to marry Arthur\u2019s wife, Spidey begins subduing the 2 aliens with electrical feedback from their own weird machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Good Spider-Man joke. Ward starts rapidly turning into a giant muck monster. Ranger somehow knows that Spider-Man has to get the antidote off him, and jam it \u201cinto a major artery,\u201d which will turn Ward from a container for the bug to a \u201csuper-charged antibody manufacturing mechanism,\u201d which makes NO sense at all. So Spidey jams the stuff into the ever-expanding mass of Ward\u2019s body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And that\u2019s that for Senator Ward. Not one of the all-time great villains. I wonder what the original plan was. It had to have been better than this nonsense. I guess we\u2019ll never know. And he\u2019s not the only one shuffling off stage in the coming issues, either. That\u2019s it for this block. In the Vol. 1 era, I broke things up by author to keep things from getting stale for me. This time, I\u2019m going in a straight line, but I have a way to break things up still, and I\u2019m very excited about it. Next post, we check out something new.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 2 years of build up, the rudderless Senator Ward saga will wrap up in the midst of Maximum Security. It felt like Ward was endlessly haunting these pages during much of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864,1],"tags":[1863,35,120,308,40,415,976,525,118,1921,24,1872,2],"class_list":["post-22630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2000s","category-uncategorized","tag-amazing-spider-man-vol-2","tag-aunt-may","tag-dan-green","tag-glory-grant","tag-green-goblin","tag-howard-mackie","tag-jill-stacy","tag-joe-rosas","tag-john-romita-jr","tag-randy-elliot","tag-randy-robertson","tag-senator-ward","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22641,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22630\/revisions\/22641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}