{"id":23332,"date":"2024-10-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=23332"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:41:55","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T20:41:55","slug":"asm-v2-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/10\/29\/asm-v2-27\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM V2 27"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s an odd cover idea. This month, the Spider-Office is newly under the auspices of Axel Alonso, recently poached from DC\u2019s Vertigo arm, where he edited a truly remarkable run of really major titles in the 90s, like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Hellblazer, Preacher and 100 Bullets. His first assignment at Marvel is the Spider-Books, but that\u2019s only the beginning, and he will eventually rise to Editor-in-Chief for a tenure that is pretty controversial. A run that kind of brought Marvel\u2019s 21st Century success train to a screeching halt. But that\u2019s for, uh, like 15 years after this issue came out. This month, ASM gets going with 2 mysterious dudes in an alley called \u201cMr. P\u201d and \u201cMr. Q\u201d (Really?) watching an unspecified person. Nearby, Peter and Randy are walking down the street, Randy still raving about his encounter with Green Goblin, aka Pete. Peter tries to tell him to let it go, that it was weeks ago, but Randy is pretty traumatized. Then a quick shock of Spider Sense makes Peter claim he left his wallet in the restaurant and run off to this awesome 2-page spread:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That Spidey should\u2019ve been a t-shirt. Spidey finds that little girl distraught because her cat is up a tree. As cliche as possible. But when he gets up there, he finds the animal feeling pretty rowdy, and many cartoon sound effects ensue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That\u2019s one big cat!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hey, \u201cAxel\u2019s Pub\u201d back there. Jr welcoming the new boss. Like that John Woo joke. As a very confused Spider-Man goes to higher ground looking for his assailants, we see Mr. P & Mr. Q, obviously after the giant cat, decide they need to bring in the really heavy fire power, revealing a trunk full of crazy Romita weapons. But Peter Parker is running back to Randy walking down the street, having \u201cretrieved his wallet.\u201d It wasn\u2019t fully obvious last issue, but Randy has grown a goatee, because he\u2019s a black man in a comic in the 2000s. He\u2019s lucky they didn\u2019t also shave his head. Peter smells awful because of the cat, and they stop off so Randy can buy some cheap cologne and hose him down with it before taking Peter to a secret underground nightclub. Elsewhere:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That cat is a thief! Back at the club, a band Randy says \u201cdoes 90s covers of 70s songs with post-80s funk\u201d is about to play, and Jill & Glory are waiting for them, naturally. Glory makes fun of Peter\u2019s cologne, recognizing it as something Randy would buy instantly, and Peter is uncomfortable for some reason. Feels like it\u2019s been so long since I saw them all together I don\u2019t even remember why he would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m with Glory on this one, how is this different from any number of previous scenes in this title? But Peter is freakin\u2019 out in the bathroom, thinking Jill is  like a sister and he dated her cousin and Randy can\u2019t keep doing this to him, and then\u2026 the cat comes in the window, and his Spider Sense goes off, and he sees the Mr.\u2019s down on the street looking for the cat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Solid joke, Glory! Those guys disappear back out the door suddenly, but the band saw what happened and is nervous. Randy and the girls are clueless, the cat is wandering around the club, and it\u2019s time for a double-splash page:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So good. A horizontal 2-page spread follows, in which Spider-Man dodges giant explosions while finding out these guys aren\u2019t after him, but were hired by AIM to find \u201ca walking genetic timebomb\u201d that is feline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Peter didn\u2019t have his Romita-issued shoulder bag when they went to the club! A rare continuity error from the master. Kind of nice, really. Makes things feel a little better for us mere mortals when the gods make mistakes. They\u2019re letting an unusually high number of letters referencing how people hate the Spider-Titles run lately (A couple mentioning how the newly launched USM is better, even), presumably because they think they have the solution. One writer astutely points out that the whole death of MJ thing is starting to stink like the Clone Saga, while another calls killing her \u201cjust disgusting,\u201d and after saying he swore off ASM when they brought Aunt May back but also bought #25, says he\u2019ll never buy another issue. That\u2019s an addict for ya. And everyone in the letters knows Mackie\u2019s out, who his replacement is, and have heard rumors about the end of Mackie\u2019s tenure which are true. As the internet got bigger and bigger, keeping comics stories secret \u2018til they launch became essentially impossible. I guess my big questions for the back half of 2000 are \u201cWhen did Howard Mackie find out his services were no longer required?\u201d and \u201cHow far in advance had he planned when he found out?\u201d How drastically did he have to scramble to wrap up all his ongoing plots? This is 2 months of random one-offs before the big finale storyline. Was he already done and just filling time? That\u2019s very Clone Saga\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s an odd cover idea. This month, the Spider-Office is newly under the auspices of Axel Alonso, recently poached from DC\u2019s Vertigo arm, where he edited a truly remarkable run of really…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864,1],"tags":[1863,35,308,415,976,525,118,24,417,2],"class_list":["post-23332","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-glory-grant","tag-howard-mackie","tag-jill-stacy","tag-joe-rosas","tag-john-romita-jr","tag-randy-robertson","tag-scott-hanna","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23332","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=23332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23341,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23332\/revisions\/23341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}