{"id":26444,"date":"2025-04-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=26444"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:39:22","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T20:39:22","slug":"mksm-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2025\/04\/30\/mksm-12\/","title":{"rendered":"MKSM 12"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My suffering is almost (Temporarily) at an end. Well, as we get rolling one last time, they\u2019re trading barbs up on a bridge with Spider-Man\u2019s unconscious true love, blah blah blah, seen it all before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Even the idea that Osborn has Aunt May in a closet somewhere\u2026 AGAIN\u2026 is so tiresome. Note also that Norman seems to be implying that the fight in issue 1 is the one we didn\u2019t see in Pulse 5<\/a>, which had not come out yet. While that\u2019s technically possible, the way it played doesn\u2019t read that way. I suppose, if you were feeling charitable, you could say they were being intentionally vague so as not to spoil the Pulse. I am not feeling charitable after reading all this garbage. And also, Norman never \u201cescaped from Cage\u201d in that story. He escaped from Jessica, he was caught by a combination of Spider-Man and Luke Cage. And I guess that Ant-Man crack is related to the then-current story where Iron Man was Secretary of Defense? I dunno. A lot to process on this page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, the mind-controlled Ock forces Norman to drop MJ. He just keeps repeating \u201cKill Norman Osborn\u201d over and over as they start fighting. Rather than rushing to his unconscious bride while the two villains are focused on each other, Spider-Man webs Norman and slams him into the bridge. That makes no sense to me. And least get MJ out of there first. But, what do I know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, that explanation of the big plot hole with Rachel Summers is both unsatisfying and hastily delivered, like someone reminded him there should be one at the last second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In a truly disgusting turn of events, the kickback from the pistol throws MJ off the bridge, and Spider-Man relives Gwen\u2019s death scene, this time shooting 6 webs onto MJ to make sure she doesn\u2019t die in transit. He reels her up to safety and Norman keeps babbling about Aunt May\u2019s impending doom. He\u2019s about to smash Spider-Man with his glider. We are mercifully saved from any cliche glider things, but\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026it\u2019s actually worse than that. A freak lightning strike. Unbelievable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI see no reason that would have killed either of them, and in my experience, it probably didn\u2019t even knock them out, but I\u2019m leaving you here, anyway, honey! Hope you don\u2019t die!\u201d Well, suddenly, Peter remembers a crucial detail no one shared with us. When he was moping at Ben\u2019s grave awhile ago, there was \u201cfresh turf\u201d on it. Why would that be if they were only replacing the headstone. He realizes Rachel\u2019s vision wasn\u2019t entirely untrue. She\u2019s buried in Ben\u2019s grave. Spider-Man digs it up, and sure enough, she\u2019s down there, in a coffin, with an oxygen tank. So\u2026 where\u2019s Ben? Doubt it even gets mentioned. He coulda put her in Spider-Man\u2019s grave on Kraven\u2019s estate. Probably would\u2019ve been better. Well, anyway, Peter has her out, but can\u2019t find a pulse and convinces himself she\u2019s dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As if anyone would buy that she was at this point. Especially dealing with the guy who loves his dumb twists, if you spend 11 issues telling me May is dead, I know she\u2019s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What point is there in making Felicia still have a thing for Peter? No one will follow up on this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I don\u2019t actually remember what happens with Venom\/Gargan. Hm. It appears that\u2019s because, aside from a very minor appearance, he\u2019s not in anything until the next thing I saw him in,  a year and a half later. That seems like a long time for the new Venom to lie fallow. Maybe people thought Millar wanted to come back to it or something. I don\u2019t think anyone else becomes a new Scorpion. I don\u2019t recall one, anyway. JJJ thinking John is Spider-Man will never be referenced again, nor will the Bugle being Pro-Spider-Man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So Aunt May goes back to the house, explaining why she never moved in any of the other titles. I mean, what a bunch of nothing. And why 2 randos with Crohn\u2019s Disease in this story? Is this his idea of raising awareness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What a stupid ending. Some people try so hard to make Green Goblin a Joker for Spider-Man. It\u2019s not going to work and he doesn\u2019t need one. And look how much was left unanswered. Every damn villain knows about MJ & May! Their lives should be over! Instead, the implication is all is well again, status quo restored. Plot holes you could drive the entire UPS fleet through. Ultimately (A loaded word around here), this whole mess feels like a reaction to the Batman story \u201cHush.\u201d In that, Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee did a year-ish on Batman where he fought all his biggest villains (And Superman, Frank Miller ensured that replaying all the major Batfights must include Superman) while trying to solve a mystery. And here\u2019s a year of Spider-Man fighting all his biggest villains while trying to solve a mystery. Hush was not very good, starting strong, but then somehow having the new villain turn out to be exactly who you thought it was, while also producing a last minute mastermind behind him you couldn\u2019t have guessed with all the clues, disappointing in 2 ways at once. But it was worthy of every prize in literature compared to this. Here\u2019s Millar\u2019s afterword:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lemme tell you something: Marvel Knights Spider-Man 13-18 are the only comics I outright refused to buy during this whole blog project. There\u2019s things I didn\u2019t get, or couldn\u2019t find before I would\u2019ve needed to read them, which seemed to defeat the purpose. There were things I didn’t really want, but got, anyway. But those comics I simply refused to read. Reggie Hudlin\u2019s Black Panther was atrocious, and his run on this title has a rep, and it\u2019s not good. His first Spider-Man story created a villain who\u2019s essentially Evil Superman, and it sounds awful. But I was forced to buy some of Hudlin\u2019s run for reasons that will\u2026 make me read more junk in the near future. A crossover between all the titles that has gone down in history as one of the worst Spider-Man stories ever made. Man. It\u2019s really all downhill from here. So few bright spots between 2004 and 2022. But at least I\u2019m free of Millar\u2026 for a year or so. My timeline is getting messy again. Now MKSM is at cover date May 2005, while I left TAC in June 2004 and ASM in August 2004. But this was a year\u2019s worth of uninterrupted story, and there\u2019s a lot of additional factors to juggle in this moment. Such as our next post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My suffering is almost (Temporarily) at an end. Well, as we get rolling one last time, they\u2019re trading barbs up on a bridge with Spider-Man\u2019s unconscious true love, blah blah blah, seen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864,1],"tags":[35,2033,25,40,13,26,27,2106,2105,21,2108,2,2107],"class_list":["post-26444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2000s","category-uncategorized","tag-aunt-may","tag-avalon-studios","tag-doctor-octopus","tag-green-goblin","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-joe-robertson","tag-john-jameson","tag-mark-millar","tag-marvel-knights-spider-man","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-rachel-dodson","tag-spider-man","tag-terry-dodson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26444","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=26444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26445,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26444\/revisions\/26445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}