{"id":4661,"date":"2020-04-21T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T04:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=4661"},"modified":"2019-06-08T02:09:06","modified_gmt":"2019-06-08T06:09:06","slug":"web-043","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2020\/04\/21\/web-043\/","title":{"rendered":"WEB 043"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here we go, big cult finale! Looks like those guys aren\u2019t as benign as dumb ol\u2019 Spidey was seeming to think. We rejoin the kidnapping of Betty Brant, already in progress, as she demands that Peter help her. So he does what anyone would do and flashback back to the events of the previous 3 issues before saying anything.
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Awkward. Meanwhile, in Cultville\u2026
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Back at the apartment, the guys are trying to deprogram Betty by shining a spotlight on her face and asking her questions. The Reverend says he\u2019s done this before. She finds herself admitting the cultists locked her up and wouldn\u2019t feed her in the beginning to \u201chelp her learn,\u201d but she\u2019s not coming around. The questions start coming faster and more intense, making Betty admit \u201cTeacher\u201d made her give him all her money, but eventually, she seems to snap out of it. And while that\u2019s going on\u2026
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Also awkward! Back at the apartment, Betty\u2019s programming is starting to crack, but\u2026
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Aw, nuts! It\u2019s a full-scale brawl between Peter, Flash and an ever-growing mob. Peter fights his way through it to help The Reverend up from where he\u2019s pinned to the ground and send him running for help. We see the nieghbors decide not to get involved (Classy), and then Peter finds that Guy the Cultist has a knife to Flash\u2019s throat. Outside, the Rev decides not to call the police because they would as \u201cunpleasant questions,\u201d and tried Ben Urich at The Bugle, instead, but he\u2019s not in. Meanwhile, Brother Bruce is called upstairs back at the cultists\u2019 place, told Guy is back with Betty & Flash. He leaves his latest pyromaniac weapon on, and it starts a fire in the basement. Hey, like on the cover. But also:
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Wait, what? Wh\u2026 what? Aunt May can\u2019t just ruin MJ\u2019s career. And like I said before, I\u2019m pretty sure she\u2019s done lingerie before, and I\u2019m certain she will again. This is a weird, weird subplot. Back at the cult, Teacher has Peter & FLash tied up in chairs, and Bruce is very eager to kill them. Teacher admonishes him to go meditate on how his destructive urges will never let him be a student of love, as we see the fire getting worse downstairs. Then, at The Bugle, Ben Urich is back, and he\u2019s received the message about Peter & Flash. He called Kate Cushing, and they resolve to drive to the cult and call the cops to meet them there. As that\u2019s happening, Brother Bruce goes to Teacher\u2019s office, but he\u2019s not in, and Bruce finds a gun in the desk and decides to go kill Peter & Flash. But\u2026
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That\u2019s pretty good. Kate & Ben are rushing to the scene, and the cops on Kate\u2019s car phone are not too into her story. At the cult, everyone\u2019s fleeing the burning building as Peter\u2019 untying Flash, but then his Spider Sense goes off.
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This whole thing with \u201cTeacher\u201d has been kind of odd. He\u2019s steadfastly refused to do anything bad on-panel, even as he leads his evil cult, and then all of a sudden, he\u2019s leavin\u2019 a dude to burn alive. Just weird. A firetruck smashes through the front gate and Peter rejoins the crowd. He finds Flash & Betty, Flash happy that Spider-Man helped after all, Betty crying as she watches the life she was programmed to love burn. As Ben & Kate show up, Kate asks Betty if a Sister Tracy got out, and Betty points her out.
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Aw, poor Kate. Well, that\u2019s it for this wacky tale. Definitely an unusual Spidey story. I don\u2019t think any of this will be referenced next time we see Flash or Betty, but I could be wrong. We shall see. I\u2019m missing a couple issues of Web, but our next one will reveal the new regular writer.
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Here we go, big cult finale! Looks like those guys aren\u2019t as benign as dumb ol\u2019 Spidey was seeming to think. We rejoin the kidnapping of Betty Brant, already in progress, as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[268,35,113,11,12,270,286,269,21,333,2,334],"class_list":["post-4661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-alex-saviuk","tag-aunt-may","tag-ben-urich","tag-betty-brant","tag-flash-thompson","tag-janet-jackson","tag-kate-cushing","tag-keith-williams","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-peter-david","tag-spider-man","tag-the-cult-of-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4661","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=4661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4667,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4661\/revisions\/4667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}