{"id":5256,"date":"2020-06-23T00:00:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T04:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=5256"},"modified":"2019-07-13T19:16:48","modified_gmt":"2019-07-13T23:16:48","slug":"asm-399","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2020\/06\/23\/asm-399\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 399"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Oh boy! That doesn\u2019t look good! I don\u2019t mean that in like a \u201cthis looks bad for our hero\u201d way, I mean that in a \u201cthis looks bad for me\u201d way. This was right about the time clone fever began to wear off for me. When\u2026 well, let me not get ahead of myself. So, Ben Reilly is unconscious in the snow in The Catskills all alone and left to die. But of course, you\u2019re never alone in a Spider-Man comic from 1994, because Kaine is there.
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See where there is only one set of footprints? That\u2019s where Kaine walked up next to your body to stare at you all creepy-like. But see where there are two sets of footprints? That\u2019s where the beloved 90s move of \u201call the mystery tough guys know each other\u201d was happening. From Cable and Gambit and Deadpool and everyone else already knowing Wolverine when first introduced on down to this, it\u2019s the go-to. It\u2019s just far less effective when it\u2019s \u201crandom white guy from awhile ago and flavor-of-the-week\u201d talking. At any rate, Kaine is spooked, thinking if Scrier is here, there\u2019s more going on than he realized. He senses someone else approaching and does his disappearing act. It\u2019s Spider-Man, of course, come to help his baby brother.
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CHOOSH! Boy there\u2019s a lot of ridiculous stuff happening really fast. Inside the door is a big high tech hallway, with the little Jack guy inside. Ben just immediately punches him in the face, which is pretty funny, though maybe not on purpose. The door closes behind them, and they\u2019re forced to follow \u201cJack\u201d into a big crazy room full of tubes and pods and stuff, Jack saying \u201cthe boss\u201d should be \u201ccoming down out of his canisters\u201d soon. Then the spiders are attacked by the big guy from last issue, shouting at no one in particular to make the pain stop.
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\/sigh. Just a few years prior, Gerry Conway was like \u201cThat clone stuff, that was a mistake, right? That was too much. Let\u2019s try to get rid of it.\u201d Spidey \u201894: \u201cNo no, sir, that wasn\u2019t nearly enough!\u201d The Jackal immediately whups on both spiders, marveling at his own prowess, and then orders Jack to bring him some clothes. Now, if you\u2019re thinking \u201cIt\u2019s the 90s, that means The Jackal will probably wear a trench coat,\u201d well give yourself a pat on the back!
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The retcons are coming fast & furious now. Jackal explains how he set all this up, how the big guy and the little guy are failed Peter Parker clones, how he had to try over and over to get one right. By now, Kaine has somehow snuck in so he can do what he does and just watch.
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Really gilding the lily here.
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I think it\u2019s worth noting that, even as Peter flies into a rage, it still doesn\u2019t feel like it did until just recently. The whiplash change from raging douche who wants to die to regular ol\u2019 Spider-Man being pushed too far is so insane to me. Everyone was so willing to just close that chapter with no consequences. I still don\u2019t even understand why Peter suddenly decided to live again. Anyway, let\u2019s get to the inevitable ending\u2026
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Just keep reminding yourself that we get to look at Stan & Johnny comics again in a few months. That\u2019s what I\u2019m doing.
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Oh boy! That doesn\u2019t look good! I don\u2019t mean that in like a \u201cthis looks bad for our hero\u201d way, I mean that in a \u201cthis looks bad for me\u201d way. This…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[9,253,125,488,461,339,462,2,605],"class_list":["post-5256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-bob-sharen","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-kaine","tag-larry-mahlstedt","tag-mark-bagley","tag-scrier","tag-spider-man","tag-the-jackal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256","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=5256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5270,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256\/revisions\/5270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}