ASM 368-375, TAC 191-196, WEB 93-95, SM 27-31, Spirits of Vengeance 5 & 6, Marvel Holiday Special 1993, Marvel Comics Presents 120, FF 374. After 44 of these things, after dozens of drawings of people about to fight, I drew people fighting! I looked at the notes I make of who appeared in the comics and saw, maybe for the first time ever, an equal number of heroes and villains. So I had the new challenge of trying to draw them all fightin’. Kinda fun. The big news here is, Venom’s ex-wife convinces him to make an uneasy truce with Spider-Man, but not before Venom kidnaps Spider-Man’s recently-returned-from-the-dead parents. Also, Black Cat gets new powers and a somehow even more objectifying outfit, and Spider-Man is there when the new FF fights the old FF and Wolverine claws half The Thing’s face off in one of the most ridiculed stories of the 1990s (No mean feat!). Elsewhere, Spidey, Venom, Ghost Rider and Johnny Blaze have an absurd brawl with Hobgoblin, Demogoblin, Spider-Man’s evil Doppelganger, and some jobbers named Hag and Troll from Ghost Rider comics, all this after Hobgoblin tries to assassinate Moon Knight. Vermin is freed of his ratman curse and the influence of Baron Zemo, Puma and Spider-Man make up (Again), Alistair Smythe launches a whole army of Spider Slayer robots, Spidey re-encounters weirdoes Captain Zero and Brainstorm from a mental institution for super people, and so on. I was very happy when I thought of the gag with Reed Richards and Scorpion down there. The Spider-Man is based on pieces of 3 Mark Bagley Spider-Man figures to get what I needed (His left arm and body under the chest are edited onto the rest of him from other pictures), and I put a new hand on a Bagley Venom, too. I think it’s the most pre-production work I’ve ever had to do. Originally drawing #45.