It’s always a weird thing, what you do and don’t find at McKay’s. Did whoever sold the first 2 issues of this story not have the last 2? Did I just get there too late? I’ll never know. Nel Yomtov swaps in on colors this month. It’s pretty crazy to me when multi-issue stories like this don’t have the same colorist. Color is so important to mood, and this story has a pretty particular mood, but we’re 3 for 3 here. It’s impressive that each successive artist has maintained the feel so well. At any rate, last issue, Sin-Eater murked that priest…
Paranoia spreading through New York. This story always seemed a little hard to buy to me because it’s just a guy with a shotgun. Granted, he’s targeting regular-ish people instead of superheroes, but New Yorkers walk outside some days to The Sinister Six destroying their entire neighborhood. That’s just part of living in New York. Now a guy with a shotgun is on the loose and the people are terrified. Maybe it just being a guy with a shotgun would be more frightening just because it’s relatively mundane. Anyway! As the newscast continues, we look in on Reverend Tolliver watching himself on TV, that guy who confessed to the priest before he was killed, and Matt Murdock. The newscaster goes to the next story, about a series of strange burglaries where the thief only takes small items as we turn our attention to Santa Claus tapping on the window of a little girl and telling her to let him in. What? Too late, we’re off to…
Kingpin is writing a letter to Marvel staffer Carol Kalish, one of the early pioneers of the direct market in comics (Selling to and making products for comic shops instead of newsstands) and also credited with discovering Alex Ross and Peter David, and who apparently wanted to moonlight as his assassin. That’s fun. Anyway, Spidey’s confrontation with Kingpin goes just like all his other confrontations with Kingpin in the mid-80s, they talk, nothing happens, and Spider-Man leaves. Then we follow Matt Murdock to Josie’s Bar, looking for info on Sin-Eater in his usual way, It’s very weird that he gets in this fight as Matt Murdock and not Daredevil. But after knocking some dudes around…
Deep cut! The so-called “Master Planner Saga” is an early Steve Ditko/Stan Lee joint we’ve not seen yet. Over a montage of Spidey beating up and threatening people, we hear him leave a message to Stan Carter saying he’s been trying for several nights and turned up nothing on Sin-Eater. No one seems to know him. With no leads, Spider-Man goes to one Gerald Jablonski’s house and kidnaps him in front of his daughter. Um…
Spider-Man has been pushed too far. And he’s not all the way pushed yet, as the next day, Sin-Eater bursts into The Daily Bugle while Peter Parker is there, looking for J. Jonah Jameson. He grabs the visiting Marla Jameson and says he’ll kill her if JJJ doesn’t show himself.
Robbie is the best! Guy-who-hears-voices was a red herring. Spidey and DD go to toss his apartment, and get in an argument when DD mentions he heard Spider-Man made Jablonski so scared he turned states evidence. Spidey says he deserved it, DD says it was coercion.
JJJ. But he’s not home, and Marla & Betty are. A panicked Spider-Man calls The Bugle, hoping they’re there, but they’re not, of course. Under duress, Robbie gives Spider-Man JJJ’s number.
Egads! Is this end of Betty Brant?? I mean, obviously, it isn’t, but how?? We’ll find out tomorrow.