Incredibly, Mike Zeck, Mike Esposito and Janice Cohen appears as the art team for part 2 of this debacle. Not often the entire art staff changes mid-story. So, you might think we’d pick up right where we left off, with Spider-Man encountering DANSEN MACABRE, but how foolish you would be. Instead, 6 hours later, Spider-Man is back at the nightclub from last issue, where he randomly harasses some people cleaning up after the fight, webbing one to the ceiling and everything. The other one lunges up at him, which seems an odd choice.
No idea what’s happening. Spidey is able to concentrate on his senses and knock Shroud out, turning the lights back on in the process. He picks up the unconscious anti-hero and swings off with him to the outrage of his buddies.
Of course, she is obviously a bad guy using some kind of whammy to brainwash him. So now we’re all caught up, Spidey swings the unconscious Shroud over to “Dansen’s” house, and she prepare to kill him. Caramella Dansen says The Shroud getting his powers from Kali is an affront to Shiva, so she’s gotta kill him. All this Hindu stuff is no doubt cringy and terrible enough to people who’d know better even before we get into the fact that both avatars of the gods are white. Anyway, brainwashed or not, Spider-Man’s not gonna stand by and let someone be murdered, but Ted Dansen turns up the volume on the brainwash, rendering him inert. She prepares to get to stabbin’ on Shroud….
So is Shroud not powered by Kali? I don’t really know. Seems like a pretty serious misunderstanding. She does “the dance of Shiva,” which is apparently going to drive them so crazy it kills them, but Shroud covered their eyes in darkness, so they didn’t see it. Ok, sure. They did both fall down, though, so that’s some great, uncoordinated acting on their part, eh? Anyway.
Not much of a Spider-Man comic, this. And he DOES have Kali powers. I am so confused. Dansen knocks her giant statue of Shiva on the fellas, but Spider-Man catches it. She tries to make a break for it, but he’s also able to web up the door she’s trying to escape out of so Shroud can knock her out. He says they can’t take her to the cops, though, because how would they hold her?
Man, what just happened? What a barely comprehensible comic. Why did he show up at the airport!? Shroud, as I recall, is some kind of anti-hero who tried to destroy the criminal underworld from within. Or something. Dansen Macabre seems to have been drawn to be totally nude except for the black bars, and editorial obviously didn’t let that slide. Gets lonely drawing comics all day, I guess…