Danny Fingroth was proud enough of this joke to put it on a cover. This comic has been very wet. Frank Turner assists on inks this month. First it’s a few awkward pages recapping the Doc Ock/Answer plot and letting us know Doc was counting on Hargrove to bus thim out of jail with the stolen blaster (Seems unlikely to have worked). He’s gotta work on a new scheme now. Then it’s over to Central Park, where Stregron stops a mugging only to then kill the victims because he hates all humans. Another awkward sequence. Then we’re off to see The Beetle, who is running low on money and calling around looking for work.
Alright. Then it’s a visit to Doc Ock’s lawyer getting a coded message from Hargrove. And we learn Hargrove is Ock’s cousin?
And I thought Vulture’s nephew Malachai was a random and unlikely development. And then, about halfway through this issue, we check in with the Lethal Foes of Spider-Man. Vulture is examining the blaster, having been tasked with deciding if they should sell it or use it, but he’s discovered– you’ll never guess– that it could cure his cancer. How? Who cares? So now he wants to steal it and go do that, but he’s under tight scrutiny by Leila. Then Rhino gets thrown through a window.
This comic barely makes any sense at all. How could a fight like that have waited til this point in their new partnership to kick off? Having spent 2 whole pages with the title characters of this series, we bop on over to The Museum of Natural History, where Stegron is babbling about making a race of dinosaur people when Spider-Man kicks him in the face. I looked it up, and kind of incredibly, this series is Stegron’s first appearance since ASM 166 and 3rd appearance overall. People were not clamoring for the return of the dinosaur man. But they got him!
Spider-Man gets jobbed out SO HARD in these series! Jeeeeez! As Stegron trots off with the unconscious Spider-Man, Beetle attacks him, because why not, I guess? This is his way of introducing himself and asking Stegron to team-up against his old allies. And for no good reason whatsoever, thinking of using Beetle as “a patsy,” Stegron agrees. A patsy for what??? Does Stegron the Dinosaur Man fear the human legal system? This comic sucks. Meanwhile, an idiot Guardsman at The Vault who’s been having Doc Ock help him with a science project for his college is definitely about to get fired.
Alrighty, I don’t buy that for a second. The dope is somehow shocked that one of Spider-Man’s most ruthless foes played him, and tries to shoot them, but gets about as far as you’d expect now that The Answer is alive again.
Scott McDaniel’s art is turning into his signature style during this issue, this is kinda wild. Totally overpowered by Ock’s will, The Answer proceeds to bust him out of jail and help them disappear with his vague, do-anything powers. Well, there’s only 2 pages left, better go back to the main characters…
Well, if nothing else, Doc Ock alone makes these foes of Spider-Man far more lethal than the previous batch. I guess his plot will have to intersect with the others at some point. But how the mighty have fallen, for Spider-Man’s greatest enemy to be in this comic about losers. First Hobgoblin, then Venom, then Carnage pushed him further and further out of the limelight.