Certainly a striking cover. This one starts with various detail shots of the scifi machinery Stromm’s head is connected to,one of which is clearly just a Macintosh, which amuses me greatly, while Spider-Man’s narration waxes poetic about being trapped in a job you don’t like as an intro to a 2-page spread of Stromm’s head stuck to the machines. Stromm says he’s been trying to get Spider-Man’s attention because thousands of lives are in danger. That he is no longer the Robotmaster, but a servant of the machine. 3 Spider-Man figures are recycled during these 3 pages.
We may recall Stromm’s last appearance in SMU 17, which ended in a rushed and ambiguous way that didn’t really tee this up. Weeeeird body horror stuff, tho! We cut away to a one-page gag where Randy is bored to death while Glory is shoe shopping, then back to robot head. Spider-Man and Stromm’s head have a 2-page debate about the morality of killing him to save lives. Stromm’s insistence that he has to die before the machine takes full control, as if him dying wouldn’t automatically give it full control, makes zero sense and I assume it’s a fake out. Also, Bucky has drawn Stromm’s head exactly 3 times and is just recycling them all, it is insanely lazy. Suddenly, jarringly, on the next page:
Well, jeez, this issue got morbid fast. Another abrupt smash cut to Peter… I guess back at the apartment? I dunno, but Jill is there with Shea, the hacker guy, and they’re laughing about how intense and serious Peter is as hes on the computer, rather comically IMing with Stromm (In Mac OS 9, which a hacker like Shea would toooootally be using instead of Windows).
When was Dr. Kervorkian and all that? I’d begun to think this was Jenkins’ way of commenting on that, but this seems maybe a bit late, if so. Rather hilariously, Peter gives the animated consciousness of Mendel Stromm to Shea on a 1.44” floppy disk and asks him to write a virus that can kill it. I just love old comics about technology. I wonder how stupid the stuff we make today will look in 20 years. Well, Spider-Man returns to the relay station, where nothing is going on. He feels this lack of activity is a dangerous sign, and then, once he’s way too deep in to get out, the machines begin to attack.
That’s the last page! Pretty ambiguous. I bet that pixel stuff was a pain to do on paper. Well, that’s it. We’ve reached the end. It’s time for the big finale of– Just kidding, there’s another miniseries. This is so weird.