And we are back to fully vague, “iconic” covers. We pick it right up from last issue, Harry waking up to the sight of his monstrous dad choking the life out of his friend Peter in a tattered Spider-Man costume as sharks from his dad’s cartoon villain shark tank flop around on the ground and helicopters hover outside.
Oof! What a moment. What a great bit of work from Bags The silence is shattered by Osborn convulsing and further mutating, now screaming “help me” as his body bubbles and twists out of control before collapsing unconscious into his human form. Harry is completely overwhelmed, and the final realization that his friend is Spider-Man is too much and he passes out, too. The SHIELD guys finally come in then, one of them accidentally saying they work for “Colonel Nick Fury” when he’s a general in the Ultimate U. Honest mistake given he’d managed to stay a colonel for like 40 years in the regular books by this point. Then Fury himself comes in and tells everyone to clean up. Peter is not happy.
Fury has one of his guys (Agent Jimmy Woo) confirm MJ got to Queens safe, then orders all surveillance of Peter & Co. called off. He advises Peter not to tal kot MJ or anyone about his superlife, because no matter how good it feels, it just invites danger into their lives. He says to enjoy his youth, that he’s too young to play with the big boys yet, and Peter scornfully says he wouldn’t want to.
Rough. This one was harder on Peter by far than anything he’s dealt with to date. He goes to the warehouse he told MJ to hide in, the one where he tested his powers back in USM 2 (The car he threw is even still leaned against a support beam in a very nice touch). MJ runs to him crying.
This is how you do it! THIS is how Peter loses even when he wins. For all that some creatives seem to think physically torturing Spider-Man or completely ruining Peter’s life is the key ingredient to making a story impactful, they got nothing on this. This is an emotional rollercoaster that ends with a wedge driven between Peter & MJ and our hero facing a future that seems uncertain and scary. Instead of some dumb stunt that forces the book into an untenable status quo for the sake of drama or shock, we have real, emotional, human stakes. It really is some of the best Spider-Man ever made.