Darwyn Cooke, J. Bone & Matt Hollingsworth return, and this time, it’s Christmas.
Ya know, when I was plotting out this stuff, I remembered a whole lot more of this series being set in the past. I separated it out into its own block to avoid jumping back and forth through time. Was… any of it set in the past? I guess the Frog Man story could have been, but wasn’t explicitly. And the Crusher Hogan one. I coulda just mixed these in with the other books. And then they wouldn’t have felt kind of exhausting and difficult by now. Ah, well. Meanwhile, the kids are in the Bugle, making a lot of noise and driving Betty Brant crazy. Our guy Spence from last time is there, as is JJJ, trying to talk to Marla on the phone and getting frustrated by all the noise, finally bellowing at the kids to shut up.
Thin ice. We turn our scene to the Baxter Building, where Torch and Thing are up to traditional shenanigans after Ben gave Johnny one of those Spider-Man figures and says he’s sweet on him. Sue breaks it up, pretty standard stuff, and Crystal is there. Everything looks very 60s, including Sue’s hair. At that time, Crystal would be there as Johnny’s girlfriend, but it’s not the 60s, so…
As the super gals fly toward Macy’s, someone is already there, a mysterious villain and accomplice. And we see Spider-Man is scheduled to appear at the store on Christmas Eve, and our villain is counting on it. Then we learn the Spider-Man who will be appearing is Flash Thompson working a holiday job, so that seems like a problem.
Back at Macy’s, the super gals are shopping and bantering as our villain continues to stake out the place. The villain is able to control people somehow, as he demonstrates on Flash, who is in the middle of trying to pick up the young lady dressed as Santa’s elf when he’s made to act very silly.
NED?? Ned “died before Peter & MJ got married” Leeds?? Aw, Darwyn, you were walking the tightrope so well. Back at Macy’s, the unseen villain gets on the intercom to announce his evil scheme to rob all the patrons of the store, and then reveals the identity of his companion, who has up til now been wearing a long coat and a snowman head:
Our villain has to be the Puppetmaster.
The super gals, ⅔ of whom have personal experience with Puppetmaster and know Medusa would never rob a store, leap into action against her and “Spider-Man,” as Sue notifies Reed of the situation. Wasp is, of course, the one to zap Flash, what with her thing with Spider-Man, and flies off saying “I always knew you were a loser.”
We step away from the New York Chainsaw Massacre to find JJJ telling the kids the story of how he piloted a robot to stop that evil Spider-Man in ASM 52, but they’re not buying it, when Jonah hears about the Macy’s fracas.
That’s pretty funny. The real Spider-Man is also headed that way, to pick up the gift Jonash sent him to buy Marla, unaware of what’s going on. He switches to Peter on the roof, noting the Fantasticar and assuming Sue & Reed are here shopping. But soon, he comes out of the elevator in time to see Flash in his Spider-Suit trying to chainsaw Sue. As Medusa whips all the girls around with her hair, Reed rallies the boys to go help, and JJJ packs all the kids into a handsome cab to go down there, too.
Did I comment last time on how the Cooke/Bone Spider-Man is very much based on Sal Buscema’s? Because it is. Medusa starts flinging bowling balls at our hero, who dodges all over of course, leading one of the bowling balls to ricochet around the room a little, knocking a giant present over onto Medusa herself, knocking her out.
Pretty funny. Reed is examining Medusa, the FF is learning she was under some kind of mind control, and Santa is running off with a big bag of loot, but Spider-Man, still sailing through the air from Ben’s punch, crashes to a landing on top of him, revealing the Puppetmaster.
Well, that was fun! A real bright spot in this otherwise rather unpleasant string of issues. Cooke, Bone & Hollingsworth really were the MVPs of this series. I wish they could’ve done some more, even. But, there’s only one issue to go. And we’re not going out star-studded…