This issue opens with a unnamed female pop star being kidnapped in her own limo after leaving a show by generic costumed goons who are trying to ransom her to famous music producer Tommy Mattola (Weird name drop) when Spider-Man happens upon the getaway.
If memory serves, Bags never really got to draw the black costume in regular continuity (He did do an issue of What If? about it I am still shocked I don’t have anymore, somehow), so I assume this was fun for him to give it a try. Spidey gets out of the car, gently gives the still unnamed singer a hand up and makes a joke as cops arrive to yell at him. So he leaps away, thinking about how incredible this suit is. How he doesn’t need webshooters anymore, he’s stronger and faster, and apparently bullet proof. He thinks his dad was a genius, and that it somehow feels like his dad is with him. He thinks the suit feels too good to go home, which is usually not a good sign, and then…
A real signature Bagley kick up top of that last page. Bendis used to swear Peter was not Jewish, that he just picked up a bunch of Yiddish by living in New York. And, I mean, I’ve picked up a lot of Yiddish just consuming media and I live nowhere near New York, so maybe that’s true, but it still feels a bit odd. Maybe he was afraid there would be some kinda backlash if he just said Peter was Jewish. Nobody batted an eyelash when they revealed The Thing was in the 80s. Today, of course, the kind of reactionary white supremacist scumbags that our inker Art Thibert hangs out with would be outraged, but, like, actual human beings wouldn’t mind. Well, anyway, next Spidey happens on a guy robbing a coin laundry, who has just shot the owner in front of his child, and when Spidey catches up with him, he is very angry. He stalks him into a warehouse not to dissimilar to the one he caught Uncle Ben’s killer in, and behaves similarly, and then…
Now THAT’S a page turn!
Our panicking hero faces a montage splash page of all the major events of his life so far as he internally thinks the suit is eating him alive and he has to get out of it. He goes careening through the air, out of control, hitting a powerline and getting electrocuted, which seems to burn the suit off of him as he crashes to the ground…
Well, where’s May gonna go when she dies? You 3 are hogging the tombstone! Bit of a weird Dylan quote to choose, there, Bendis. I wonder if he’s a crazy Dylan person like me or he just googled some stuff. Well, hey, this looks bad! Probably not gonna get better next issue!