This issue opens on a 3-page dream sequence where Peter relives turning into a monster and almost killing that guy 2 issues ago, now much more aggressive and evil during the proceedings before waking up in terror. It’s starting to rain, and we see him go tap on MJ’s window. In a wordless sequence, he convinces her to come talk to him. She opens the garage door and asks if he’s ok.
Tough times for our favorite kids. While they have their sad teenage romance moment, we turn our attention back to ESU, where a night janitor hears some weird noises coming from a familiar lab, and finds a pile of goo with the vague shape of a person inside. Our intrepid janitor proves a kind soul, asking if someone is in there, asking if they need help and getting way too close.
Soon, or later?, hard to tell, we’re in school, and Peter’s class is being told about geometry when his danger sense starts going wild. He assumes he’s losing control of his powers, that “the suit” must have done something, but then he looks out the window…
I think that is easily the most horrific drawing of Venom I’ve ever seen. Just a featureless maw with extra teeth everywhere. It stuck out to me back then, and still does, very cool. Peter, at his already low point, thinks he deserves this. That he created that monster and didn’t even clean up his mess properly. He runs out of class, his teacher seemingly not even noticing, and goes outside in the storm to confront what he thinks is just “the suit.”
It’s still such a revolutionary thing, at this point in time, letting the story build until, when there is a big confrontation between Spider-Man and the villain, it is emotionally loaded and unavoidable. We’re a long way from the legend that Jim Shooter said every comic should have a fight scene by page 8.