And we end this block of books with the final issue of Spectacular Spider-Man, Vol. 2. To close out his time as a Spider-Man writer, Paul Jenkins is joined once more by Mark Buckingham, this time inking himself and colored by British cartoonist D’Israeli. Can reuniting with Bucky produce an even kind of good issue after the beating this series has given me? Let’s see, I’ve never read it.
Not for the first time recently, I wish I’d kept track of the myriad places this tombstone has been located over the years. Well, Peter continues his chat with Uncle Ben, talking about how Peter can’t wear the gloves May knitted him because they’re too tight, and Ben never wore the scarves she made, and then they reference how they drove her crazy with snowmen, and the book returns to its shameless Calvin & Hobbes knock off from the opening.
Is this really what we’re doing? Just empty pastiche of a better cartoonist? As Peter makes snow angels with the ghost of his uncle and their talk about Aunt May continues to feel kind of mean spirited instead of playful, Ben says he knows something is wrong.
There’s Bucky’s oft-recycled Spider-Man that Scott Eaton brazenly helped himself to last issue. Had to get that in one more time (At least! The issue ain’t over!). Hate that Gwen bit. Hate people undermining Peter & MJ’s relationship out of nostalgia. Peter relates a dream he keeps having about being attacked by all his villains, promising their next scheme will be the worst yet, and he knows one of them will kill him someday. Ben says Peter is blaming him for it.
So Peter went up on stage in his “ant” costume with 8 legs and Spider-Man colors (Bleh) and forgot his line.
Haha, Flash. Remember Flash? He got done so dirty by Jenkins. His life and reputation ruined, put in a coma, and now what? Jenkins just wanders off? Peter promises to come back by on Ben’s birthday. Ben says to give his love to MJ. As we see he left the scarf on Ben’s stone, Peter says he always does. After Peter leaves, May appears, finding the 2 snow angels on the ground, and then Peter’s gift. She opens it, and reacts to what’s inside, but we don’t see it.
The creative and editor Tom Brevoort back there. There’s that superhero lady the created for PPSM issue 50 who never returned, and between Electro and Mysterio, the villain from the same issue who also never returned. So much unfinished business. Flash left catatonic. Whatever was the deal with Barker the dog? We’ll never know. I assume. Well, that’s that for Spectacular Spider-Man, Vol. 2. A 27-issue run that includes exactly zero good issues. That’s almost impressive. Paul Jenkins burned down all the good will he and Buckingham created a few years prior, and moves on to other things, like randomly revealing the Sentry took Rogue’s virginity in a few years. Really. Buckingham isn’t far from working on Fables, which goes on to be a success, and many years later, he and Neil Gaiman will finish their run on Miracleman from the 80s, cut short and left unfinished for something like 40 years. Good for him, I guess, but reading PPSM for this blog and realizing how lazy he was on it has really altered my impression of him. Ah, well. At least I won’t have to think of it again for a while. Next post, we roll into the next block of books, but it picks up right where we left off, as we often do.