As JMS has been alluding to heavily, this month, Spider-Man gets a new costume. I did not buy this comic on release, so I have wound up with this reprint, featuring a 13th of Ringo’s the Other series as a variant cover. Which is actually fine with me. Since this suit is ostensibly the inspiration for the very ugly armor from the Avengers movies, the first printing fetches a higher price now. Not, like, a million dollars, but I didn’t care enough to spend more if I didn’t have to. Also, the original cover, by Bryan Hitch, features Spider-Man with a visibly broken ankle, a weird, patently absurd anatomy choice Hitch will keep making into the present:
Ugly. Like the suit itself. Let’s see how this comes about. And we’ll see it rendered by ASM’s new creative team: Ron Garney, Bill Reinhold and Matt Milla. The same folks from the 2nd story in SMU 14. Was that a test run? If it was, it was printed a month after this, so that’s weird, but then, SMU is quarterly. At any rate, it’s been nearly 2 years since I could enjoy the art on this book, so I am at least thankful for that. This one’s called “Mr. Parker Goes To Washington,” which is going to be very relevant. It opens with Peter & MJ asleep, when an eagle sculpture in their room pipes up with Tony Stark’s voice asking Peter to meet him in the lab. That’s not creepy or anything. Do they know Tony has their room bugged? I assume not. So creepy.
I have a lot of thoughts about JMS making Tony this creepy, but I will retain them for a more relevant time. It was and is strange to me that, in this time, there’s basically 3 Tony Starks. He has his own title, of course. He has completely separate stories in New Avengers. And he’s in almost every issue of ASM, too, also totally disconnected from his own title. Each book presents a different take on him, they don’t always match up, and no one seems to care.
Is this JMS being annoyed someone broke MJ’s arm during his stupid crossover and it didn’t carry over to other titles? Either way, I had already forgotten Morlun broke her arm, and I’m reading this stuff way faster than you could as it came out. Who wrote that one? Was it Hudlin? Have literally already flushed it from my memory. It was Hudlin. Of course it was. Glad to see the back of that guy. He’s still writing Black Panther in this moment, but when that’s done, he’ll go away and not come back, inflicting himself on the long-suffering attempt to bring back the Milestone Comics imprint at DC, taking the place of the deceased Dwayne McDuffie among its creators. Downgrade. Well, “one hour later,” some guys have stolen a car, and they have a “chick in the trunk,” and they have just sprayed the pursuing cops with uzis like it’s an 80s action movie, and they think they’re gonna make it. Then one of them looks up.
I don’t like this suit. In practice, it’s a worse version of the black suit, recolored. The black suit worked because it was so different from the red & blue suit. It was such a radical change it kind of forced you to judge it on its own merits. Whereas this looks like it, only worse. Also, Iron Man forcing Spider-Man to wear his colors is weird and stupid. And I hate… so much… comic book artists’ constant decision to give characters gauntlets that would let them bend their wrist. Look at the point behind Spidey’s hand. If he makes the traditional “shoot web” hand gesture, he’ll stab himself. It’s so visibly bad, but people do it all the time. At any rate, we’re stuck with a Spider-Man who looks like this for the rest of 2006. I can’t imagine that pleased Ron Garney too much, either. “I can’t wait to draw Spider-Man!” Well… you’re drawing a version of Spider-Man…
In the SMU 14 post, I mentioned a strange commonality between John Romita, Jr., Lee Weeks and Ron Garney, even though they’re so visually distinct. The Spidey in panel 4 is totally one Romita would draw. I just think that’s interesting. Well, Spider-Man opens his arms, and web wings like the ones on his old suit appear, like exactly the same, only now this tiny slip of string under each arm works like a hang glider. Sure, man. He lands on the roof of the car, rips it open, gets out a quip before having to dodge bullets.
Our hero drives the car into the waiting police blockade, finally getting ‘round to disarming Uzi Man only after he opens fire on the cops. Step one, Spidey, come on.
Man, Garney’s solid, dramatic figure work is SUCH a pleasure after 20 issues of mashed potato men. Every panel looks so slick. But also, we’ll notice Spider-Man shoots webs out of nozzles on his dumb gauntlets now. So… is he not even using his organic webbing in this suit? What a mess. Also I don’t know the song he’s talking about. Well, soon enough, he’s back home, having dinner with MJ & Tony and recounting his adventure, and saying thanks to Tony for the suit. MJ is also grateful for anything that’ll keep him safer. But, our boy wants to know why Tony did this.
Like, there’s so much Romita, Jr. in that first panel, but only that first panel. It’s only in very specific circumstances. I’m just fascinated by it.
Tony’s a businessman, above all, and he’s just done his best to buy Peter. But for what? Well, the banner across the top of the original cover does say “The Road To Civil War.” We’re rapidly approaching the plunge. The beginning of the story that changes everything. Really.