Somehow this garbage all wraps this month. Let’s see how, I suppose. I already bought the comic. Spider-Man and Black Cat have rushed Billy to get medical attention from… Reed Richards. If New York is trying to kill itself, and it’s all over the news, and the Avengers are out trying to stop it and all, why do Reed and Sue seem blissfully unaware and dressed to go out for fancy dinner? Is it because this comic sucks? I think it’s because this comic sucks.
Reed wonders if the feral outbreak crap and the subterranean monster are related. Felicia admits she’s been crazy, and Reed wonders if “people like” her, the Lizard, and Spider-Man are particularly affected by what’s happening. What, you mean animal themed people? Felicia has no animal powers, that makes no sense. But I have quickly come to expect that. What about our other dangling plot thread from last issue?
They don’t even bother to color him properly. Hey, it took me 2 and a half issues to realize Dan Kemp’s colors have gotten way more subtle and sophisticated since he left ASM. none of those harsh shapes making things look plastic-y. Digital coloring was evolving so fast in the 2000s. Quantum leaps forward all the time. Well, anyway, Man-Wolf is chasing MJ around the house, and she whacks him with a fireplace poker (In the middle of Avengers Tower?), which does nothing, and then he’s on her, about to shred her face. And then May hits him with a tea pot and that stops him cold, whereas the iron rod to the face did nothing, because this comic sucks. The Parker ladies flee into the kitchen. Meanwhile, in the Baxter Building, Peter’s danger sense alerts him to trouble at home. Reed asks if this is one of his new powers, but he just runs off, saying to keep working on Billy & Felicia. But, at the Tower, May has already activated the building’s defense systems, saying she doesn’t just sit around here all day, and now vaguely Iron Man looking robots ae shooting tranquilizers into Man-Wolf and quipping about it, which seems, uh, weird.
Sure, fine, whatever. “The bowels of hell.” Get a grip, man. Lizard is flashing back to Connors infecting Billy because “the rock told him to.” I guess whatever that scientist he ate was trying to show him is causing all this. Is it the moonstone? It better not be since it’s never done this before. Then Vermin seems to notice the Lizard, so you’d think it’s Small Animal-Themed Monster Man Fight Club time… but then, instead, they both head for the museum, down separate tunnels, which seems unlikely. And then Felicia busts out of the Baxter Building with improbable ease, presumably on the same course. Peter & Mj are discussing the whole situation, and he decides he has to go find Curt, and then… he puts on his Iron Spider suit. I was reading this before he got that, since, you know, he appears in the red & blues on all the covers. So now I have to move this in my chronology. Sigh. If he HAD the suit, and he’s wearing the suit in all the other titles, why wasn’t he wearing it in THIS story? But that surely explains how this story was obviously not about to wrap up in this issue.
Madame Web, suddenly old and plugged into machines to live again. Did that actually happen on-panel somewhere? I’m inclined to doubt it. Bad, bad comics. Do like the snark about Rachel Summers telling Peter Aunt May was dead for no reason other than Mark Millar terribleness, tho. I guess we press on to next issue, then. It’s been a long time since I was in an era when it was hard to tell when comics took place before reading them. But anytime Spider-Man changes costumes, seems like there’s trouble.