Check it out, it’s the Amazi Spider-Man. Like… oops. We begin with Peter Parker waking up in the motel, putting on a hat and sunglasses and quietly slipping out for a paper. He runs into a lady on the way who looks at him, then at the paper, then back to him.
Captain America is telling the Human Torch that he understands Spider-Man is keeping his distance from Cap’s team “to keep the heat off” (??), but it’s vital Johnny find him and bring him in for protection. Johnny takes off on that mission. So Johnny does what he always does and writes a flaming message in the sky, first seen by MJ. But elsewhere, one Wilson Fisk, currently in prison (With Daredevil, even) is talking to his lawyer.
Well, that seems bad. I’ve not yet mentioned the unbelievably annoying cardstock advertisements for eMusic bound into comics that came out this month. Not since the 90s have they bound in large, rigid stupid cards. It makes reading the books extremely unpleasant. Great positive association in your marketing, eMusic. We go to a page of Captain America and Falcon discussing whether Peter’s TV message was a trap or not. Seems unnecessary. We know it wasn’t and they’re not regular characters in this book. Then cut to Spider-Man and Cap meeting on a roof. What happened to the Torch? Peter got spotted early in the morning. Cap told Torch to go find him. Torch left his message at night. Kingpin almost certainly has his meeting the next day. Cap & Falcon talk in an alley (For some reason) which doesn’t look like night time. Now it’s night time. Did Spider-Man meet with Johnny, who then said “Meet Cap tomorrow night,” when instead they could’ve both just gone to Cap’s base? What… is the deal?
A version of this is attributed to Peggy Carter by way of Sharon at her funeral in the Civil War movie. Yes yes, very prosaic, you just spent 3 pages of this Spider-Man comic on a Mark Twain quote. Spinning wheels, man. And maybe it was hard to do much else. But it still feels like filler. Spider-Man is very impressed, and then they go back to Cap’s base together, Peter’s narration saying it feels good to be on the right side again. Next we cut to a hitman being hired to take out “the target,” whose identity we can certainly guess. And get this, Kingpins’ man tells the assassin that the target “has a tendency to sense when danger is coming” which may complicate the job. So JMS’s premise is KINGPIN knows about Spider-Man’s danger sense, but he never told Iron Man? The man’s not even consistent with himself, let alone the main story! And then that hitman goes to the motel, appearing to MJ & May as an employee, asking if they need fresh towels and… putting something on the door, I guess. It’s frankly hard to tell what you’re looking at, or what this device is supposed to do. Then, because we’re just killing time, a whole page of the hitman going across the street and setting up his gear.
Well, that seems bad! Ok! Finally! Time to get back to the main title. 12 posts between Civil War 5 and 6, covering 18 comics, 2 of them oversized. My goodness.