Almost shockingly, this issue has the same creators as last issue! No changes, no substitutions! What is this, a regular series or something?
As I write this in 2025, Marco Checchetto is wrapping up a run on a Spider-Man comic. The book is uh, not good, but his Spider-Man is basically perfect. John Romita, Sr. fused with the tastes of today. Like this:
So it’s really interesting to me to see him very early in his career, working his way toward that, but not there yet.
The fight and absolutely awful banter continue for several pages, out a window and down to the street below. Kaine says his cells are deteriorating and Ryder can save him. Oooooohkaaaay, that seems like the time to flash back…
Is it weird that I kinda miss the ol’ cartoony Luke Ross? It’s out of fashion (Except for people eternally giving Humberto Ramos a pass for some reason), but he’d more or less figured it out. Now he’s just doing one of the more bland takes on the realism thing, for the most part.
Can you imagine how silly this stuff would be if Kaine didn’t know Peter’s secret? Good luck with that one.
Screwball announces (Through a bunch of terrible riffing) that she needs to up her web traffic, so she’s challenging him to a fight. Spider-Man very reasonably decides this doesn’t matter to him at all. He can’t find a trace of Kaine or Ryder, so he heads home, where he finds the Portland newspaper about Bein Reilly. He loudly calls for Michele to avoid her wrath a few times, but then does this, for some reason?
“My calling my roommate’s name 4 times didn’t get a reaction, I guess I better open her closed door!” Come on. Michele says Peter’s “friend” left the paper for him, and also a box, which has some kinda burnt teddy bear in it, so that must mean it’s flashback time again.
Not the flashback I was expecting. Why did that happen? That just interrupted the scene without enhancing or complementing it.
He manages to convince her, then heads out to Queens, where no one is answering the phone. Flashback again to Ben Reilly going to Ryder’s home, where he is in his study, and one of his kids is playing with the not-yet-burnt bear.
Why does he have guns??? He’s got dinosaur powers! He dresses like a lowly henchman, he carries a gun even though he has powers, this character is a mess!
You know who could prove Peter didn’t kill Ryder’s family because he was in New York the entire time? That’s right, Harry Osborn. Remember how the other murder case against him didn’t make any sense because he had bylines in the Bugle every single day while he was allegedly off murdering people? Why are we doing this again? It was stupid the first time and it’s stupid now. At least it’s nearly over.