Not a great cover. And what’s going to hurt? Is Spider-Man being dropped by those electric tentacles or picked up by them? Not great. So, despite how last issue ended, Kraven’s not in this. And I looked at the timeline, and he will not appear again before the Spider-Titles are relaunched and DeMatteis is off the books. Another dropped plot. I wonder how abruptly the folks were fired off these books. Seems like DeMatteis, at least, had a lot of irons in the fire. Anyway, speaking of, we’re dealing with that Mueller guy now. Tom DeFalco tags in to script over a DeMatteis plot this month. A plot that begins with Spider-Man shirtless and strapped to a weird chair, covered in cables, as the Mueller guy, narrates about it.
He sure grea a lot of hair since last we saw him. What disease is he talking about? AIDS, I guess? Not exactly new at the time. He sure loves that dumb quote about the devil, he said the same thing to Osborn. Spider-Man flashes back to how he got here, beginning at The Daily Bugle, where I forgot Osborn is the new owner. He’s complimenting Peter on photos he took for a story on “the AIDS hospice” (confirmed!) and being manipulative and whatnot. The usual Osborn thing. Peter is uncomfortable and trying to leave when a delighted Normie Osborn runs up and jumps into the arms of his Uncle Pete, excited that Gran’pa is teaching him about newspapers.
JJJ says the day is coming when justice will be served as he looks at a pistol in his desk. Gonna shoot him, Jonah? I mean, I wish somebody would, but I don’t think that can kill him anymore. Meanwhile, in the present, it’s typical DeMatteis sadness and torture, as whoever this guy is forces Spider-Man to think about all his dead people, now including Ben Reilly and the infant child they were never supposed to mention again and keep mentioning. As Mueller turns up the sad-o-meter or whatever, his big goon, preposterously named “Sir,” feels compassion for Spider-Man, but has apparently been taught that’s weakness. Then Spidey imagines Aunt May telling him he’s great and she loves him, and Mueller is horrified that his subject feels calm and at peace.
Funny to bring up Marvel’s bankruptcy like that. But also:
Legacy of Evil is the subject of a one-shot starring Peter Parker as Spider-Man but published while Ben Reilly was Spider-Man, which is very hard to place in the timeline, but which we will see next block of this period. Osborn says he’s not going to fire Ben, but instead wants him to hunt down the real Green Goblin and exonerate the Osborn name. Shades of OJ Simpson. Back in the present, Mueller quotes Dune (“Fear is the mind killer”) and then cranks up his inexplicable bad feelings machine to make Spider-Man remember being a toddler told his parents died, and this turns out to be an error, as Spider-Man becomes so enraged he tears loose from the machine.
Mueller is able to drug Spider-Man and hook him back to the machine in remarkable time, and we get back to the extended flashback, where Peter’s Spider Sense alerts him to trouble in Osborn’s office, where Sir has seemingly taken out some bodyguard and is advancing on Norman. So, naturally, Spider-Man soon smashes through the window, terrifying Normie, but is promptly tackled out the window toward the rope ladder dangling from a waiting helicopter, which he REALLY SHOULD HAVE SEEN AND HEARD on his way in, but somehow didn’t. As the chopper whisks them away, Spider-Man remembers Sir as a guy who fought Daredevil recently (Sure, sure, he’d fore sure recognize this random Mr. Clean dude immediately), and eventually tentacles come out of the chopper and zap him, as kind of/sort of shown on the cover, knocking him out, and as we enter the final pages of the book, we’re all caught up.
Sure, whatever. Same ol’, same ol’. What a let down after that dynamite issue of Adjectiveless before this.