This issue begins with a rather self-indulgent 4-page remake of George Stacy’s death from ASM 90, wherein Waid and/or Peyer rewrite Stan Lee, which, you know, not a good look, changing all the dialogue. But, on the other hand, after innumerable self-indulgent remakes of Gwen’s death, this is at least novel. This is all being read from Peter’s diary. George says it has to be the sickest thing he’s ever read.
In the Pulse 9, Hawkeye confronts Kat Farrel in the House of M universe, trying to get her to see the world is wrong. He shows her a Daily Bugle headline about his own death, but to her, the headline is about something that happened in the altered universe. Only people who’d had their brains fixed by Layla could see the truth. Hawkeye commented that the illusion of this world was paper thin. Which… kind of explains how Peter & his family can read his real diary, but… would also sort of prove anyone not fixed by Layla shouldn’t be able to. I dunno, who really cares? Well, somewhere else, some humans are being evicted from a homeless shelter they were driven to post-Spider-Man revelation by the cartoonishly brutal mutant supercops or something, when guess who shows up.
The people he saved then try to tear him apart for ruining their lives. We have fun!
Wait… is he saying he made up the diary? Using his subconscious real memories? Could this be any more unnecessarily complicated?
That transition coulda been smoother.
Man, what?
Man, WHAT? What is this comic? The next page is various people reacting to his death, usually cruelly, since that’s what this comic is about. And, you know, since he’s obviously not dead, we next find that paper webbed to Magneto’s wall in Genosha with the note “If you want me to stay dead, ease up on the humans.” How did broke, homeless, faked-his-death Peter Parker FLY TO GENOSHA just to be a jerk to Magneto????
Well. This hopeless, depressing mess of a story literally could not have happened during House of M, so seriously, what was the point? Just to con readers out of more money? I guess the only solace I can take in my own stupidity for buying this was I got it used, so Marvel didn’t make any money off my purchase. Although, as stupid and byzantine as the comics market is, they don’t technically get any money from me when I buy new, either. The comic book companies’ customer is the comic store owner. The only people making money from my individual purchases are the people I buy the book from. Weird as that is. I mentioned while looking at Breakout that it was one of 2 minis running at the same time in addition to 3 monthly solo books, a quarterly book, a team book and an event series. House of M was obviously the event and the other mini. Issue 1 of this came out as issue 4 of Breakout hit the stands. Oversaturation. Speaking of that quarterly title…