Aw, Kitty. Justin Ponsor is back this month, and Drew Hennessy hangs in there. Am I crazy? Does John Dell not come back? He doesn’t! Drew Hennessy sees Bags out. I thought really thought Dell was around longer! I thought he started much earlier and I thought he finished Bags’ run. I wonder what happened.
Take that, Nick. Meanwhile, the X-Men, who took a remarkably long time to get to Queens in their supersonic jet, have arrived at Queens in their supersonic jet. They see Aunt May’s damaged house and the people all around, but Storm says SHIELD told them to stay out of this. So the plane’s cloaked and they can’t go down. But Jean picks up some mental chatter that tells her May had a heart attack, so they head to the hospital. The whole X-Men team.
Ok, I had to look it up. Apparently Reed, Sue and Ben are 21 or there abouts, and Johnny is closer to Peter’s age. I woulda sworn they were all teens. But, then, I read those issues exactly once 20 years ago. I’m not so sure 21 ranks a “Dr. Richards” and a “Ms. Storm” (Isn’t she a doctor, too?) from a 15-year old, but whatever.
Nick says that, having seen all Peter’s been through, and continues to go through, and Nick had to be pragmatic, and assumed that there was a very good chance Peter would snap and become “the next big supervillain.” But he didn’t. Peter forces him to admit he was wrong. And, indeed, that he thinks he’s watching the development of “someone really special.” Nick is now off to the FF, and Peter says to tell Reed Richard “thanks but no thanks.” And then May promptly wakes up as soon as Nick is gone.
What a sweet little moment. I kinda hate that Bendis paired it with the X-Business. Maybe it was to create tension or something, but this arc put Peter & May through the ringer and I think they deserve their moment alone. Back in the neighborhood in Queens, Sharon Carter (Now blonde like the regular comics?) is giving the ol’ weather balloon speech, telling everyone what happened wasn’t mutant terrorism, no one in the neighborhood was a target, and that SHIELD is grateful to Spider-Man for his assistance. As she does this, MJ finds her mom, and SHIELD Agent Jimmy Woo is there to give MJ’s mom her own weather balloon speech. But instead of following that, we go to…
They have that hug, and she swings off, as Peter marvels at her “cool. And icky” organic webshooters that make no sense. Then we see sunrise at the Triskelion, where Nick Fury has the Scorpion clone and the Gwen clone in vats. Asked what should be done with them, he tells some science guy to “get to work.” Not ominous at all. But we’re running out of pages, so..
Aw, Kitty.
Nobody could just walk off what MJ went through. But can she still turn into a monster? That would be something, huh? Well, that’s it. The most insane Spider-Man story ever is over. It’s really, truly incredible how well it all came off. I mean, despite the mainline titles pushing way farther than anyone ever had before, I don’t think they could do this. This remains one of the all-time wildest comic book stories I’ve ever read, and the fact that they kept so many plates in the air and stuck the landing is genuinely amazing. And you almost gotta wonder… if you’re Bags… why not leave now? Drop the mic, man, you just drew the craziest thing ever. But he’s still around for some months yet, and we’re on to the next crazy thing.