{"id":20495,"date":"2024-03-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=20495"},"modified":"2022-07-31T02:45:27","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T06:45:27","slug":"asm-389","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/03\/18\/asm-389\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 389"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Big finish. Big, dumb finish. JM DeMatteis makes his debut as writer of ASM. When I started his era, I obviously didn\u2019t want to do it here. But we\u2019ve managed to circle all the way back, and since DeMatteis is here, well, you know how this is gonna go\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

DeMatteis does a recap page in his own dreary style, notably choosing to include The Jackal in a brief list of villains who\u2019ve played mind games with Spider-Man in the past. Probably seemed innocuous to anyone who even remembered The Jackal in the first place, but means a lot more to me. Anyway, blah blah blah, sad sad sad, and then this unintentionally hilarious page\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And we\u2019re off. Off to a page of Spider-Man entering the house almost hidden behind a wall of text. I\u2019ll give DeMatteis this: For this type of material\u2026 for a Spider-Man driven by rage and hurt\u2026 none of the other guys is gonna come close to doing it as well as him. Now, does anyone actually want to read this? No. I feel pretty confident in saying that is not a popular choice. But it was made, and most likely handed down by editorial, and so it falls to the guy who handles wallowing in misery best to lead the charge. Spider-Man\u2019s danger sense goes off, and 4 tigers appear. Where did Chameleon get tigers? Spider-Man is completely unfazed, yelling threats at his unseen foe and he starts beating up some big cats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Curiously, there\u2019s a lot of internal narration about how much Chameleon loved Kraven and how good they were together, which really doesn\u2019t line up with DeMatteis\u2019 take a few years from now. All of that over Chammy turning into Kraven and back and back and back while smashing a photo, then back to Spider-Man beating up tigers. \u201cThere\u2019s a dark joy in this that Spider-Man has never known.\u201d Beloved animal abuser, Spider-Man, everybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not gonna take my anger on on some abused \u2018pet!\u2019 I mean, I will absolutely beat 4 tigers unconscious and throw one of them into a wall so hard it looked like it would shatter every bone in its body, but that\u2019s not abuse, that\u2019s just me havin\u2019 fun!\u201d Spider-Man is led to a coffin covered in spiders. He opens it and finds himself inside. It\u2019s a dummy, of course, and he shatters its face and keeps moving. Then this issue is rudely interrupted by a long advertisement for \u201cMarvel Mart,\u201d an attempt by the company to cut out the middle man and sell their increasingly terrible product directly to the dumb teens like me who were buying it. And the thing is, the ad is presented as a short comic story, and that story stars Peter & Mary Jane, so guess what? Here\u2019s the whole thing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Honestly? Probably more enjoyable than the rest of this comic. Writer Jim Krueger is only a few years away from his hit series Earth X with Alex Ross. Scott Williams is a prolific inker best known as Jim Lee\u2019s long time partner (Still going strong). Hilarious. If I\u2019d had more disposable income, I probably woulda really wanted that McFarlane Spider-Man standee. What an incredible sign of the times that they thought they could sell the War Machine one for more money due to its lights and sounds. Fans faced with a choice between Spider-Man or Wolverine by 2 of their most beloved artists, or\u2026 War Machine\u2026 I guess I have to get back to the real book now. Normally, I\u2019d hold this insert for the end of the post, but as bad as this comic is, I don\u2019t even care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I mean, seriously, the ad was more fun. The stuffed animals start shooting lasers out of their eyes (Standard security feature), and Spider-Man dodgers around, then smashes through that dumb door with the spikes all over it to find himself face to face with Kraven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

SO many nets lately!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Again, that \u201ccopy\u201d talk, no big deal\u2026 unless you know a clone is coming. Then the dumb lasers Kraven used to keep in the eyes on his vest zap Spider-Man. Chammy is actually wearing the outfit, loincloth and all. As he runs away an Spider-Man recovers, my earlier question is answered, as the panic makes Chameleon get through his mental blocks or whatever and remember he hates Kraven, that their childhood was miserable and he\u2019s just repressed it all. Now THAT\u2019S DeMatteisin\u2019. He freaks out and decides to shoot himself just like Kraven did, but then Spider-Man\u2019s on him, saying Chameleon\u2019s not going to cheat him. Chammy starts begging for mercy, we\u2019re almost out of pages, and it\u2019s time for the big twist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith luck, I\u2019ll hate again.\u201d This is a dizzying mix of incredibly overwrought and completely wrong for the character, 10\/10. But anyway\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In fairness, with that ending, it wouldn\u2019t have been right for anyone else to write this issue. Well, there you have it. Mom and dad were and evil plot by Harry, initiated well before he died. Probably not even meant as a strike from beyond the grave, one assumes. As a youth, I was left wondering, \u201cDoes this mean Harry\u2019s alive?\u201d I guess I was never good with DeMatteis\u2019 Green Goblin-related endings. But, yeah, he\u2019s not, and that\u2019s that. Spidey is now free to go tear up his new home and act like a horrible human being for many months so when they introduce the clone, you\u2019ll be begging for him to take over the books. How\u2019d that work out, fellas? But, absurdly, that doesn\u2019t mean this block is over. Not by a longshot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big finish. Big, dumb finish. JM DeMatteis makes his debut as writer of ASM. When I started his era, I obviously didn\u2019t want to do it here. But we\u2019ve managed to circle…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[9,35,253,177,1763,125,339,21,432,1086,2],"class_list":["post-20495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-aunt-may","tag-bob-sharen","tag-chameleon","tag-jim-krueger","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-mark-bagley","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-randy-emberlin","tag-scott-williams","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20495"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20643,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20495\/revisions\/20643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}