{"id":2594,"date":"2019-12-31T00:00:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T04:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deweybass.com\/spiderman\/?p=2594"},"modified":"2019-06-02T23:57:35","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T03:57:35","slug":"asm-409","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2019\/12\/31\/asm-409\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 409"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every artist as their own approach to character design. A lot of guys have tells that make it easy to guess a character is theirs. The new characters on this cover are extremely Mark Bagley loookin\u2019. Both feel like precursors to suits he\u2019ll use in the series Thunderbolts in a few years, in fact. Check out that spider light on the ground. A coloring trick not possible even just a few years prior. Anyway, here we are for the penultimate chapter in The Return of Kaine. Perhaps Kaine himself will figure into this issue more than the last. We open on Ben looking at his Spider-Skeleton, recapping pretty much his entire life in one page, which is nuts, and saying he wishes he could \u201cgentle down with his lady Jessica,\u201d but this is no time for romance. Wishing he could what, now? Who talks like this? He switches into Spidey gear and recaps meeting Kaine and Rhino last issue and then swings off as we check in with Bob Burtsfellow, nope, sorry, James Johnsmeyer for still more sweet, sweet exposition. Via conference call, he and many of his fellow players explain what The Great Game is and decide to wager on whose goon can kill Kaine first, including Spider-Man as \u201ca wildcard.\u201d That takes us to Kaine and Muse, who recap THEIR part in the story so far, my goodness, is anything going to HAPPEN in this comic, and then Bagley\u2019s surprisingly gangly take on The Rhino shows up.
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Rhino\u2019s always been kinda built like a beer keg, but look at that guy. He looks like he\u2019s got a 12 foot wingspan. We\u2019ll have to see how that goes in a minute, because we hop over to The Daily Bugle for the blog debut of reporter Ken Ellis.
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Spider-Man hitches a ride on one of a few news helicopters headed in the same direction, assuming they\u2019ll take him to Rhino & Kaine. It\u2019s somehow the correct choice, because that\u2019s where they\u2019re going. Rhino and Kaine are still duking it out, but then an energy blast announces the people on the cover have joined the fray.
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All the good names were taken, folks. This is actually Joystick\u2019s 2nd appearance. Muse tries to mindcontrol Polestar and gets kicked in the face by Joystick (I am not enjoying typing this sentence) while Rhino keeps gunning for Kaine. Then Spider-Man finally shows up.
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Polestar lets everyone know Spider-Man is worth double points, and then it\u2019s fightin\u2019 time in earnest. Kaine\u2019s high brow Stan Lee-esque dialogue really doesn\u2019t make any sense when you know he\u2019s a Peter Parker clone. It was awhile after his introduction before this was revealed, of course, but\u2026 it\u2019s weird. Being sad and evil is somehow the explanation for him saying things like \u201cYour so-called sponsor uses you like a mindless tool — and your only concern is remuneration? I strongly suggest you reassess your priorities!\u201d
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While Kaine is busy beating Rhino with half a building, Spider-Man smashes Joystick\u2019s gauntlets, blowing up the mechanism that powers her weapons. As she decides to flee, she tells Spidey it\u2019s a waste of time trying to turn her over to the police because she hasn\u2019t committed a single crime. Uh\u2026 this neighborhood is wrecked, ma\u2019am. People live here. No time to consider her poor grasp of destruction of public property, though, because Polestar is still flying around. Spidey dupes him into crashing into a building like the lame he is, and he whines about how his boss is expecting results in the fiscal quarter from his investment.
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Spidey is really givin’ it to hose Wall Street fatcats! Or something! Too late for more, we’re switching scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Did anyone NOT see that coming? Anyone? I still don\u2019t really understand the rules of this game, but Muse\u2019s treachery has been screaming off the page since they left Jack Johnson\u2019s house together. Watching Rhino and Polestar get arrested by supercops, Spidey thinks he\u2019s headed for what may be his final showdown with Kaine AND the end of The Great Game, in spite of\u2026 no real reason to think either of those things? Unless he\u2019s planning on killing everybody, why would this end any of that? I guess we\u2019ll find out together next post.
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Every artist as their own approach to character design. A lot of guys have tells that make it easy to guess a character is theirs. The new characters on this cover are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[9,455,113,253,13,489,26,492,488,491,461,339,490,493,2,51,124],"class_list":["post-2594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-ben-reilly","tag-ben-urich","tag-bob-sharen","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-james-johnsmeyer","tag-joe-robertson","tag-joystick","tag-kaine","tag-ken-ellis","tag-larry-mahlstedt","tag-mark-bagley","tag-muse","tag-polestar","tag-spider-man","tag-the-rhino","tag-tom-defalco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594","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=2594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4620,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594\/revisions\/4620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}