Ok, Gang War is over and it is time to set up for some regular story arcs. Wells tends to do better with smaller arcs than large events, so I’m…, well, let’s say I’m looking forward to this issue. Probably not the right term for it, but we’re going with it regardless.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Story Title: Peter Parker – Exorcist! (alternate title: My Aunt, My Enemy!)
Writer: Zeb Wells
Guest Artist: Carmen Carnero
Colorist: Marcio Menyz
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga
Cover Artists: John Romita, Jr, Scott Hanna, and Marco Menyz
Asst. Editor: Kaeden McGahey
Editor: Nick Lowe
I’m trying to compete with Craig’s cat here, but somehow this just isn’t the same.
Remedial ASM 101
Don’t worry about it. We are starting a new arc. All former arcs are ancient history. The only thing you need to know is Aunt Anna took some mutant medicine and turned into some sort of hulky-type monster and now wants to kill everyone and wear their face or something.
The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test
Spider-Man is stalking following a female staff member of Ravencroft in a not-at-all-creepy fashion during feeding time at the asylum. He then slips into Aunt Anna’s room. She attacks him and he stabs her with a needle that has an untested serum that should cure her and probably won’t make her grow extra arms. He then wants to break her out of the asylum, but she refuses and says she must pay for her actions. Peter goes to see Norman and they talk legal issues and Peter resigns so that he would not put Norman and his coworkers in danger, but Norman says it’s OK. It’s so OK that Peter can just come in whenever he has time to work and still get full pay. Peter meets up with MJ to go see Aunt Anna and finds the cure seems to have worked. While at Ravencroft, Peter sees Sandman. Sandman reveals that he has gone all Moon Knighty and now has multiple identities – William Baker and Flint Marko. Flint Marko wants to hurt others and commit crime and tries to attack Peter for knowing Spider-Man. He has some inhibitor that restricts it, but he does mention that the Sinister Six is looking to get Sandman back and that they want to kill Spider-Man.
What Passed and Failed
PASS – The Linda Blair version of Aunt Anna – There’s no way regular Aunt Anna could compete with this!
Ha! Ugliest Doily! Classic Aunt Anna!
PASS – Regular Aunt Anna – I stand corrected!
Ha! Talking to Whirlwind! Classic Aunt Anna!
PASS – Carmen Carnero’s art – top notch!
OOTI (Onomatopoeia of the Issue)
On a scale of 1 (POW) to 10 (BLRKBQRKPQRBLNB), CRNCH rates a 5. Crunch without the vowel? Eh. Also,if she is biting him there, wouldn’t that be on his web shooter? Mayhaps a more metallic crunching sound would be more appropriate.
Analysis
Aunt Anna – Anna, finding herself in a super villain insane asylum, chooses to be responsible and pay for her crimes.
I’m not super invested in this arc – not because it involves Aunt Anna (that actually appeals to me), but because it keeps Spider-Man tied to potential mutant story lines which I hope we will not revisit. As long as Ben is in Limbo with the Goblin Queen, I fear more mutant crossovers.
This could be a vehicle to get Aunt May more involved. Maybe Anna and May will move into together. May fell on hard times financially and Anna is going to need someone to watch over her more and more since the dementia medicine didn’t work (or did it work and the Hulk Anna was just a side-effect?). This could eventually lead to Peter and MJ having to be in the same place with two two busy-body women trying to patch them up.
Face It Tiger, You Missed the Jackpot – Peter and MJ talk more here than they did in the gang war. I really do like the way those eyepieces look on her as drawn by Carnero.
My issue with this who Jackpot thing, besides the fact that I don’t like Peter’s supporting cast branching into superpoweredness, is that she knows something very bad, like death to someone, could happen as a result of her Jackpot powers. Does it make sense to use it in ordinary day-to-day crime fighting? Not to me. And I don’t think it would to MJ either.
Who Was That Masked Man? – Peter slips up twice here – first he calls MJ by name while she is in costume and then again he mentions Aunt Anna saying she would wear someone’s face when he shouldn’t know about that. I think Wells is setting up for a story where Peter’s identity is a factor.
Norman and Peter – I like Peter working at Oscorp. I’m hoping this will lead to another string of Oscorn commercials by JR. Next time he’s on a podcast, I need you guys to flood the comments with Oscorn commercial requests. THE FANS DEMAND IT! I hope that we might get some supporting cast members out of this. Preferably supporting cast that are just ordinary people working a job and not secret super villains. Norman wanting to keep Peter on at full pay is questionable. I know he is saying that he wishes to make up for past behavior, but I sort of wish that he has said Peter could work when he wanted to work and would be paid per hour he worked. That would give us some conflict like when he was a student. (I need to look for Doc Ock, but I’ll do it after school or after my homework). Peter would have to decide if he needed money for rent or if he needed to swing around the neighborhood looking for the Looter or someone.
Also, Norman making a mention about why he didn’t engage in the gang war is suspicious (or as little Neil would say, ‘sus’). Craig, you might just get your wish that he was behind the scenes the whole time after all. Add to this that Norman suggests they team-up from time to time and I think we can all see the set up that this nice Norman has a shelf life that is about to expire.
To drill that matter home, we see Norman fuss out a stupid employee who is bringing an Internet device in close proximity to the Living Brain, which now looks like a big green brain and not a Doctor Who-esque robot.
Someone correct me here, the brain wasn’t an actual brain the last time we saw it, was it?
Since Norman is concerned what will happen if this brain gets a hold of the Internet, I think we can see this coming down the pike.
Sandman – I like this approach to William Baker and Flint Marko. I don’t know the whole story, but I seem to remember that it was a mistake to refer to him by two different names, but later retconned to say it was a name William called himself to honor his teacher or something. I can only hope to inspire a student so much that they turn to a life of crime under my name. I liked Sandman as a good guy and this sort of brings that side of the character back.
Misleading Cover
My son Grant reviewed Miles for a while and he had a whole deal with misleading covers, so I’m reviving it here. The issue has a rainy night with Spider-Man in a ripped up costume hanging out by a water tower. In the issue – Rain? Nope. Ripped up costume? Nope. Water tower? Nope. Spider-Man? Technically yes, though he does very little. Sorry Craig, I know you wanted to pick right up with him still spewing brown smoke from his gang fight, but did not happen.
Speaking of misleading covers, I did put Turkish Spider-Man and Ms. Lions on the feature image of this review. Misleading, I know. However, I do have a rather excellent review of the Turkish Spider-Man movie which, if you have not checked out yet, you really need to! Also, since I was competing with Craig for a pet picture with his cat, you may not know that Craig’s cat’s name is Ms. Lions, so there is at least a connection there.
Cross Curricular Activities – a.k.a. She Blinded Me with Science
Folks, here at the Crawlspace, we are encouraged to leave no stone unturned, and what kind of reviewer would I be if I didn’t fact check the following exchange:
So how much does a Hippo eat daily? I looked it up (natch) and they do eat around 100 pounds a day. Seeing how this is a humanoid hippo, and not an actual hippo, I guess 75 pounds out. To be more precise, this is Ms. Fluffy Lumpkins, who was a guy before the High Evolutionary stepped in and did science magic. Sadly, I could not find any relation to Willie Lumpkin, FF mailman and former flame of Aunt May. While researching, I also found out that hippos poop anywhere from 70 to 400 pounds a day! (The math didn’t seem right to me, but who am I to question research? I mean, my source reported that sometimes they poop so much that they kill all the fish in that area.) And I know at least one of you (looking at you Evan) wants to know if that poop can be mailed to someone (like Chi-Town). Sadly, while I did find one zoo was announcing they would start selling their hippo poop (hippo’s name is Fiona), I never saw where they actually made good on the promise.
Now, my good buddy Chi-Town was reprimanding me for not getting this review out day of release, but I’m sure you guys can see that all this crack investigative research on hippo poop can’t be rushed.
Final Grade
This is a hard one to grade. It is fine. Any problems I have with it is part of a larger concern and not of this issue’s making. It is a set up issue for future story lines involving Aunt Anna, Norman Osborn, the Living Brain, and the Sinister Six, so it does set those pieces up and to be honest, I am hopeful that these will be good stories. Then again, I was hopeful for Gang War too and that didn’t pan out for me.
C
I think this is a good enough grade for it. It is fine (I had no FAILS for it), but not one I would care to read again.
What’s Next?
Spidey is cleaning up the mess that is his life after some of the most harrowing conflicts of his life. Electro isn’t going to wait for Spidey to figure his problems out, though. A dangling thread from earlier in the run that you forgot was dangling starts to pull the sweater apart!
Got to give Lowe props for using a word like “harrowing”. Can’t say Electro thrills me. Also, if it is a dangling thread that we forgot about, is it really worth pursuing? I guess we will find out soon enough.
EXTRA CREDIT
What do you think the dangling thread that we forgot about was?
‘Nuff Said!
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Excellent review!
I just want to congratulate @Zells for his excellent Zeb Wells impersonation. Exactly the response I would expect from someone for whom “does it really matter” has been the only theme of the run!
@Steve – You might be right. They do like setting up one thing and delivering another. Add to that they have already shown they are committed to extending this Nice Norman for as long as it takes, but I do think the return of the Green Goblin is near.
All this Norman set up seems a little too obvious, would be boring if they just pulled the trigger and oh he’s green goblin again, yawn, I am really starting to feel like this is all a massive red herring for something else, don’t know what though
Ah, dang, how can I live without it?
@Aqu@ – Thanks for catching that bit of formatting glitch. I fixed it. Now, if you had just given a reason why is wasn’t really my fault in the first place, then we could be talking one of those coveted Crawlspace No-Prizes for you . Alas, the chance has past.
Speaking of, in the letters pages, Lowe mentions the No-Prize and the qualification of explaining why a problem is not really a problem. I thought they did away with that. I would think that Lowe just threw it out there, but then I saw it somewhere else too recently.
Mark, I think you mixed a bit of story content for this issue in the remedial 101.
About aunt Anna, I think this was a way to resolve her plot point, not to set things up, with or without May. And I’m ready to bet her dementia will soon be forgotten together with all this. It shouldn’t, because krakoan medicine didn’t just magically cure her, it just kept the decline under control, but that’s how these things go nowadays.
Hope you’re wrong about a story about Peter’s identity, because I fear it would be another umasking and we know those don’t go very well.
Dangling thread we forgot about? Which one? I mean, there are so many that we may think are just forgotten bits while it was the writer’s intention all along to continue them; we are still in the middle of his run, afterall. The real problem are all the other ones the writer really did forget about.
Don’t worry, I forgot about the Living brain too. It’s not old age (I mean, I hope!), it’s just very forgettable stories.
I still have problems in recognizing which one Electro is that on the next cover: the face is that of a woman, but the body is clearly(?) a man’s.
@Michael
I think the claim in the letter page was Lowe trying to trigger a fit of rage in old fans with a joke. He didn’t realize it just comes off as sad, because they really aren’t able to correctly characterize their characters anymore.
@Evan – That’s a pretty cool video! Worth the watch.
In the hopes of enhancing the review (even more than a Deb Whitman counter), I wanted to share that MerryMarvelite just happened to post a video on the origin of Sandman just the other day. See? It worked out perfectly that this review was posted a day later:
https://youtu.be/F2ioUpDHKog?si=zLqzO_Ina75jVxQX
@Zeb “Zells” Wells:
“Does it really matter, true believer?”
Oh silly me, wanting internal logic in my comic books.
“what the hell does Paul do in his spare time? Does he have a job? Is he independently wealthy? Does he just do his own science all the time?”
Does it really matter, true believer?
@Mark Alford:
I don’t know – after the Sinful SM arc ended I thought the next time we saw “Kraven” he would be … maybe not a hero, but an anti-hero. It felt like the whole experience had gotten the whole “I want to be a villain” feeling out of him. Hopefully we see that he’s being forced to do this by Otto, and he’ll figure a way out.
I mean, there’s many years of SM stories where every time we saw Aunt May, Anna was there with her. They lived together, they were joined at the hip – when Gwen told off May, she ran away to Florida to go live with Anna. She should be devastated that her best friend has gone crazy and is incarcerated, and should be visiting her every day.
I think Zells only had Norman mention Gang War to explain why he wasn’t involved (as the Gold Goblin) during it. I’m still holding onto the theory that was him in the purple pants/boots.
“You know, there really should be someone whose job it is to oversee that sort of thing. Maybe even a job that comes with an assistant or something. Oh well.” Yeah, you’d think that of all an editor’s jobs, making sure the issue number on the cover is correct would be one of the simplest ones to do.
@Hornacek and @Geiseric
Hornacek – Good point about Kraven. It didn’t register with me on my first read through. Maybe he had a change of heart. Maybe he sees it as a means to an end. If he realized that the spear didn’t actually have the sins, he may be coming back to kill Spider-Man if he still has the sins or to kill whomever has it and sees the Sinister Six as a way to get there. Or maybe Doc Ock has something on him and is forcing his hand.
Man, I have no idea why Aunt May isn’t more involved. She should be all up in arms about her best friend being there. The supporting cast has been all kinds of crapped in for a long time now. When we see them, they are only to serve a role in Spider-Man’s story. They should be living their own lives and intersecting with Peter organically. We have this whole Oscorp place with Peter not reacting with anyone except Norman (and for a while, Kamala – her death in this magazine would have made more sense if Peter and Kamala were doing more together and maybe even interacting as Spidey and Ms. Marvel without knowing they know each other out of mask). I love Spider-Man and his world, but a also love Peter Parker and his world just as much. One without the other is mediocre.
I think we will find that Norman did have something to do with the events in Gang War, otherwise why mention it here? I guess we could take it on face value that Norman is concerned, but I don’t think so. Or maybe while the gang war was going on, he was securing his goblin needs and building more secret lairs and hide-aways. That team-up scenario you mentioned is exactly where my mind is at. The Greenish-Gold Goblin will rise!
“Regarding the misleading cover section, it says ‘Legacy #938’ but it should be ‘#939’.” You know, there really should be someone whose job it is to oversee that sort of thing. Maybe even a job that comes with an assistant or something. Oh well.
Geiseric – It is rather odd that Paul has been absent. I am not complaining. I assume they figure he got enough page time in the Jackpot Gang War issue. That and his whole reason for being here has run its course. Now that the kids are gone, there isn’t much to keep them together. I am not sold that she loves him and they are not married, so there is nothing to keep him there. I bet they just don’t know what to do with him for now. They could write him out of the story and MJ still not go back to Peter, so unless they have plans for him later, I don’t see why he’s still around. Like you said, though, he is still around so it is odd that we don’t encounter him more.
Current Loose Thread Tally:
Living Brain – 2
Hammerhead – 1
Aunt May’s crack addiction – 1 (Remember that scene with the bloody handkerchief? I think the whole Jay Jameson was a red herring…)
@Geiseric:
Paul didn’t come with MJ this time because he was busy with … um, he had to get to his job at … yeah, what the hell does Paul do in his spare time? Does he have a job? Is he independently wealthy? Does he just do his own science all the time?
@Michael and @Evan
Michael – I’m hoping that Peter is done with the X-Men for a while. I wish Ben’s thing would be limited to Web of Spider-Man. I don’t know if Brad got anybody to cover Web, but I know that Ryan “Pain Bot” Read will cover it because he embraces misery. So make sure to hit up his review when that comes out, but it looks like I will get the joy of reviewing one of those issues soon.
I think that Norman is pretending to be good Norman for now. Maybe they see it as a surprise for us or a bookend to when he was pretending earlier to be evil Norman during the Kindred arc. I don’t believe there is a struggle and with Sandman being brought in with a good/bad struggle, it seems a bit overkill to do it twice (though I doubt Wells and Lowe will care too much about that).
Curt Connors. Yes. I am embarrassed. It’s the second mistake I’ve ever made in my life and I freely admit it. That comes from starting the review on Wednesday and finishing it on Thursday. I will say that I had forgotten that Curt worked for Norman. And now that you mention it, I do remember the whole unplugging ordeal. I don’t know if the blame is unforgettable stories or if my memory is just going in my old age. I feel like Brad Douglas right now…
I’ve got absolutely no issue with Aunt Anna being able to bite Peter. It’s close quarters and he obviously isn’t expecting it. His spider-sense has always been less than consistent and I see it as hearing. I can block out quite a bit (I am married, after all) and even if something is clearly within earshot, I may just not register it. We’ve gotten plenty of stories that say his sense is always buzzing with background dangers. Aunt May hit him in the head with a vase at one point when she was living with Doc Ock shortly after their failed wedding attempt. If we make the sense infallible, then we run the risk of crappy stories with an OP Spider-Man. He needs to be able to be hit. And I truly doubt Anna knows about Whirlwind and the Wasp. If she did, she would see everyone in there in a different light right about now. My biggest issue is that in the small amount of time between the cure and Peter and MJ’s visit, she made a lot of friends. Seems like it would take a bit longer for her to have all those relationships. But it was funny, so I don’t care. I enjoyed it and moved on to the next panel.
Thanks for telling me about the limiter. That makes more sense to me now and I no longer have problems with her using her powers to fight crime (though I still like it better when she is a powerless ground for Peter to fall back on rather than a colleague.
As for the letters page, I don’t know.
Evan – I love every word in your hippo paragraph. 🙂
Current Loose Thread Tally:
Living Brain – 1
Hammerhead – 1
Aunt May’s crack addiction – 1 (Remember that scene with the bloody handkerchief? I think the whole Jay Jameson was a red herring…)
The dangling thread is obviously just follow up on the living brain. Though it’s weird it technically starts here but these listings are often misleading. Like how this issue basically has nothing to do with gang war and its aftermath.
Also weird Paul didn’t come to this and was treated Ike he didn’t exist. Maybe they are winding they shit down
@Mark – I’m thinking editorial forgot what the dangling thread was, and they’re just blaming it on us. I’m guessing the dangling thread was “What happened to Hammerhead?!”
I, for one, appreciate your delving into the bowels of Hippo research, but I can’t believe the Cincinnati zoo actually considered shipping Fiona’s poop. When I called them, they said that they only sent shipments to Chicago, so I guess I’m s*** outta luck.
Now, on to the comments!
@Mark Alford:
Why do you have a picture of the comic in front of the old Windows aquarium screen saver?
Why is “Kraven” involved in this new Sinister Six? I got the impression from the recent Sinful Spider-Man story that he had turned over a new leaf because of the therapy he got out of that whole situation. If I didn’t know better I’d say this story was written by a different writer who didn’t bother to check with recent continuity of the character, but these are both written by Zells, within the same year. Hopefully we’ll get more from “Kraven” than just “I decided to join the Sinister Six just because!”
“This could be a vehicle to get Aunt May more involved.” Why *isn’t* Aunt May more involved in this story, or at least mentioned that Anna is imprisoned since the annual? Anna has been May’s BFF since … forever. Oh wait, have we even seen Aunt May since the annual? The fact that I don’t know the answer to that shows how poorly the supporting cast is used in this run, and how they don’t react to events that would matter to them. Seriously, Anna going crazy, attacking people, and being locked up should be May’s number one priority since the annual.
“Craig, you might just get your wish that he was behind the scenes the whole time after all.” We can all hope. But I wasn’t saying that he was behind everything in the Gang War, just that once he got his sins back, he stumbled on the Gang War shenanigans and thought “Hey, this looks like fun. Just the sort of thing I used to be involved in back in the day. Maybe I’ll get involved too.”
“Add to this that Norman suggests they team-up from time to time and I think we can all see the set up that this nice Norman has a shelf life that is about to expire.” Now I’m wondering if we’re going to have a Spidey/Golden Goblin team-up, and that’s when Norman will decide to reveal that he’s evil again – while they’re teaming up to fight crime, Norman will attack Spidey out of nowhere and take him by surprise, knocking him out. Then Spidey will wake up and find that Norman has changed outfits – from Gold Goblin to Green Goblin.
“we see Norman fuss out a stupid employee who is bringing an Internet device in close proximity to the Living Brain” and “Since Norman is concerned what will happen if this brain gets a hold of the Internet, I think we can see this coming down the pike.” As Michael already mentioned, that was Curt Connors, not Norman.
“which now looks like a big green brain and not a Doctor Who-esque robot.” I agree about the LB’s look – I don’t think it looked like this the last time we saw it, but that #900 issue was so unmemorable I can barely remember anything from it.
Regarding the whole William Baker/Flint Marko thing, I think originally it was a mistake about what his actual name was, and later someone came up with the idea that “Flint Marko” was just a criminal alias he used, and “William Baker” was his real name. I think when the Wizard turned Sandman evil again using mind control he said something like he was bringing the villainous Flint Marko persona to the forefront? And when the procedure was done and Sandman was evil again, there was a bit of “Flint” saying “Huh? Where am I? What am I doing here?” Like “Flint” was a different person. Who knows is they’re talking about that this here?
Regarding the misleading cover section, it says “Legacy #938” but it should be “#939”.
@Michael:
“A lot of readers complained that Aunt Anna was able to bite Peter despite his Spider-Sense.” It’s been well established that Peter’s Spider-Sense doesn’t work against someone he deems a friend. Aunt May has hit him from behind with a vase, and I think the Jackal in the original Clone Saga knocked out Spidey from behind because “Professor Miles Warren” was a friend of Peter’s.
“Why are Peter and MJ undressing in front of each other? MJ is seeing Paul right now.” Peter and MJ have changed clothes in front of each other tons of times. This is nothing that either of them hasn’t seen many times before.
“A lot of people had problems with Aunt Anna describing Whirlwind as a nice young man. Whirlwind stalked the Wasp and tried to rape her on one occasion and tried to drive her ex to suicide on another.” Pretty sure Anna doesn’t know anything about that. All she knows is that the Whirlwind she knows in that asylum appears to be “a nice young man”.
For what it’s worth, this is following up on issues 30-31 of X-Men (the footnote says 29) where Peter helps the X-Men cure everyone poisoned by the Krakoan medicines.
For what it’s worth, in next week’s Web of Spider-Man, Ben is escaping from Limbo and Norman is defeating the Grave Goblin (of the Insidious Six), so we should be done with the X-Stuff after that.
BTW, is anyone reviewing Web of Spider-Man? Ben’s escape leads into issues 47-48.
I’m not sure what’s going on with “good Norman” this issue. Has Norman turned back into the Goblin already and is he just pretending to be “good Norman” or is there some sort of struggle going on between the “good Norman” and Goblin personas?
It was Curt Connors, not Norman, who yelled at the employee for bringing the device near the Brain. (Curt is working for Oscorp.)
And yes, the brain did look like a green brain the last time we saw it. The robot was just its instrument.
(Although Peter stopped it by unplugging it.)
And rereading it ,the Living Brain story also foreshadowed Sandman’s mental instability.
A lot of readers complained that Aunt Anna was able to bite Peter despite his Spider-Sense.
Why are Peter and MJ undressing in front of each other? MJ is seeing Paul right now.
In the Jackpot one-shot, Paul developed a limiter which would prevent MJ from triggering the three skulls but also prevent her from using her most powerful abilities. Presumably she’s using it while she fights crime.
A lot of people had problems with Aunt Anna describing Whirlwind as a nice young man. Whirlwind stalked the Wasp and tried to rape her on one occasion and tried to drive her ex to suicide on another.
Anna shouldn’t be calling someone like that a nice young man. OTOH, Anna tried to kill MJ and Aunt May. the two people she cared about most in the world, while under the influence of the Orchis drugs, so she probably thinks she’s no better than him.
BTW, what did the letters page mean when they claimed that Aunt Anna Hulk was what Stan and Steve were driving towards when hey created Anna?
I think the Living Brain is the dangling thread that we forgot about.