Credits: Written by Tom DeZago, pencils by Steven Butler, inked by Randy Emberlin and edited by Eric Fein.
Cast: Peter ‘Spider-Man’ Parker, Mary Jane Watson-Parker, Dr. Miles ‘the Jackal’ Warren, Kaine, Anna Watson, Frank ‘The Punisher’ Castle.
Synopsis: Spider-Man and the Jackal are on the Empire State Building and the police have shown up. Also aiming at the Jackal is Frank Castle, known as the Punisher. Jackal used the Punisher earlier in his career and now in some kind of turmoil, he has chosen to remove the Jackal from the world.
Meanwhile in subplot land, Mary Jane worries over the current state of events, from her pregnancy to how it will be affected by the recently revealed fact that Peter is the clone, not Ben.
Back to the action and before the police can get ready to act, Castle starts shooting at the Jackal, uncaring about potential casualties. Peter runs interference, but the Jackal is hit trying to run in front of Peter. Peter jumps at and punches Castle to the ground, then escapes with Jackal back to his lab.
Castle easily escapes from the arriving police and in another subplot, Kaine is angry at recent events and still plagued by visions of MJ’s imminent death, but this time he sees who the murderer is and this only leaves him even more distraught. Meanwhile Peter gets Jackal to his lab as the police find and corner the Punisher in the sewers. Castle threatens to electrocute the police, who pull back.
Peter ends the issue sitting outside a medical pod that holds the Jackal, healing from the gunshot wounds.
Notes: We continue with Peter’s descent into despair over his learning that he is the clone. This time dragging the Punisher into things. It makes some sense, the Punisher’s first appearance (I don’t need to tell anyone when that was do I?) was him being used by the Jackal, so their paths crossing make a degree of narrative sense. The biggest problem I have here is that not much is happening. The Punisher wants to kill the Jackal, who’s manipulating Peter who’s at his lowest. I mean that’s a six pager with padding and that is a lot of this issue. It’s well put together, don’t think it isn’t, but this feels like a side salad, the meat and potatoes of this crossover is on the other plate and because of that, this feels somewhat unsatisfying.
Verdict: Writing 2 out of 5- It’s 75% padding on top of a 25% good idea. The Punisher is only brought in to connect the Spider group of comics to the Edge group of comics. (Marvel was changing it’s editorial system around this era) and it feels as forced as it is, but it’s a nice reminder to Spider-Man readers that its the Marvel Universe and not just the Spider-Manverse. The moments with just Peter and the Jackal work and that’s my take away from this issue.
Art: 3 out of 5 – Still enjoying Butler’s work on Web and whilst the anatomy goes weird in places and the colouring is overdone, this is still a lovely bit of art for this era.
Overall: 5 out of 10: The most underwhelming Web of Spider-Man issue since the clone saga started. But there’s been better issues and there are better ones ahead.
Next Time: Back to the Age of Apocalypse and a bit of history.
My Marvel Life 