Amazing Scarlet Spider 2: Round one, fight!

Credits: Written by Tom DeFalco, pencils by Mark Bagley, inked by Larry Mahlstedt and edited by Bob Budiansky.

Plot: In Paris, a woman known as Joystick meets with a middle man she knows as Henri and hands his a black domino mask, which belonged to someone she calls El Toro Negro (spanish for The Black Bull) that she calls a souvenir. It becomes clear that they are both players in some sort of game, involving rankings and close combat. Apparently non-players can be fought too and Joystick’s next match is the Scarlet Spider.

In New York, Ben (in his Scarlet Spider) costume is dealing with a rivalry between Pizza shops that has devolved into gun violence before he heads to his day job as bodyguard to mob-boss Mr Tso. He calls Carrie (his neighbour) to get another date, but this is accepted begrudgingly. He then passes Rachel, the barmaid, who declares she’s leaving. In Cyberspace, Seward is searching for information on his daughter’s (Doctor Octopus II) computers. Her virtual partner meets with Stunner (girlfriend of the deceased Doctor Octopus I) and begins to convince her that he is a friend. Meanwhile Linette Martinez warns Doc Ock II that Joe Wade (undercover fed) is acting suspicious. Through it all Seward is learning more about their plans and is very worried, especially since they bear ill will towards Ben.

At work Ben is ordered to convince the Daily Bugle not to write articles about Mr Tso, not realising that Ben being a dead ringer for Peter will doubtless be mistaken for him. At the Bugle itself, Phil Urich (nephew of long-time reporter Ben, as well the new Green Goblin) is met by Joystick who is trying to get to Ken Ellis. Phil (drooling at the lady) takes the contact details, with little to no intention of passing it to Ellis, but very much aware Ben Urich wouldn’t steal a lead or story. Instead he points Ellis in the direction of the Green Goblin, aiming to teach him a lesson and as Ellis leaves, Ben Reilly arrives to speak to Ellis, keen to offer him an interview with the Scarlet Spider for easing off Tso. As Ellis leaves to find the Green Goblin, Reilly (in his Scarlet Spider outfit) leaves to follow Ellis, Phil Urich changes into his Green Goblin costume and flies after Ellis and Joystick follows Ellis too.

Joystick first finds Scarlet Spider and attacks him, explaining that it’s a game and how she needs his mask. She is indiscriminate is her attacks, which use some kind of ill-defined energy constructs (it was the 90s) and the blasts cause pieces of roof-top to fall towards Ken Ellis who is saved by the new Green Goblin. This rattles Joystick, but not enough to stop her from flooring Ben. She is told via an earpiece that the prelim is over and she should withdraw. This conversation is picked up by Green Goblin who along with Ben watches her vanish. The Goblin offers his help with finding her, but Ben could honestly care less and isn’t too fond of the idea of teaming with a Goblin. Learning it’s after 6 already, Ben races off to meet with Carrie, who only seeing his scruffy appearance and aimless life dumps him after foiling her own mugging.

The issue ends with the monitor who was dealing with Joystick being attacked by El Toro Negro who wants revenge against Joystick, at the cost of her life.

Notes: This felt more like it. DeFalco and Bagley bring in an interesting new wrinkle to this back and forth between two criminal factions by adding in a costumed Mortal Kombat plot. Players battle one another for ranking and points overseen by sponsors and monitors/moderators. It’s an interesting idea, the idea that crime-fighting and bank robbery being the only things that costumed super-beings can do being dismissed as other people would have other ideas and that unlicensed fighting makes enough since for it to becoming something of an over-used trope. This at least was handled well enough and kept me interested. Writing out the underwritten potential love interests tells me that the direction that these Scarlet Spider series were taking has been changed and more changes are on their way. The inclusion of the new Green Goblin gave this plot-line another place to go and most likely was an attempt to bring new readers to that nascent title. With the story continuing in that title, the third issue will most likely be the next issue here.

Verdict: Writing 3 out of 5 – We get the same ongoing stalemate with Tso, his partner, Doctor Octopus II and her partner opposing one another and it needs to come to a head and quick, because it’s not paced well as a shorter story, or really a longer ongoing arc, so we need to have moment here. The girls being written out makes sense if these new titles are on the chopping block and a fresh start is on it’s way. So this story has to do a good number of things and that makes it hard to tell a really good story at the time same, but honestly DeFalco still turns a 1 out of 5 plot into a 3 out of 5 story and that isn’t a small thing right now.

Art: 4 out of 5 – Bagley always delivers and his character design and action scenes are as good as they ever are. He epitomises that post-Image exodus era’s positives as Mark Bagley tells a story and tells it well, without sacrificing that style that makes him one of the definitive Spider-artists and most of the good in this story is from him.

Overall 7 out of 10: A nice change of pace that reminds me how little am enjoying this second phase of the Clone Saga. The Joystick/Game stuff is moving over to Green Goblin #3 and that was all the bits of this series that I actually enjoyed. So now I just run out the clock and see how the last half dozen parts of this chapter come out.

Next Time: Since he shows up in it, it’s Scarlet Spider’s appearance in Green Goblin.