Credits: Written by Evan Skolnick, pencilled by Paris Karounos, inked by Randy Emberlin and edited by Eric Fein.
Plot: As Justice, Turbo, Powerhouse and Firestar of the New Warriors race to the TV studio with Ben Reilly (former member known as the Scarlet Spider and currently in his costume as Spider-Man II) along for the ride, Speedball gets there first and leaps into battle against Scarlet Spider II. This attack allows the soap opera actors (including Speedball’s mum) chance to ecape. Also heading towards the studio are Special Agent Stone of the FBI and his team, seperately Agent Briggs is also on the way, one is a team dedicated to bringing him down, the other his friend, trying to save him. The Warriors arrive, just as Speedball is knocked out of the building, following shortly by Scarlet Spider II who is demonstrating more and more new powers. As the New Warriors try to save the people this escalating battle is endangering, Spider-Man II heads for Scarlet He makes the mistake of confirming that he was at one point Scarlet Spider and this brings Scarlet Spider II’s attention directly to him. After a blast from Scarlet leaves him near-blinded and airborne, Firestar catches him and he accidentally calls her Angel (short for her first name Angelica) she does notice that.
The battle goes across the city and ends when Scarlet Spider II, after falling hundreds of feet to the floor wrecks Agent Briggs’ car as she races to find Joe. She confronts Joe and sees that he’s hiding inside Scarlet to hide from the pain he feels and she convinces him to consciously change back, something he hadn’t been able to do before.
Almost immediately, the FBI arrive and claim jurisdiction and take Joe into custody, Briggs goes with them to 1ook after, rather than exploit him. The Warriors are ready to leave and say goodbye to Spider-Man, all but Firestar unaware that it’s the original Scarlet Spider they’ve said goodbye to.
And that’s all she wrote about Scarlet Spider.
Notes: This is how the story ends. I really wanted to say a lot about this issue, I really did, but there’s not much to say and this made me think that we didn’t need issues 3 and 4 of this title. Whilst there were glimmers of hope in Sensational Spider-Man 0, this final part of this stage made me realise how badly the ball had been dropped by the time we got to that point. That’s really all I had to say.
Verdict – 2 Writing out of 5: The interesting thing about this, both Scarlet Spiders fighting one another and one of them trying to hide his past with the New Warriors is completely underplayed in place of Briggs trying to save Wade and none of the writing really tells that story well either.
Art 1 out of 5: The art on this title started off not great and has declined since then, so this is not a great note to end on.
Overall 3 out of 10: This issue cemented my decision to put my re-read of this era on hold for the time being, that should tell you everything about this.
NEXT TIME: One of my favourite Comics, ever.
My Marvel Life 