We find out who “Peter Parker” really is. Felicia does some investigating and chatting. We find out who “Spider-Man” really is. Meanwhile, in outer space(1), (the real) Peter is chilling out with an alien scientist, frees a bunch of aliens, including Rocket Raccoon. All this, plus, did somebody say “backups”???(2)
(Oh good, a new costume. Yay.)
CREDITS
“Broken Mirror”
Writer: Joe Kelly
Penciller: John Romita Jr.
Inker: Scott Hanna
Colorist: Marcio Menyz
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
“Broken Man”
Writer: Joe Kelly
Artist: Pepe Larraz
Color Artist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
PREVIOUSLY IN AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …
“Spider-Man” was back in action, but acting out of character – being rougher on criminals than usual. “Peter” was throwing himself in his job, ignoring his friends and family, and not taking any guff from Tombstone. Black Cat tried to save “Peter” from Shocker (sent by Tombstone) but witnessed “Spider-Man” brutally beating him. After tossing Shocker through Tombstone’s window, “Spider-Man” found himself accosted by … “Peter Parker”? With both of whom accusing the other of not being who they were.
SUMMARY
“Broken Mirror”
We have another flashback of young Peter (because it’s an ASM issue written by Joe Kelly) of him going to preschool in his Captain America pajamas, much to Uncle Ben and Aunt May’s chagrin.
(How does the Peter we have seen in these flashbacks become the quiet, friendless loner we meet in Amazing Fantasy #15?)
In the present day Aunt May is going through a box of old things – including Peter’s Cap pajamas – when Ric shows up to take her for a walk.
Meanwhile, “Peter Parker” and “Spider-Man” are still on the roof, not willing to tell the other who they really are and why they’re pretending to be these people. So naturally, they start fighting.
(This is how men express their feelings.)
“Peter” points out that this “Spider-Man” doesn’t have a spider-sense, but when “Spider-Man” has him on the ropes, “Peter” whips out some psycho-reactive energy, revealing himself to be Ben Reilly, aka Chasm!
(What a surprise! The person impersonating Peter was .. the one who looks identical to him and wants to steal his life.)
Chasm throws “Spider-Man” into a chimney. “Spider-Man” takes the time to web it up, preventing it from falling on some partiers below, and escapes. Chasm realizes that this “Spider-Man” saved those people just as Black Cat appears.
Meanwhile, in Harlem, Tombstone has R.X.(3) tend to Shocker’s broken bones from his fight with “Spider-Man”. Hobgoblin shows up, trying to make an alliance with Tombstone, who declines the offer.
(Tombstone in a bathrobe, Shocker in a facemask, and Dr. Mummy. Another typical night at Tombstone’s.)
At Da Grand Tavern, Ben Reilly (posing as Peter) meets with Felicia. He explains that he knows Peter is alive through their “clone bond”. He explains that when Peter died repeatedly during the 8 Deaths of Spider-Man story, he felt a void in his head when Peter was dead, but it disappeared each time Peter came back to life.
Janine shows up and just as Ben is about to leave with her, he tells Felicia that he doesn’t know who’s pretending to be Spider-Man, and wonders why the real Peter doesn’t seem to want to come back.
(Hellgate’s appearance in this panel is weird.)
“Spider-Man” arrives home, pours himself a drink, sits by the fire, and unmasks, revealing himself to be … Norman Osborn!
(Spider-Man, sitting by his fireplace, drinking some cognac (?) at the end of a long day.)
Outside Norman’s apartment, an armored figure is watching him, saying “death to monsters” in Latin.
(Who is this guy? And why does his spyglass have so many green lenses?)
TO BE CONTINUED!
“Broken Man”
Far, far from the Earth, on an unknown planet, a disheveled Peter Parker is living in a cave, killing small animals and eating them raw.
(Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.)
Weeks before this, Peter is using his costume to collect water, eating various plant life (and throwing it up), telling himself to “get stronger” (the last thing Hellgate said to him). Eventually he starts eating animals, but is weak and collapses, when he is found by an alien who calls him “Prince of Steelsilk”.
Weeks later, Peter is living on The Beacon, a deep-space research vessel with Dr. Xanto Starblood, an alien scientist who wears a flexisuit (similar in appearance to a symbiote) for his work. He rescued Peter from the planet, and while he is unable to return him to Earth due to the current war in the galaxy (I don’t read Imperial), they live a comfortable life on this vessel, doing science together.
(“So, this is my life now. Living with this alien, doing science.”)
Starblood is fascinated by Earth and humans, while Peter reminisces about how as a child he dreamed about being abducted by aliens, and seems content being on this vessel.
Peter goes to the lower levels to do a favor for Starblood and clean up only to find many caged animals and creatures. He is outraged since Starblood assured him he was only experimenting on plants and non-sentient creatures. They fight, and when Starblood turns off the atmosphere and gets a gun, Peter manages to put on the flexisuit.
(Oh look, another new costume for Spider-Man. Yay.)
Peter quickly learns how to use the flexisuit and defeats Starblood. He returns to the lower levels and releases all of the creatures, including Rocket Raccoon, and a small creatures that looks suspiciously like a symbiote.
(Is Rocket the only recognizable alien in this panel?)
TO BE CONTINUED!
Oh right, it’s an anniversary issue, so of course there are some backup stories in this issue!
Rapid Return
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Pepe Perez
Color Artist: Morry Hollowell
Synopsis: Our unnamed protagonist(4) is at the hospital visiting his father who has brain cancer. An accident gave him the ability to create time bubbles where time slows down, and he uses this to slow his father’s cancer. At home Noah, his son, shows him a report of an attack on a nearby store, and since Spider-Man is missing, he goes there as Rapid. He finds the store being robbed by Boomerang, and despite his inexperience, Rapid manages to defeat him. As he heads home to see his wife Lea and his son, he decides to continue being a hero.
Review: If you missed the recent Giant Sized Spider-Man issue you’ll have no idea who this character is, although there’s a (very) quick recap of his origin. The fight is over very quickly, and this story is a huge disservice to the years of character development Nick Spencer put in on Fred Myers aka Boomerang to have him show up as a throwaway villain robbing a store (I know he died and came back to life, but come on). Is anyone clamoring for more Rapid after this? And again, the story NEVER MENTIONS HIS ACTUAL NAME.
Grade: D (grade lowered an entire letter for how it treats Boomerang)
(Depiction of how this story treats Fred.)
Spider-Mayonnaise , or Miracle Thwip?
By: Lee Gatlin
Synopsis: Spider-Man is watching a video about spiders which says that when some spiders dismantle their web at night, they eat it. Later, he tells The Thing how he now adds his webbing to his sandwiches, making them savory, spicy or both.
Review: Why does Marvel keep letting Gatlin do Spider-Man little “comedy stories” like this in ASM? These stories would be acceptable in What The?!? but not here. I also really don’t like his art. Plus it tells us that Spidey eats his own webbing, which we know is (a) not edible, and (b) can kill someone if enough is ingested.
Grade: F
(Yes, this was in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man.)
In The City With … Spider-Man
By: Jason Loo
Synopsis: This isn’t even a story. It’s a two-page spread of Spider-Man swinging around the city chasing the Hobgoblin.
Review: Again, this isn’t a story. It’s a pinup. Reviewing it as a story makes no sense.
Grade: Incomplete
(This is literally the whole thing.)
INITIAL RESPONSE
Well, we finally got some answers about what’s going on with “Peter” and “Spider-Man”, so that’s a good thing. And we found out where Peter is – well, not exactly, but “outer space” is kind of a location. And we got the status quo of the two stories for the forseable future – on Earth, Norman is pretending to be Spider-Man while Ben is pretending to be Peter, and they each don’t like what the other is doing. And in space, Peter is far from home(5) with a bunch of aliens, including Rocket Raccoon, and something we’ve been told is Symbie.
But while some questions are answered, not all of them are, and they create new questions. Of these two stories, I should be more interested in the title character, but it’s “Spider-Man in outer space”, which is almost as bad as “Spider-Man and magic” for a type of Spider-Man story I’m not interested in. So when the more interesting story does not contain the main character, that’s a problem.
WHAT I LIKED
“Broken Mirror”
We finally got some answers about what’s going on with “Peter Parker” and “Spider-Man” from the last two issues. Turns out they were both imposters – shocker!(6)
I was actually surprised that the Peter imposter and the Spider-Man imposter were two different people (although this was revealed at the end of the previous issue). I just assumed they would be the same person (there was also talk on the podcast and Discord about Peter being “split” into two people). The idea that they are different people with unrelated, separate plans is not something I expected.
The issue actually revealed who both of the imposters were. I suspected we would only find out who one of them was, or neither.
Kudos for Tombstone speaking for the audience and pointing out the ridiculousness of Hobgoblin’s wings.
(You know what would be better than pointing out that something is ridiculous? Changing it.)
I do like the addition of Tombstone here. An ongoing sub-plot involving other characters? What is this, the 1980s?
I liked Ben and Felicia’s discussion. Even though – as Felicia pointed out – we were left with more questions after it was over, they both acted like adults. And Ben comes across as the Ben we saw after his Queen Goblin adventure – calm, reasonable, willing to talk (although that leads to more problems which we’ll get to in the next section).
(Wait, why isn’t his a big fight? They’re actually talking to each other like normal people?)
Even though some people on the Discord had guessed it, I did like the reveal that “Spider-Man” was Norman Osborn. Although this also leads to more problems – again, see the next section).
Finally, a follow-up on the attack on Norman from ASM #1.
“Broken Mirror”
We finally find out what happened to Peter after the Hellgate fight.
The 4 pages of flashbacks showing Peter on the alien planet manage to convey – with barely any dialogue – how long Peter has been trapped here and the depths he has sunk to in order to survive (they’re much more interesting than the rest of this story).
(Nom nom nom.)
Peter frees all of the captured aliens. And it’s nice to see Rocket.
Wow, this section isn’t very long, is it?
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
“Broken Mirror”
This is not this issue’s fault, but the revelations here would have been much more impactful if Marvel hadn’t spoiled us weeks ago by telling us that Spider-Man was going to end up in outer space, and another “Spider-Man” would be on Earth taking his place. Once that news was public, it didn’t take long for people to guess that this fake “Peter/Spider-Man” was Ben, or Norman Osborn. Because we were all expecting this, this reveal was very anti-climatic and telling us things we had already figured out.
Let’s talk about Ben here. He realizes Peter is missing, so his plan is to take over his life? Based on his last appearance we would expect this to be because he hates Peter and wants his life. But his conversation with Felicia makes it sound like he’s doing this for good reasons – to keep Peter’s life stable while he’s away. But that makes no sense based on Ben’s last appearance. This would make much more sense if the last time we saw Ben was when he ended up helping Spider-Man against Queen Goblin after being healed with TWD. The Ben at the end of that issue seemed to come to terms with his and Peter’s relationship, and seemed to no longer want to be a villain. But at the end of the Zells run we had Ben return to his psychotic “I blame Peter for everything and must steal his life” phase. So for him to be doing this now makes no sense.
(Felicia isn’t the only one who’s confused by Ben’s motives here.)
And what exactly is Ben’s plan? He realizes Peter is gone, so he decides to impersonate him – but *just* Peter and not Spider-Man – for several weeks. Why? He wants Peter’s life, so why *only* be Peter and not Spidey? And why walk around as Peter with a cane and a cast for weeks? No one thought Peter was injured, so why is Ben pretending to be injured? The only reason to do this was to trick the readers into thinking that was the real Peter. It makes no sense in the story.
While I liked the Felicia/Ben conversation in the bar, I also didn’t like it because it went out of its way to not answer questions we needed answered.
So all of a sudden Ben has some “clone-sense” that lets him know when Peter is alive? Where was this in all of the other Ben Reilly stories? Or the original 1990s Clone Saga?(7)
(Suddenly clones can tell when their original person is dead? Sure, why not?)
Let’s talk about Norman here. He is the fake “Spider-Man”. While this kind of fits in with Norman’s heroic turn and path for redemption, it doesn’t really make sense. Spidey is defeated by Hellgate and disappears. “Peter” is still around but ghosting all of his friends. Spider-Man isn’t appearing anywhere. Norman visits “Peter” at work, who tells him to leave him alone. So apparently after this conversation, Norman realized that this Peter was not the real one and decided to impersonate Spider-Man, just so everyone would think Spidey was still around? Wouldn’t a better use of his time be following this “Peter Parker” to find out who he is and what his secret is? And if all he wants to do is protect the city, why not become Gold Goblin again? Why does he feel that Spider-Man *has* to be around?
(It’s not like New York doesn’t have dozens of superheroes. It can survive with Spider-Man not being around for awhile.)
Also, as far as Norman passing himself off as Spider-Man, I can accept him using science and technology to replicate Peter’s powers, but they are nowhere near the same build. Norman is much bigger and bulkier than Peter. Unless his Spider-Man suit is able to compress his mass to make him appear to be Peter’s size, this makes no sense.
“Broken Man”
Hmm, what didn’t I like here?
I’d say that “Spider-Man and magic” is one of, if not the, most disliked genres of Spider-Man stories. I’d say that number 2 on that list is “Spider-Man in outer space”. Neither of them really work as Spider-Man stories, as the character should be grounded with street-level crime. There *have* been good stories when Spider-Man is in outer space, but most of them have been stories about other characters where Spidey is a guest-star. For example, in the 1980s there was a 5 (?) part story in Roger Stern’s Avengers where Spidey tried to join the team and everyone went to space. That worked because it was an Avengers story with Spidey tagging along. But a Spider-Man story where he goes to outer space:
The most interesting parts of this story are the 4 pages of flashbacks showing Peter when he’s on this alien planet, struggling to survive. But the story isn’t interested in this. They are flashbacks and barely given any weight. In fact, the most interesting part is how and why Peter arrives on this planet in the first place, but we get none of that. Will we get any of that in future issues? Maybe, but I would bet we don’t.
(Pictured: future stories explaining Peter’s arrival in outer space.)
So Peter is on this research vessel with only one other person – Dr. Xanto Starblood, an alien. He shows ZERO interest in getting back to Earth. He doesn’t seem to care about Aunt May, Shay, his friend, his job, or anything in his life at all. At first I thought this was just a front he was putting on in front of Starblood, but his inner monologue confirms he’s fine being here. Even when told there is a war going on preventing him from getting back to Earth, Peter should be doing everything possible to get home. But he doesn’t seem to care.
Starblood turns out to be a villain. Wow, didn’t see that coming at all.
Spidey gets a new suit. I remember before the first PS4 game where the appearance of a new suit in a comics was almost always story-based. But now, every time he gets a new suit in the comics, I know that it’s because they want a new suit for the next Playstation game.
(Flexisuit Spider-Man, coming in Playstation 6’s Spider-Man 3.)
Seriously, I just don’t care about any part of this space story. Knowing that we’re going to have alternating issues about “Peter” and “Spider-Man” on Earth, and Spider-Man and Symbie (ugh) in space, I’m more interested in the Earth stories, which is a bad thing – your main character’s story should be the bigger draw.
WHAT THIS ISSUE MEANT OVERALL
Well, we got answers about what’s going on with “Peter” and “Spider-Man” on Earth, and a setup for Peter’s adventures in outer space. And this is apparently the status quo for the foreseeable future. So if you like that, congratulations. But if you were enjoying the street level Hobgoblin story after the magic 8 Deaths story, and wanted more of that, well, you have it, but it’s with Ben and Norman, not the main character.
GRADE
“Broken Mirror”: C+
“Broken Man”: D-
Issue: D+ (the backups drag it down a bit)
NEXT TIME, IN AN ALL-NEW ISSUE OF AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …
Since we have a bunch of Earth-bound Spider-Man characters attacking “Spider-Man”, it looks like next issue will focus on Ben and Norman. Which, based on this issue, is fine with me. I am much more interested in that story than “Peter in space”.
FOOTNOTES
(1) A phrase that should never be used when describing a Spider-Man story.
(2) No one, in fact, said “backups”.
(3) Is this a new character? Never heard of him before, and couldn’t find anything about him on the Marvel Wiki. Although it’s hard to search for a two-initial name.
(4) Seriously, besides “Rapid”, his name is never mentioned in this story. Not good for the second appearance of a character where many ASM readers probably didn’t read his first appearance.
(5) Yes, I know what I said.
(7) Andrew Cutler on the Discord already pointed out that this has been mentioned once before, in Zells’ Dark Web story. But it didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now. Also, in that story, it was Peter who could sense that Ben was not dead.
English (US) · 