Do you like a story where the writer heard the common description of Spider-Man as a “soap opera” and took the wrong message from that, going with the worst aspects of soap operas? Do you like stories that go against decades of continuity? Do you like issues where they clearly just watched Across the Spider-Verse and decided they liked how the alternate Vulture looked in that and decided to make the comicbook Vulture look like that for no reason? Do you like issues with two separate stories that have nothing to do with each other and never connect? Then this the issue for you!
(Wait, this is the issue where May and Ben explain the birds and the bees to young Peter?)
CREDITS
Writer: Joe Kelly
Artist: Patrick Gleason
Color Artist: Marcio Menyz
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
PREVIOUSLY IN AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …
Peter was able to get free of Brian’s (aka Spore) grasp thanks to Kintsugi, who showed up to rescue his mother, Dr. O-M. Mac is still helping May at FEAST. Peter fights back against Brian thanks to Daredevil’s training and causes Brian to flee. Later Peter is at May’s for pizza with her and Big Ric, when Mac shows up. Peter recognizes him as his mystery cousin, and Mac reveals that Ben Parker was his father, and May is his mother!
SUMMARY
This issue is two separate stories that are not connected at all, so instead having the recap go back and forth from one to the other again and again, we’ll go through each story separately.
THE TALK
May is recovering from the shock of Mac’s revelation last issue that Uncle Ben was his father, and she is his mother. Peter realizes that Mac looks like Uncle Ben, while Mac says that 45 years ago, hospitals would sometimes make mistakes and send the wrong baby home with the wrong couple, which is what he assumed happened.
Big Ric says that May never had any children, and that she wasn’t able to. May says that’s what she was told.
(Big Ric’s only contribution to this issue.)
May tells the story of how at first she and Ben didn’t want children, but eventually they got pregnant and she had a miscarriage, due to a heart condition.
(So after being given that news, she and Ben did the smart and reasonable thing and decided to adopt a child, right? Right?)
Against doctor’s orders, she and Ben tried to get pregnant again. She had two more miscarriages, at which point Ben explained that if they kept trying, she would die. May accepted it and they moved on.
A year later they travelled to Ireland, where she kissed the Blarney Stone(1) and wished that she could give Ben a son.
May got pregnant and spent the last trimester in bed. She delivered as scheduled and saw her baby, but he didn’t cry. The doctors told them that the baby died from respiratory distress.
May spent weeks in bed while Ben took care of her. Eventually she got up and told Ben that they were “moving on”. Fifteen years later Peter came to live with them.
(“Don’t worry Peter, I won’t kick you out of my life now that I have my own biological son.”)
May apologizes to Peter for not telling him as she removes a folded piece of paper from behind a photo of her and Ben – it’s the birth certificate for Richard Benjamin Parker. Mac confirms that it’s his birthdate.
(How did I not know that Ben’s middle was “Franklin”? The Wiki confirms this. When was this established?)
And that’s how this story ends.
KILLINGTON HOUSE
A homeless man with a robotic eye directs some wealthy looking people into a building which turns out to be Killington House, a club where people can bid on the captured belongings of criminals and super-villains, and those who bid have to fight each other to win the belongings, and everyone else can bet on who will win the fight.
(I didn’t know if this homeless guy was supposed to be someone. I guess he’s just a lookout … with a cybernetic eye that scans you?)
Montana (of the Enforcers) fights Tarantula for Trapster’s assets. Tarantula wins, as Spider-Man watches from the shadows.
(How could you have Montana in a fight without him using his lariat?)
In another match, Digger defeats the Wrecker(2) while Tombstone watches in a place of honor for the establishment.
(Do the wings on these courtside women mean they’re supposed to be angels? Birds? Are they Vulture’s entourage?)
As the next lot is announced, Spidey makes his presence known. He tells Tombstone that he wants to make a bid for the next lot.
Later all of Spidey’s opponents are knocked out or webbed up. Vulture is insulted that riffraff like Spidey is here, while Tombstone is curious why Spidey is interested in this lot. It’s revealed to be the Shocker’s gauntlets. Tombstone sends Vulture to attack Spidey, as a mysterious figure in a trench coat watches (could it be Kaine?).
(“Anyone else want to have a go?”)
As Vulture attacks Spidey, it’s revealed that the figure in the trench coat is … (wait for it) … (your favorite and mine) … Raelith the Wretched!
(This is a very weird ending. The the reveal of Raelith the Wretched intended to get a “WHAT?” reaction?)
TO BE CONTINUED!
INITIAL RESPONSE
This is a very weird issue to talk about. There are two separate stories, both given relatively equal amount of space(3), and yet they are completely separate. There is literally nothing connecting them together. I fully expected to get to the end of one of them and have it lead into the other story, but that doesn’t happen. There’s no explanation for this. It’s like an annual or anniversary issue where there are 2 separate stories, but in those occasions those stories have beginnings and endings and are meant to be separate stories. In this issue, both of these stories are following up on previous stories, and they will continue in the next issues. But there is absolutely no connection between them.
But let’s not bury the lead here … only one of these stories is the one that people are going to be talking about when discussing this issue. And as far as that story goes … a wise man once said on this website’s podcast: “Writers can’t help but mess with the origin. They can’t help themselves.”
WHAT I LIKED
THE TALK
The art is beautiful, as expected. Gleason does great work with these emotional scenes of May talking and the raw depictions of flashbacks, especially this scene.
(Even if you’re like me and don’t see the appeal of children, this is a pretty heartbreaking panel.)
Credit where credit is due – the story is very well written. Once May starts telling her story, none of the other characters interrupt. They, like the reader, just sit back and take it all in, and wait for her to finish. Despite Peter and Big Ric’s antagonism at Cormac last issue when he revealed the truth, they are calm here and just sit back and don’t attack him, letting May tell her story to all of them.
Kelly knows his history – he works in the established continuity of May’s previous miscarriage.
(Come back, Roger Stern, we miss you!)
I’ve seen complaints about May’s “mansplaining” comment but there is tons of evidence to backup how women used to be (and still are) dismissed by male doctors who don’t understand a lot about women’s medical issues and just dismiss their issues as “psychological”.(4) I can certainly see how a male doctor at the time this would have taken place dismiss any of May’s concerns and just tell her “This is what you have to do, just do it, it’s just hormonal, you’ll be fine.”
KILLINGTON HOUSE
Like the first story, the art is great. Gleason is as great as doing dynamic actions scenes as he is doing the dramatic emotional scenes.
I’ve always liked the idea of The Bar With No Name (even if it makes no sense if you think about it) so I like the idea of a club where pilfered goods of criminals/super-villains are up for auction. And unlike TBWNN which seems to make no attempt to be a secret, this club seems to at least have a secret entrance so the general public (and the police) aren’t aware of its existence and where it is.
(Isn’t Fred infected with a symbiote now? Does he still look normal? NOTE: I skimmed that issue.)
Since this establishment would be populated by other criminals/super-villains, it makes sense that instead of simply bidding on them, they would fight for them. And this gives the excuse to throw in random B/C/D-list villains in the background.
I like how instead of busting in and trying to fight everyone and shut the place down, Spidey tries to abide by the rules of the establishment to win the bid for Shocker’s gauntlets. He’s there for the gauntlets, nothing else.
(Spidey, wait for everyone else to bid, and then bid $1 more than the highest bid!)
A minor point, but personal to me – Tombstone finally seems to be getting some hair back. As a fan of his 1980s look, I did not like his look in the Zells run with his head completely shaved.
(“I’m not only the Hair Club president, I’m also a client.”)(5)
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
THE TALK
Yeah, we didn’t know the specifics, but we all knew this was coming. And … it’s about as bad as we expected.
Seriously, what’s the point of this? Why rewrite a character’s history that’s been around since the very first appearance of Spider-Man and have not only introduce past trauma that should literally change how the character was portrayed for decades, but change key moments in their history where they have discussed their past?
I mentioned “soap operas” in my into and yes, the Lee/Ditko/Romita stories were very soap operaish – love triangles, misunderstandings, amnesia, etc. But they made it work – maybe because everything was happening “now” instead of retconning things from ~45 years ago. Revealing that May and Ben had a child which was never mentioned before, and that child was “stolen” away from them and raised by someone else?
It was bad enough when Teresa Parker was introduced as Peter’s never-before-heard-of sister. At least Nick Spencer introduced the idea that she was not actually his sister, and years later Marc Guggenheim all but confirmed it. So do we really think that Cormac is a permanent addition to the Parker family? How long until he’s killed off, or becomes a villain (if he isn’t one already), or it’s revealed that it was a plot by him (or some unrevealed villain) and he’s not actually May’s son?
And while Aunt May’s story does clear up how she had a child, it doesn’t address how Cormac survived his birth, why Ben and May were told he died, and what happened to him as a baby? I assume/hope this will be revealed in the next issue, but I’d much rather have not had the Killington House story at all and instead give those pages to this story to answer ALL of these questions.(6)
So May and Ben decided they wanted a child – enough that after having a miscarriage and being told that it could kill her, she tried again and again? And then she finally has a child, and it dies after it’s born (as far as they know). And so the next logical step for May and Ben is … to give up on their dream of being parents? It’s not like they couldn’t of adopted a child – oh wait, they could have! No, instead they spent the next 15 years childless. Does this sound like a couple that went through THIS MUCH to try have a child?
We already know from the last issue that Cormac has parents. So it’s kind of insulting to them for him to say that May and Ben are his parents when the couple that have been his parents for 45 years did more to raise him than May and Ben did. Also, do we know if his parents are dead?
How is it that the birth certificate is still intact? Hasn’t May’s home been destroyed more than once? Didn’t Charlie burn it down in Skin Deep? Or was that a different home?
KILLINGTON HOUSE
The story doesn’t clarify it but I’m hoping these battles for each lot aren’t to the death. I’d hate to think that Montana and the Wrecker(2) were randomly killed off here.
I’m not sure I like the idea of Vulture being an announcer here. What in his history shows that this is something he would want to do, or be good at?
Also, what is up with Vulture’s look here? I said in the intro that someone had just watched Across the Spider-Verse, but the Vulture in that movie is what I thought of as soon as I saw him here.
(Is Vulture riding a metal glider? And what’s up with his nose? Is he the Penguin from Batman Returns now?)
Why does Spidey want Shocker’s gauntlets? He seems uninterested in all of the other lots up for auction here. I get that he feels bad that Shocker was killed by Torment, but he never had any relationship with him other than fighting him. I could understand if it was Boomerang, since Fred reformed (sort of) and was Peter’s roommate and friend for awhile. But I can’t remember any story where Spidey and Shocker interacted in any other way than fighting each other.
(Search results of Spidey/Shocker stories where they had any sort of connection.)
And while we’re on the topic of Shocker’s Gauntlets, wasn’t one of them destroyed during Death Spiral? And Eddie used the other one to free Peter from the Carnage symbiote. So that one gauntlet would have been taken into police custody when Eddie was arrested (for whatever crime it was that he committed). So even assuming that gauntlet was stolen from police evidence, it’s just one gauntlet. How are there suddenly two gauntlets?
The reveal that Raelith the Wretched is here falls completely flat. This is what you choose to be the final image before the TO BE CONTINUED? Did she come here with Spidey? Was she here already? She says “Peter” as if she’s worried about him, but this is the Vulture – not only does she have no idea who this is, she’s literally seen Peter fighting groups of more dangerous aliens in space. Are we really supposed to think Raelith the Wretched is worried about Peter here?
Actually, the way Raelith the Wretched says “Peter” reminded me of how Eddie Brock says it in Spider-Man 3 when he sees Spidey removing the symbiote. They’re both looking up when they say it, and now I can’t get that out of my head.
(Raelith the Wretched and Raimiverse Eddie Brock – separated at birth?)
LETTER PAGE SHENANIGANS
(“Don’t bring me down … Bruce!”(7))
WHAT THIS ISSUE MEANT OVERALL
Well, until this is all retconned, May and Ben had a son. And he’s alive and back in May’s life. Again, did anyone ask for this? (besides Joe Kelly)
Does anyone really expect Cormac to be a permanent part of Spidey’s supporting cast? When Jay Jameson was introduced and started dating May, we were all counting the days until he died, and we were right. So Cormac’s days are (likely) numbered.
As much as I don’t like Cormac being May and Ben’s son, retconning now would be just awful. Unfortunately, we are stuck with this.
Seriously, the story I am more interested being followed up on in the next issue is the Killington House one, which should not be the case.
GRADE
C-
I went back and forth on this for awhile. The Killington House story doesn’t deserve this low a grade. It’s not great, but it’s not bad – it’s actually pretty good and kind of interesting. But we all know that the one thing this issue will be remembered for when it’s mentioned years from now will be “The Talk” story. So that’s where the majority of this grade has to go to.
As the not-late but still-great JR Fettinger has said many times on the podcast, he only gives an F grade to a story that personally offends him. I really struggled with giving this issue an F, as the reveal that May had a baby is a retcon of the worst kind – even if she didn’t know he was alive, she still tried to conceive after a miscarriage, and had a stillborn birth (as far as she knew). You would think this is something she would have talked to Peter and MJ about when … oh I don’t know … they were pregnant.
And there’s the whole “we wanted a child so badly that we kept trying and had miscarriages and a stillborn baby, but then we just gave up and spent the next 15 years childless, even though we could have adopted” thing. Ugh.
It offended me, but did it personally offend me? … … … I don’t think so.
NEXT TIME, IN AN ALL-NEW ISSUE OF AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …
(It’s funny that they think the Vulture fight is what people want to see continued from this story.)
FOOTNOTES
(1) If you didn’t know, the Blarney Stone is a real thing. People kiss it and, as Aunt May says, it’s supposed to give you “the gift of the gab” – i.e. eloquence in speaking. But it has nothing to do with granting wishes. Kelly should have had her see a shooting star and make a wish, it would make more sense.
(2) Is this the Wrecker? It looks like him but it’s hard to tell.
(3) Technically, the Killington House story has more content in this issue. It has 10.5 pages while the Aunt May story has 9.5 pages
(4) Comedian Samantha Bee (Full Frontal, The Daily Show, and Choice Words podcast) does a lot of discussion about “the historical and systemic failure of male-dominated medicine to properly diagnose and treat female patients”. Check out her videos/articles online about Endometriosis & Women’s Pain, Menopause dismissal, and advocating for female practitioners.
(5) If you get this reference, you’re as old as me.
(6) I’m still going with my theory that at the same time May gave birth, there was a wealthy woman giving birth in the same hospital, her baby was stillborn, that woman’s husband didn’t want her to know her baby died so he bribed someone to switch the babies, and because May was the only other woman giving birth at that time in that hospital, that wealthy family got Cormac, and May and Ben were told their baby died. Prove me wrong, Marvel!
(7) I was today year’s old when I learned that ELO is not singing “Bruce” in this song.
English (US) · 