Another chapter of the Beyond era awaits! Sure, there's no Ben again this week -- not in Iron Man, either! -- but we can still have a fun time

Let me start by pointing out how awesome today's cover is! It's got a Marcos Martin vibe to me, but I also love that it potentially presents such a great look at what we may find inside!

Let me next say that the cover in no way indicates what happens in this issue.

Is that lame? In my opinion, yeah, it kinda is. But let me do a quick review first:

1) Peter is brought to his new room by a nurse that seems cool. He's got a new roommate who seems nice. Unfortunately, that roommate is soon taken someplace else.
2) MJ visits, and while she's there Peter overhears someone lying about his roommate being taken away.
3) Peter falls asleep and OBVIOUS CREEPY NURSE comes in, telling MJ to leave.
4) Peter wakes up to a new roommate. She's pissed because she's supposed to be discharged. CREEP NURSE takes her away.
5) CREEP NURSE comes for Peter, who has been far too nosy for CREEP NURSE'S liking.
6) CREEP NURSE takes Peter into the basement and turns into a scary people-eating monster.
7) Hooray MJ!
8) Epilogue: Daughters of the Dragon have hunted down the Lizard!

Okay.

The art is top notch. It's a gorgeous comic.

And the story isn't BAD. It's just -- so superficial.

The cover indicates we're going to get some dude out to purposefully kill Peter; one could assume this would connect to the larger Beyond storyline. Instead, we get YET AGAIN another villain who, as far as we can tell, has nothing to do with Beyond. These villain encounters don't feel impactful or important because they lack narrative purpose; it's like any villain could be substituted in and it wouldn't matter. I keep hoping we're going to find out that Morbius or Kraven have a connection to Beyond, but I can't imagine CREEP NURSE has anything to do with Beyond. And I think, for me, this is the biggest flaw of the Beyond era. It's also why I think the Doc Ock portions have been the best regarding an antagonist: he actually has narrative purpose!

That being said, the DotD going after the Lizard still provides some hope that, yes, maybe the villains are more meaningful than we've been let on. Still, I'm less optimistic about that than before. The Beyond Era seems too patchwork rather than a well-built storyline featuring multiple subplots, which is a shame. Can you imagine if each issue felt like a direct continuation of the last, with a plot moving forward and each part of the storyline connected meaningfully? It's like the writers ALMOST got there, and yet couldn't quite tie everything together.

Still, it's not a egregious comic. It's just not providing anything new or interesting. In fact, CREEP NURSE reminded me of an issue of the 90s Morbius series that had a man turn into a big people-eating monster. THAT comic was scary. This? Meh.

-Pav, who would've liked the epilogue to belong to Ben...