This is the one I buy.
Sounds asinine enough to be a Wells story. And explains the contrived weirdness of Norman giving Peter free rein over Oscorp spoilers:end of spoilers
since the writers knew Norman would be breaking bad. Paul uses totem magic - he’s already been shown using an octopus gun which, gee, using octopus imagery in a Spider-Man book doesn’t make one seem suspicious at all LOL - so I can see Paul using some sort of goblin totem symbol to fight Norman that triggers his Green Goblin persona again.
Also…
spoilers:end of spoilers
if time is malleable and past and present are merging, MJ won’t be really “dead” just lost in the timestream - ala the 90s animated series, sorta LOL - and can come back in time for the Hellfire Gala. In fact, the MJ that comes back could be the MJ who thought she was about to move in with Peter, and all she has left of the alt-Mayan world MJ is the jackpot watch. Assuming the cover isn’t a lie.
But probably this isn’t what will happen, because I’m pretty sure I spent more time coming up with this scenario than anyone working on the book has spent on the actual plot.
Last edited by TinkerSpider; 04-19-2023 at 09:53 PM.
“I always figured if I were a superhero, there’s no way on God's earth that I'm gonna pal around with some teenager."
— Stan Lee
So, regarding a character, who's going to die, Norman is confirmed to appear in Spider-Man #10 in July, so he definitely lives.
If ol' Zeb was laughably warned not to go to any conventions because fans might go Annie Wilkes on him, there's only one option.
And also MJ seemingly confirmed for Gala.
Well, if it's not some bait, then, it's obviously Paul. Don't know about kids, though.
Frankly, yet another terrible issue from Wells.
What happens with the villain is clearly supposed to payoff later, but it hits with all the force of a kleenex. There is not any suspense to what is happening. It is like they ran out of pages to have a battle sequence, so they instead just skipped immediately to the end.
The ending is supposed to be a cliffhanger/shocking, but since the reader already knows this, it doesn't work as a cliffhanger.
I am not impatiently waiting for the next issue to see the resolution to this cliffhanger, since I already know what subsequently happens. If Wells had never shown any kids in the prior issues, and instead just had Mary/Paul in a relationship and having conversations where there are clues that there are potentially kids, then this cliffhanger would have worked.
At E2C2: "Wells said that Spidey Office Editor Nick Lowe suggested that he maybe not do conventions for a few months"
For a few months. Not for the foreseeable future, unlike Gerry Conway who still has to deal with people mad about Gwen.
So I'm betting anything MJ is going to "die" so Marvel can laugh and point at all the sad little fans who fell for their "outrage" troll (I'm surprised they haven't commissioned an "outrage!" variant cover from Frank Cho), and then they will bring her back after they've made their money off comic book store orders for the "shocking" death issues, leaving the LCS owners stuck with unsellable back issues. Maybe the X-Men resurrect her before/at the Hellfire Gala, maybe there are timey-wimey issues, maybe totem magic, maybe MJ's watch whisks her someplace else and people only think she is dead, who knows. Probably we'll just find out via a recap paragraph that she's still alive.
Still want to point out how...utterly gross...it is to market a story with, "Hey, maybe we're going to murder one of our longest-running and most popular female characters - to celebrate the anniversary of the murder of another popular female character! Woo Hoo! Yay for us!!!!"
Last edited by TinkerSpider; 04-20-2023 at 10:19 AM.
“I always figured if I were a superhero, there’s no way on God's earth that I'm gonna pal around with some teenager."
— Stan Lee
While we're on the topic of MJ and her powers, I just want to say how much I hate it. I hate giving supporting cast members of superheroes powers or turning them into heroes or villains. It undervalues the importance of civilian characters in the world. Just dumb.
It's usual sigh of creative bankruptcy. Though if that was the worst thing they did with "MJ" or whoever that character is at this point, it would've probably been more tolerable.
Supportive does not mean perfect. They had struggles but they clearly were/are meant to end up together. This is like the outrage when Batman and Catwoman were supposed to get married and didn’t and people lost their minds. It’s the middle of the story, this is a part of it. Although in that instance DC did market that as a definite I’ve event so I understand it more than here.
But like has been said before they’ve split up before, been separated before but this for better or worse is something different at least.