Since I've read three British comics and posted my thoughts on them here, I figured I might as well take on an American comic. Which one, I wondered...
Well, when I was a wee lad, Spider-Man the Animated Series was probably my favourite cartoon. I rewatched it not long ago, and while there are undeniable animation problems and censorship issues, the writing mostly still holds up. I read the comics a little when I watched the cartoon; I seem to remember it was at the time Peter took on four different secret identities, two of which were nominally supervillains. Also, Doctor Octopus was a woman and Scarlet Spider was in it, and in fact there was one issue where he officially became Spider-Man.
But let's see what Spider-Man is like today. I picked up The Astonishing Spider-Man #18 at a newsagent, so without further ado, I shall commence reading.
The cover is promising. It's a little weird, but in a good way. What appears to be Spider-Man of 2099 is sort of unravelling, while modern Spider-Man reaches out in vain to save him. The caption at the bottom promises "Time's Up!" So it looks like we're in for a time travel adventure. This could be good.
The inside cover describes something complicated going on. OK, this issues has three seperate stories - Superior Spider-Man: 1.21 Giga-Whats?!; Superior Carnage: Part 5, in which Superior Carnage (seriously?) takes on Spider-Man; and Scarlet Spider: Wrath in which Scarlet Spider and Wolverine take on something or someone called the Red Death. So far so good.
According to the summary of the main Spider-Man story, a dying Doctor Octopus managed to cheat death by swapping minds with Spider-Man, gaining all of Peter Parker's memories in the process. He decided to become a good guy and fight crime as the Superior Spider-Man, though a small fragment of Peter did remain in his mind until he managed to use his scientific genius to purge it. So far so good.
But then we get on to the time travel. This is complicated, but as far as I can make out, a dude named Migeul O'Hara is Spider-Man in the year 2099 and Tyler Stone is the president of a big huge evil company called Alchemax. (Thanks, Linkara!). In 2014... I mean 2013 lives a man named Tiberius Stone, recently-appointed supervisor at Horizon Labs and ancestor to both Migeul and Tyler. Tiberius is about to suffer... er, suffered... uh, about to have suffered some sort of accident that will cause time itself to unravel, or something, and so Tyler sends Miguel back in time to save their grandfather.
In 2013, Otto-Peter (who I'll call Otter from now on) investigates a chronal anomaly at Horizon Labs and determines Tiberius Stone is responsible. Right as he confronts Tiberius, Miguel arrives and, of course, the two Spider-Men fight each other. Miguel manages to apprehend Tiberius and flee.
Meanwhile, another scientist at Horizon Labs, Grady Scraps, determines that Tiberius Stone is about to have been responsible for a time storm. Miguel arrives to try and help, but is knocked out but Otter.
Right. Well. Let's see if the comic itself will shed some light on this.
We open in the Caribbean wherea lady named The Wraith is attacking an evil banker/gangster named Antoine Morant while shouting exposition. She's working with a girl named Carlie, who I seem to remember is Joe Quesada's daughter and replacement for Mary-Jane. This pursuit seems to have something to do with catching Spider-Man somehow.
We then jump to Horizon Labs in New York, where the time crash is going to occur in 15 minutes and Otter has knocked Miguel out cold. That was a bad move, as Miguel was the only person who knows how to stop the lab from exploding. We also learn that Tiberius Stone, who is presently wrapped in webbing, has been surreptitiously messing with equipment for several months in order to create what Grady Scraps describes as a 'time bomb'. There's a couple of pages of technobabble which establish Otter as an arrogant douche.
There's a problem, however. The only person who can solve an important equation to stabilise space and time is Peter Parker, and Otter can no longer access any more of Peter's memories. There's then a really cool effect with a big web behind Otter, scenes from previous comics in the spaces between the strands which represent the memories Otter still retains, but unfortunately, the memory he needs appears to be lost.
Otter thinks hard for eight full minutes, bringing us down to 5 minutes before time explodes. The scientists manage to cobble together a makeshift device that will stabilise the continuum if only someone can punch in the correct frequency. Meanwhile, Miguel regains consciousness and says Peter is present, but the others think he's just delirious.
While Otter tries to work out the right frequency, the scientists flee. Miguel, unravelling like on the cover grabs Tiberius and prevents him from escaping, intending that if they both die in the explosion, it will lead to a better world, one without Alchemax. Meanwhile in 2099, Tyler is also unravelling, as is everything in 2099.
With two minutes to go, emergency services arrive, accompanied by Mayor J. Jonah Jameson, who likes Horizon Labs only slightly more than he likes Spider-Man, and so is not pleased that Spider-Man is their only hope now.
With one minute to go, Otter manages to solve the equation... but the lab still implodes, while Miguel escapes with Tiberius, his survival instinct hving overridden his desire to create a better future, er, present(?). Fortunately, the rest of New York is OK. Jameson, speaking from experience, is certain that Otter survived.
2099 is also OK, but then Tyler destroys the time machine, trapping Miguel in 2013. And, of course, Tyler and Tiberius both know that Miguel can't do anything to harm either of them, lest his family and friends in 2099 cease to have ever existed.
I have to say, that is very clever. The Stones manage to exploit their enemy's sense of responsibility to do their bidding... Fantastic chessmastery, brilliant plotting, and very intelligent writing. This is the sort of Batman Gambit that doesn't feel forced or implausible.
On the next page, we see the timeline is altered anyway, as Horizon Labs, Allan Chemicals, and Oscorp merge to form Alchemax decades early, in 2013. Miguel, under the name Michael O'Mara, has apparently with the aid of an AI named Lyla in his wristband managed to forge enough documentation to pass a background check and wormed his civillian identity into being Tiberius Stone's personal assistant.
At the Horizon Labs crater, Jameson makes a deal with Modell, a senior scientist with Horizon, that he'll keep the FBI from investigating as long as Modell promises never to reassemble the Horizon team or pull off any more mad science in New York. Modell agrees, and then the scientists manage to resurrect Otter from the chronaton radiation, using the phrases "how could we any less?" and "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow". Modell tells Spider-Man for both their sakes not to contact him again in future, and that also goes for Peter Parker.
Otter discovers he's been gone nine hours, and that being apparently dead as a superhero is a lot different from doing so as a supervillain. He has 68 voice messages, mostly from MJ, who proceeds to break up with him over his recent strange behaviour.
As a spiderbot looks on, Modell, Scraps, and a few other scientists set sail to resurrect Horizon elsewhere, leaving behind Max Jackson and Sajani Jaffrey. Sajani gets a call from Peter Parker with an interesting (and of course unstated) offer.
Back in the Caribbean, Wraith and Carlie chase Antoine to his compound, where they discover him desperately shredding documents. Carlie grabs one and discovers he's been shipping contraband to somewhere called Spider-Island, all paid for by... Doctor Octopus. Gotcha!
We are then promised the return of the Black Cat next issue.
Then there's a splash page of Spider-Man and a guy in armour trying to rip the Carnage symbiote of Cletus Kasady. OK. That was random.
A man who looks like Vandal Savage and is named Ulysses Klaw, who is made of sound or something, has managed to capture Carnage. However, Carnage escapes, kills some guards, and causes an explosion which sort of kills Klaw, and merges with another man called The Wizard, combining the two's anger about loss of family (Carnage for his 'father', Kasady; Wizard for his son) amidst lots of pseudoscientific quasimystical mumbo-jumbo which shows Kevin Shinick, who wrote this part, has no idea what sound actually is, but that he apparently is a fan of The Flash due to the similarities between this and the Speed Force.
Otter, who is also there somehow despite just the previous page having been pulled out of limbo, notes that the team he apparently brought with him has been wiped out and calls for reinforcements with untested flamethrowers from Spider Island, which would appear to be what Carlie was thrilled to find out about at the end of the previous segment. Since it's also raining, Otter quips that he's purged every part of Peter except his luck.
OK, this was confusing. When I first read it, I thought Klaw and Wizard were either the same person, or that Klaw was a sort of spirit in a symbiotic relationship with Wizard. It wasn't until Spider-Man started conversing with him the I went back and reread it, and figured out what was really going on. This would have benefitted from a more expansive explanation on the inside cover.
I also gather that this segment was part of a limited series in America, so presumably it's intended to be read as a side story that takes place just before or after the stuff with Miguel.
Artwise, this segment is very good. Stephen Segovia has a very solid-looking style with realistic proportions, in contrast Ryan Stegman's scratchier, slightly more cartoony style from the previous segment. I'm not saying either of them are bad, but I do think Segovia's style is a little better suited for an action story.
Anyway, Spider-Man and Carnage fight. A group of mercenaries arrive with flamethrowers, but they fail due to being untested prototypes. Carnage rips apart an injured man, and one of the mercenaries gets word that Wizard's son is in the area. This is then followed by a four-page pull-out, with the weird image from earlier on the front and the cover on the back.
More fighting, during which Carnage insinuates he knows that Spider-Man has Doctor Octopus' mind, which drives Spider-Man berserk. Carnage gains the upper hand and demands to see his family, and Spider-Man relucatantly agrees... but wait! He wasn't talking to the Wizard! He was referring to the symbiote's family, and has his men bring out Cletus Kasady in a risky move that Ulysses Klaw exposits could kill them all.
Carnage detaches from Klaw, deliberately taking his time to make it hurt to punish the Wizard. Spider-Man's men attempt to contain it, but they fail and it remerges with Cletus, kicking everyone's collective assi. But, just when things look their darkest, the ghost of Ulysses Klaw remateralises for a two-page spread and blasts Carnage with a sonic boom. It's a good, really cool and dramatic image, but does it *really* need to spread over two pages?
Anyway, on the next page, Carnage separates from Cletus and Spider-Man's men manage to contain it. Klaw begins dissolving away into oblivion, while Spider-Man places the Carnage symbiote in a glass tube in his base, along with a bunch of his other enemies who you just know are going to break out the month after he imprisons them all.
Some time later, in a maximum-security prison, the Wizard is undergoing psychiatric counselling, and it appears bonding with Carnage may possibly have repaired some mental damage he had apparently suffered. Cletus Kasady, on the other hand, is crazier than ever.
After a page of ads, we see blue-tinted Scarlet Spider and Wolverine fighgting a bunch of ninjas on a red background. This looks fun.
The third segment, written by Chris Yost and drawn by Carlo Barberi, opens in New Orleans. A group of assassins led by Belladonna (who I remember from the 90s X-Men cartoon for trying to seduce Gambit over to her side and against the thieves who raised him) tried to kill Kaine's loved ones, so Kaine brought in Wolverine, but then they all got pwned by a partially-dressed woman whose left side skin has been ripped off, and who is currently holding Kaine and Wolverine in the air by telekinesis. Also, Kaine, who according to Wikipedia is a formerly-evil clone of Peter Parker, is now the Scarlet Spider, and the partially-dressed woman is the Red Death promised by the inside cover, and is also a known enemy of Wolverine and the X-Men who can never truly die and who feeds on death.
I quite like Kaine's narration here. He's a real smart Alec and I hope to see more of this.
Also, good work on weaving in exposition in a way that actually makes sense and doesn't feel forced. Red Death wants to kill and apparently eat Kaine and Wolverine to get back the last part of her skin, but Kaine manages to freak her out by dangling a little spider in her face, allowing him and Wolverine to esacape. Apparently even godlike mutants are scared of spiders. The two fight Red Death, but then Belladonna orders her ninjas to kill them, so Wolverine takes on a small army of ninjas while Kaine figures he can't damn himself any more, so might as well add deicide to his list of sins.
Belladonna takes on Kaine using magic energy blasts, and Kaine tries to get her to turn on Red Death to free the Assassins from her control, but Belladonna is having none of it. More fighting ensues, during which Red Death loses some more skin when she rips off Kaine's webbing.
Red Death starts to weaken and dissolve, so murders a couple of ninjas to power back up. Kaine would like to run but realises it would do no good, so persuades the Assassins to attack Red Death. After some more exciting action during which Red Death starts to slow and weaken, Belladonna decides to kill Kaine for ruining everything, but he's saved by a little girl Assassin.
Red Death fights Wolverine and, despite being weak, nearly beats him, but then she falls victim to some venom Kaine injected into her head at an earlier point in the battle. She falls to the ground and dissolved, enraging Belladonna.
Belladonna wails that since Red Death will be back eventually, the Assassins need to get back in her good graces, and that means killing Kaine and Wolverine. They're about to, but then a man in a suit called The Arranger appears, announces that the Assassins are now controlled by the Kingpin, and killing Kaine and Wolverine isn't sanctioned at this time. Belladonna is pissed, but apparently Kingpin has too much power over the Assassins to resist. Also, it turns out Kaine arranged for Kingpin to take control in a previous issue in exchange for cancelling all his own debts with the guild. Wolverine, pissed, punches Kaine for being a stupid asshole.
In the epilogue, as they fly home, Wolverine again berates Kaine for working with the Kingpin, warning him that when you make a deal with the devil, the devil always tries to get his piece. Kaine is stoic about this, thinking that there are plenty of other people who want him dead, so one more won't make any difference.
Overall, this was good. I have to say I really enjoyed this. The pacing is different to what I normally read, but it does work, and allows for more quiet drama. I'm not normally into superheroes, but this was a very enjoyable comic, and I'll probably start buying Spider-Man regularly.
Since I've read three British comics and posted my thoughts on them here, I figured I might as well take on an American comic. Which one, I wondered...
Well, when I was a wee lad, Spider-Man the Animated Series was probably my favourite cartoon. I rewatched it not long ago, and while there are undeniable animation problems and censorship issues, the writing mostly still holds up. I read the comics a little when I watched the cartoon; I seem to remember it was at the time Peter took on four different secret identities, two of which were nominally supervillains. Also, Doctor Octopus was a woman and Scarlet Spider was in it, and in fact there was one issue where he officially became Spider-Man.
But let's see what Spider-Man is like today. I picked up The Astonishing Spider-Man #18 at a newsagent, so without further ado, I shall commence reading.
The cover is promising. It's a little weird, but in a good way. What appears to be Spider-Man of 2099 is sort of unravelling, while modern Spider-Man reaches out in vain to save him. The caption at the bottom promises "Time's Up!" So it looks like we're in for a time travel adventure. This could be good.
The inside cover describes something complicated going on. OK, this issues has three seperate stories - Superior Spider-Man: 1.21 Giga-Whats?!; Superior Carnage: Part 5, in which Superior Carnage (seriously?) takes on Spider-Man; and Scarlet Spider: Wrath in which Scarlet Spider and Wolverine take on something or someone called the Red Death. So far so good.
According to the summary of the main Spider-Man story, a dying Doctor Octopus managed to cheat death by swapping minds with Spider-Man, gaining all of Peter Parker's memories in the process. He decided to become a good guy and fight crime as the Superior Spider-Man, though a small fragment of Peter did remain in his mind until he managed to use his scientific genius to purge it. So far so good.
But then we get on to the time travel. This is complicated, but as far as I can make out, a dude named Migeul O'Hara is Spider-Man in the year 2099 and Tyler Stone is the president of a big huge evil company called Alchemax. (Thanks, Linkara!). In 2014... I mean 2013 lives a man named Tiberius Stone, recently-appointed supervisor at Horizon Labs and ancestor to both Migeul and Tyler. Tiberius is about to suffer... er, suffered... uh, about to have suffered some sort of accident that will cause time itself to unravel, or something, and so Tyler sends Miguel back in time to save their grandfather.
In 2013, Otto-Peter (who I'll call Otter from now on) investigates a chronal anomaly at Horizon Labs and determines Tiberius Stone is responsible. Right as he confronts Tiberius, Miguel arrives and, of course, the two Spider-Men fight each other. Miguel manages to apprehend Tiberius and flee.
Meanwhile, another scientist at Horizon Labs, Grady Scraps, determines that Tiberius Stone is about to have been responsible for a time storm. Miguel arrives to try and help, but is knocked out but Otter.
Right. Well. Let's see if the comic itself will shed some light on this.
We open in the Caribbean wherea lady named The Wraith is attacking an evil banker/gangster named Antoine Morant while shouting exposition. She's working with a girl named Carlie, who I seem to remember is Joe Quesada's daughter and replacement for Mary-Jane. This pursuit seems to have something to do with catching Spider-Man somehow.
We then jump to Horizon Labs in New York, where the time crash is going to occur in 15 minutes and Otter has knocked Miguel out cold. That was a bad move, as Miguel was the only person who knows how to stop the lab from exploding. We also learn that Tiberius Stone, who is presently wrapped in webbing, has been surreptitiously messing with equipment for several months in order to create what Grady Scraps describes as a 'time bomb'. There's a couple of pages of technobabble which establish Otter as an arrogant douche.
There's a problem, however. The only person who can solve an important equation to stabilise space and time is Peter Parker, and Otter can no longer access any more of Peter's memories. There's then a really cool effect with a big web behind Otter, scenes from previous comics in the spaces between the strands which represent the memories Otter still retains, but unfortunately, the memory he needs appears to be lost.
Otter thinks hard for eight full minutes, bringing us down to 5 minutes before time explodes. The scientists manage to cobble together a makeshift device that will stabilise the continuum if only someone can punch in the correct frequency. Meanwhile, Miguel regains consciousness and says Peter is present, but the others think he's just delirious.
While Otter tries to work out the right frequency, the scientists flee. Miguel, unravelling like on the cover grabs Tiberius and prevents him from escaping, intending that if they both die in the explosion, it will lead to a better world, one without Alchemax. Meanwhile in 2099, Tyler is also unravelling, as is everything in 2099.
With two minutes to go, emergency services arrive, accompanied by Mayor J. Jonah Jameson, who likes Horizon Labs only slightly more than he likes Spider-Man, and so is not pleased that Spider-Man is their only hope now.
With one minute to go, Otter manages to solve the equation... but the lab still implodes, while Miguel escapes with Tiberius, his survival instinct hving overridden his desire to create a better future, er, present(?). Fortunately, the rest of New York is OK. Jameson, speaking from experience, is certain that Otter survived.
2099 is also OK, but then Tyler destroys the time machine, trapping Miguel in 2013. And, of course, Tyler and Tiberius both know that Miguel can't do anything to harm either of them, lest his family and friends in 2099 cease to have ever existed.
I have to say, that is very clever. The Stones manage to exploit their enemy's sense of responsibility to do their bidding... Fantastic chessmastery, brilliant plotting, and very intelligent writing. This is the sort of Batman Gambit that doesn't feel forced or implausible.
On the next page, we see the timeline is altered anyway, as Horizon Labs, Allan Chemicals, and Oscorp merge to form Alchemax decades early, in 2013. Miguel, under the name Michael O'Mara, has apparently with the aid of an AI named Lyla in his wristband managed to forge enough documentation to pass a background check and wormed his civillian identity into being Tiberius Stone's personal assistant.
At the Horizon Labs crater, Jameson makes a deal with Modell, a senior scientist with Horizon, that he'll keep the FBI from investigating as long as Modell promises never to reassemble the Horizon team or pull off any more mad science in New York. Modell agrees, and then the scientists manage to resurrect Otter from the chronaton radiation, using the phrases "how could we any less?" and "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow". Modell tells Spider-Man for both their sakes not to contact him again in future, and that also goes for Peter Parker.
Otter discovers he's been gone nine hours, and that being apparently dead as a superhero is a lot different from doing so as a supervillain. He has 68 voice messages, mostly from MJ, who proceeds to break up with him over his recent strange behaviour.
As a spiderbot looks on, Modell, Scraps, and a few other scientists set sail to resurrect Horizon elsewhere, leaving behind Max Jackson and Sajani Jaffrey. Sajani gets a call from Peter Parker with an interesting (and of course unstated) offer.
Back in the Caribbean, Wraith and Carlie chase Antoine to his compound, where they discover him desperately shredding documents. Carlie grabs one and discovers he's been shipping contraband to somewhere called Spider-Island, all paid for by... Doctor Octopus. Gotcha!
We are then promised the return of the Black Cat next issue.
Then there's a splash page of Spider-Man and a guy in armour trying to rip the Carnage symbiote of Cletus Kasady. OK. That was random.
A man who looks like Vandal Savage and is named Ulysses Klaw, who is made of sound or something, has managed to capture Carnage. However, Carnage escapes, kills some guards, and causes an explosion which sort of kills Klaw, and merges with another man called The Wizard, combining the two's anger about loss of family (Carnage for his 'father', Kasady; Wizard for his son) amidst lots of pseudoscientific quasimystical mumbo-jumbo which shows Kevin Shinick, who wrote this part, has no idea what sound actually is, but that he apparently is a fan of The Flash due to the similarities between this and the Speed Force.
Otter, who is also there somehow despite just the previous page having been pulled out of limbo, notes that the team he apparently brought with him has been wiped out and calls for reinforcements with untested flamethrowers from Spider Island, which would appear to be what Carlie was thrilled to find out about at the end of the previous segment. Since it's also raining, Otter quips that he's purged every part of Peter except his luck.
OK, this was confusing. When I first read it, I thought Klaw and Wizard were either the same person, or that Klaw was a sort of spirit in a symbiotic relationship with Wizard. It wasn't until Spider-Man started conversing with him the I went back and reread it, and figured out what was really going on. This would have benefitted from a more expansive explanation on the inside cover.
I also gather that this segment was part of a limited series in America, so presumably it's intended to be read as a side story that takes place just before or after the stuff with Miguel.
Artwise, this segment is very good. Stephen Segovia has a very solid-looking style with realistic proportions, in contrast Ryan Stegman's scratchier, slightly more cartoony style from the previous segment. I'm not saying either of them are bad, but I do think Segovia's style is a little better suited for an action story.
Anyway, Spider-Man and Carnage fight. A group of mercenaries arrive with flamethrowers, but they fail due to being untested prototypes. Carnage rips apart an injured man, and one of the mercenaries gets word that Wizard's son is in the area. This is then followed by a four-page pull-out, with the weird image from earlier on the front and the cover on the back.
More fighting, during which Carnage insinuates he knows that Spider-Man has Doctor Octopus' mind, which drives Spider-Man berserk. Carnage gains the upper hand and demands to see his family, and Spider-Man relucatantly agrees... but wait! He wasn't talking to the Wizard! He was referring to the symbiote's family, and has his men bring out Cletus Kasady in a risky move that Ulysses Klaw exposits could kill them all.
Carnage detaches from Klaw, deliberately taking his time to make it hurt to punish the Wizard. Spider-Man's men attempt to contain it, but they fail and it remerges with Cletus, kicking everyone's collective assi. But, just when things look their darkest, the ghost of Ulysses Klaw remateralises for a two-page spread and blasts Carnage with a sonic boom. It's a good, really cool and dramatic image, but does it *really* need to spread over two pages?
Anyway, on the next page, Carnage separates from Cletus and Spider-Man's men manage to contain it. Klaw begins dissolving away into oblivion, while Spider-Man places the Carnage symbiote in a glass tube in his base, along with a bunch of his other enemies who you just know are going to break out the month after he imprisons them all.
Some time later, in a maximum-security prison, the Wizard is undergoing psychiatric counselling, and it appears bonding with Carnage may possibly have repaired some mental damage he had apparently suffered. Cletus Kasady, on the other hand, is crazier than ever.
After a page of ads, we see blue-tinted Scarlet Spider and Wolverine fighgting a bunch of ninjas on a red background. This looks fun.
The third segment, written by Chris Yost and drawn by Carlo Barberi, opens in New Orleans. A group of assassins led by Belladonna (who I remember from the 90s X-Men cartoon for trying to seduce Gambit over to her side and against the thieves who raised him) tried to kill Kaine's loved ones, so Kaine brought in Wolverine, but then they all got pwned by a partially-dressed woman whose left side skin has been ripped off, and who is currently holding Kaine and Wolverine in the air by telekinesis. Also, Kaine, who according to Wikipedia is a formerly-evil clone of Peter Parker, is now the Scarlet Spider, and the partially-dressed woman is the Red Death promised by the inside cover, and is also a known enemy of Wolverine and the X-Men who can never truly die and who feeds on death.
I quite like Kaine's narration here. He's a real smart Alec and I hope to see more of this.
Also, good work on weaving in exposition in a way that actually makes sense and doesn't feel forced. Red Death wants to kill and apparently eat Kaine and Wolverine to get back the last part of her skin, but Kaine manages to freak her out by dangling a little spider in her face, allowing him and Wolverine to esacape. Apparently even godlike mutants are scared of spiders. The two fight Red Death, but then Belladonna orders her ninjas to kill them, so Wolverine takes on a small army of ninjas while Kaine figures he can't damn himself any more, so might as well add deicide to his list of sins.
Belladonna takes on Kaine using magic energy blasts, and Kaine tries to get her to turn on Red Death to free the Assassins from her control, but Belladonna is having none of it. More fighting ensues, during which Red Death loses some more skin when she rips off Kaine's webbing.
Red Death starts to weaken and dissolve, so murders a couple of ninjas to power back up. Kaine would like to run but realises it would do no good, so persuades the Assassins to attack Red Death. After some more exciting action during which Red Death starts to slow and weaken, Belladonna decides to kill Kaine for ruining everything, but he's saved by a little girl Assassin.
Red Death fights Wolverine and, despite being weak, nearly beats him, but then she falls victim to some venom Kaine injected into her head at an earlier point in the battle. She falls to the ground and dissolved, enraging Belladonna.
Belladonna wails that since Red Death will be back eventually, the Assassins need to get back in her good graces, and that means killing Kaine and Wolverine. They're about to, but then a man in a suit called The Arranger appears, announces that the Assassins are now controlled by the Kingpin, and killing Kaine and Wolverine isn't sanctioned at this time. Belladonna is pissed, but apparently Kingpin has too much power over the Assassins to resist. Also, it turns out Kaine arranged for Kingpin to take control in a previous issue in exchange for cancelling all his own debts with the guild. Wolverine, pissed, punches Kaine for being a stupid asshole.
In the epilogue, as they fly home, Wolverine again berates Kaine for working with the Kingpin, warning him that when you make a deal with the devil, the devil always tries to get his piece. Kaine is stoic about this, thinking that there are plenty of other people who want him dead, so one more won't make any difference.
Overall, this was good. I have to say I really enjoyed this. The pacing is different to what I normally read, but it does work, and allows for more quiet drama. I'm not normally into superheroes, but this was a very enjoyable comic, and I'll probably start buying Spider-Man regularly.
Good work, Marvel.
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