written by Nick Spencer
drawn by Francesco Manna
colored by Carlos Lopez
Given that I'm posting this review at least a month late I was initially tempted to not post anything at all, but given the content of the story and what it may portend for Peter Parker and Mary Jane, I really couldn't help but drop a few lines to share my thoughts on this story.
Following the tumult of "The Hunted" and just before Nick Spencer finally starts to unravel the mystery of the walking centipede farm named Kindred, he and guest artist Francesco Manna tell a relatively quiet tale about Peter and MJ's relationship. MJ has just taken an acting job (for, unbeknownst to her, Mysterio) which will take her away from New York and out to the West Coast. Peter wants to see her off at the airport, but instead gets drafted by his long-lost sister, superspy Teresa Parker (who was introduced as a retcon in an original graphic novel over five years ago and who has periodically popped up since then) into a mission to save a fellow agent. Anyone familiar with Spidey's stories will know how this turns out.
On its face, this seems to be a pretty innocuous, throwaway story between big events, with decent art and some nice character moments, particularly a heartwarming couple of pages of dialogue between Peter and Aunt May, but thanks to the last-page revelation (which I won't spoil) I'd say there's a bit more to it than that. With the exception of "The Hunted" I've quite enjoyed Spencer's run so far, and I'm starting to understand why: like me, Spencer appears to have grown up on comics of the 80s, which would explain his misguided love letter to "Kraven's Last Hunt," and one of the seminal storylines of that era was--what else?--the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. Is that where Spider-Man is headed? I sincerely doubt it; while Marvel endured far more grief for the infamous "One More Day" than they would have wanted, they did get to their end-goal of an unmarried Peter, and to be fair, in the eleven years that have passed since then, writers like Dan Slott have done a fairly respectable job of telling the kind of stories that Marvel had hoped to tell with a single Peter. Spencer may flirt with the idea of undoing "One More Day" and maybe one day he'll even pay off the last of the mysteries it teased, like the woman in red, but personally, I sincerely doubt Marvel will let him take the plunge.
It was fun to enjoy this little bit of nostalgia, though, which hearkened back a little bit to the David Michelinie/Todd McFarlane issues I enjoyed in elementary and high school. Next issue it's back to regular programming, with the Absolute Carnage crossover.
8/10
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