Pete makes a rare appearance at Empire State University, to see if he's been thrown out of grad school yet: between Spidey-stuff and the Black Cat in the hospital, he had not been putting in the time. And neither had his professor, who's there to scold him, but doesn't have the grades posted since his assistant Debra Whitman quit and moved: more Spidey collateral damage. Still, I don't miss college at all after that little time-waster. The professor is so terrible I would've been 100% fine if Pete had slapped his glasses off, webbed him up by his ankles, and told him what his new GPA was going to be. (Even if Pete blew his stack, that would never work, the professor would immediately have a stroke or something.) No time for that, though: Peter is immediately confronted by new foe...Lance Bannon! In a sporty, tiny, car.
Meanwhile, at the state pen, the Mad Thinker is safely locked away, except with a transference unit implanted in his brain, he can project his mind to a waiting robot body at a secret lab. There, he catches some recent footage of Spidey fighting an android made of the Thinker's cast-offs, from Marvel Team-Up #129. Watching Spidey, the Thinker ponders the rumors of his ability to avoid danger--almost like he could sense it. That would be useful to the Thinker, who had been foiled numerous times by unseen variables in his plans. Calculating where Spidey would be likely to show up soon, he sends a "battle droid" to test a theory. (The cover blurb says "the menace of the Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android," but we don't get his traditional, Awesome Andy!)
Lance is not as mad at Pete as it seemed earlier: new girl Amy Powell may have made a play at Peter to make Lance jealous, or may be starting to dig him, and Lance didn't know what to do. Not wanting "to be part of some screwy triangle," Pete calls Amy, who makes a dinner date for them without as much as letting him get a word in, after which he tells Lance to be there too. Ditching Lance to swing and blow off some steam, Spidey is of course attacked by the android, and is dismayed to notice Lance is probably getting pictures of the fight. After luring it into a web-trap and getting it squashed, Spidey still senses danger from it; grabbing a piece to study and taking off before the remains self-destructed. The Thinker, watching remotely, realizes the rumors are true, and considers his next move.
Back at his apartment, Pete answers a knock at the door, expecting Lance, and getting Amy, who decided to surprise him. Really surprise him. Still, when someone else knocks at the door, Pete expects that to be Lance. Amy won't let him go to answer it, but someone had a key...the returning Mary Jane Watson! I'm not sure how long it had been since she had been in the book, but I'm thinking a bit. His spider-sense didn't warn him? The Thinker shouldn't bother testing further, it's crap.
I thought this was the one where Peter sees his final grades, crumples them up, and walks away: that scene tells you a lot, namely that he's not very considerate of anyone else who needed to check their score. Also, I thought he was seeing Black Cat exclusively now; but maybe that just means exclusively in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man. I thought she was great, but if you were reading both titles at the time, it was like he spent half his time with her, half his time wondering if he should be with her.
1 comment:
It really is a wonder Peter never lets loose more often than he could.
That's probably why I'm enjoying the new 6-issue mini-series Spider's Shadow where he keeps the symbiote suit and loses himself to it and starts killing his criminals after Hobgoblin kills Aunt May. Good shit man. Just read the 3rd issue and eagerly awaiting the next one.
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