Spider-Man: Reign #3

[cyberghostface.insanejournal.com]

So right off the bat, this issue definitely got hurt the worse so far in my abridging of it. Lots of important stuff happens, and I did my best to cram everything major in, but I wasn't entirely successful. In addition, this issue's subplot of the unnamed girl who Jonah recruits is pretty much gone as a result. So...if you like this, you should definitely check out the full series. If you don't like the series, I guess it doesn't make much of a difference either way.

The issue opens from where last one ended--with Doctor Octopus apparently returning and rescuing Peter from the "Sinner Six" and taking him to Mary-Jane's grave, which is next to the graves of Aunt May and Uncle Ben. "I couldn't save any of you. Never had the power. Never could handle the responsibility."

Jonah has been taken in to see Mayor Waters and his assistant Saks. Waters wants to know why Jonah has returned all of a sudden. "Some last kick at the can before you're dead?" Jonah says that he owes the city, to which Waters responds that he is the voice of the city. 

"Then I owe this city nothing more than to cut its throat." Jonah says. Water comes at him with a knife and says that it's an excellent idea.



"There you are." says Jonah.











Peter goes on like this for a page or so. "And those precious last moments. I didn't even share them with you."



Jonah asks Waters (who's having his neck bandaged) what he did to make the deal with Saks--what did Sak promise him? Waters telling him that he's doing what's best for everybody, and someone has to be responsible for the city. "You will be responsible." Jonah says.





Outside the building, the newscasters are reporting on the Webb when the top of the building explodes, and what looks like bodies are falling from the top of the building. The "bodies" turn out to be black symbiotic monsters that start to attack the city. The unnamed girl (from the first two issues) runs to the abandoned church that Jonah and the kids were hiding out in earlier. It's all very chaotic and hard to put in words, but that's the general gist.

Meanwhile, Peter starts walking to the coffin. This is the night everything ends, he thinks. "I'm going back to where I belong. His life for mine. All your lives for mine..."



The symbiotes swarm and envelop the unnamed girl's friends. She thinks about running, but remembers Jameson telling her that the bells would protect them and begins hitting the bell with a pipe, causing the symbiotes to disperse. 

"We can't rely on them anymore. The old men. They can't show us how to live. They took our city and made it a cage." She tells her friends that it's time stop running and hiding do something. One of the kids worries that in doing so, their families will be put in danger. To which the girl responds...





Inside the coffin, Peter's ready to just rest until he dies when he hears the bells too.

Comments

[manofbats.insanejournal.com]

The writer should have said "kisses" and left it at that instead of having Peter drag it on and bring up his fluids.

[cyberghostface.insanejournal.com]

It's presumably a combination.

But really--and this isn't directed at anyone specific as everyone says the same thing--what bothers me is that Kaare Andrews really respects Peter's relationship with MJ and the Spider-Marriage and all people seem to be able to grasp onto is the concept of "spider-spunk" and nothing else.

It'd be one thing if Joe Quesada used this to get rid of MJ in the regular universe or if this was played for laughs, but that's clearly not the case.

but ew, cooties!

[kelseyg.insanejournal.com]

This, seriously.

I mean, they're married. They have sex. Are people honestly grossed out by an allusion to semen? They exchange a whole host of "bodily fluids." That's what happens when you're intimate with someone, folks.

Re: but ew, cooties!

[cyberghostface.insanejournal.com]

Thank you.

Re: but ew, cooties!

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

Thanks, but I've been married, and without going into unnecessary detail, there's one particular fluid that is most likely to be exchanged and retained by the female member of a male-female partnership, and it ain't saliva.

Which is all really beside the point, as this premise sort of depends on some of the smartest people in the Marvel Universe being either massively stupid or unable to deal with basic birds and bees conversations on any level. The Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Daredevil all got their powers after being exposed to radiation, and of those, Sue Richards miscarried her second pregnancy (after Franklin, before Valeria) and Betty Ross died (although that may been as a result of her being deliberately poisoned by Abomination?). Also, Peter himself has had numerous side-effects as a result of his mutation and other factors, including (at one point) sprouting two additional pairs of arms.

So, in all that time, Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, Henry Pym, Henry McCoy, Curt Connors, and other assorted scientist types, never, not once, thought to run a Geiger counter, that cutting-edge technology of 1908, over Peter (and everyone else who has either gotten their powers by radiation, been exposed to a radiation source, or fought with the likes of the Radioactive Man, which is to say, just about everyone who has ever put on a spandex costume)? Or, in the case of Richards et al., just having them built into their labs as a matter of course? Really?

There's suspension of disbelief, and then there's saying that, well, I haven't actually seen anyone running a Geiger counter over Peter, so hey, plot device. Not buying it for a second.

Re: but ew, cooties!

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

I didn't really go into the "birds and bees" thing, but my point there was that, after their own experiences, Richards and Banner, at the very least, might take Peter aside and sort of mention that, given their own... difficulties in this area, he might want to double-check that he's not giving MJ (or whomever he might be going out with, depending on the point in continuity) the spider-cooties.

Re: but ew, cooties!

[cyberghostface.insanejournal.com]

I think the general consensus of the people bothered by the "spider-spunk" subplot (from what I've seen) aren't so much bothered that Peter didn't decide to use a Geiger counter before having sex with Mary-Jane but just the squick factor of his bodily fluids giving her cancer over a period of time.

I don't think Peter has ever used a Geiger counter in any continuity before having sex. He already got MJ pregnant before and never thought to use it then. And I doubt he used it when he had drunk blackout sex with Michelle either or sex with Felicia either.

Re: but ew, cooties!

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

It wouldn't even have had to have been specifically when Peter and MJ began bumping uglies. Could have been before, could have been after. Could have been Peter just worried about his own health--I could swear that the "radioactive blood" (cited in the lyrics to the original cartoon series) was brought up as a plot device during the Romita Sr. years. I'm suggesting that, logically, at some point, Peter either would have brought it up in a conversation with Reed Richards or someone else would have brought it up with him--if not Richards (because he's a huge nerd) or Johnny Storm (because he's Johnny Storm) then Ben Grimm, especially since Ben would have his own radiation-created problems with sex (but we don't need to talk about Alicia and the rock-polisher right now).

[darkknightjrk.insanejournal.com]

YES. I mean, I can get why "spider-spunk" might be fun to snark about, but it's definately clear that the creator has a lot of respect for the Pete/MJ relationship.

[chains_of_irony.insanejournal.com]

Totally agree with you. On all of that.

This is a great series.

[menagerie.insanejournal.com]

So much bloody motto here.

[janegray.insanejournal.com]

what bothers me is that Kaare Andrews really respects Peter's relationship with MJ and the Spider-Marriage and all people seem to be able to grasp onto is the concept of "spider-spunk" and nothing else.

Motto. I found the Spidey/MJ scenes extremely moving. You really get the feeling that they love each other from the very bottom of their hearts.