Amazing Spider-Man #637

[cyberghostface]

So, quick recap. Kraven's family killed Spider-Man to resurrect Kraven. Turns out they killed Kaine instead, so now Kraven's stuck in a "living death"--unable to die unless at the hands of Spider-Man. So Kraven's pissed off at his family, needless to say.


Sasha Kravinoff slits Madame Web's throat. In her dying moments, Web transfers her psychic abilities to Arachne.




That's right. Spidey just tore off her face. Granted, it's not as if she didn't have it coming, but... Spidey just tore off her face.



So Arachne (is that what she's called?) shows how Spidey killing Kraven will essentially destroy him and turn him into a monster. Granted, I can imagine it being a slippery slope, but Kraven's essentially in a state of suffering and "living death" against his will, so would putting him out of his misery be that much off a horrible thing?



Somehow I think J. M. DeMatteis is saying the same exact thing as Kraven right now.



So later, the Spider crew visit Kaine's grave. Arachne's blind and the new Madam Web, and now Arana has taken her place (wearing her Arachne's costume). Only she still wants to be called Arana, saying that the name "Spider-Girl" is "corny and makes you want to puke".  Nice.

Kraven and his family escape to the Savage Land to rebuild his family. Sasha wants nothing to do with it, calling Kraven a coward. Kraven snaps her neck.  Alyosha flees. Kraven's daughter stays with him, and to prove herself she goes off to hunt and kill Alyosha. And thus the story ends.

EDIT: Turns out I was wrong. The very last page shows Kaine rising from his grave as some mutated Tarantula-man. Yeahbuhwhah?

And somewhere, J. M. DeMatteis is probably drinking himself into a stupor now.
 

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

Peter...tore off someone's face? That...that actually happened?

[milleniumrex]

Looks like just the very top layer of skin. When we saw her shortly after, she had a hand-print shaped red scar on her face, but her face overall looked like it was intact.

Also, it was weird. Arachne sure looked like she could see when she approached Peter right after getting her powers, but then suddenly she was blind afterwards.

[sir_mikael]

Seeing-the-future-blindness has basically never been real blindness in the marvel universe.

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah, she does come back looking with but a really bad scar later on in these scans. The panel, with all the red, makes it feel like something way worse was happening, but fair enough.

[punishermax]

He did this to Norman too. He more than likely applies enough stickiness to his hand to pull away some skin to cause pain and nothing else.

[cyberghostface]

Nope, when we later see her a while later at the end when they're at the Savage Land she still has the imprint of the hand on her face. So he permanently scarred her.

It's a callback to the Mark of Kaine where Kaine would rip off a chunk of peoples' faces to leave a scar.

[akodo_rokku]

Kaine actually straight up burned the scar in, his burning touch power being a mutation of the wall-crawling.

[cyberghostface]

Oh, I just thought it was that his hands were "stickier" so they'd pull off the skin when he touched them. Interesting.

[sherkahn]

More like a skin scrape actually. I've got a scar on my chin from when my face hit monkey bars and scared a lot of teacher's aides into puking right in front of me. Trust me, torn off faces continue to bleed, and at worst it looks like Sasha scraped her face in some sand.

Oh, more spoilers....... you missed something.


Kaine Parker of Earth. Rise.

[punishermax]

For fucks sakes.

Really ? Fucking really?

This is beyond fucking stupid. This spider totem bullshit was the worst fucking part of Romita's run and no one wanted a god damn encore. He got bit by a god damn radioactive spider, we don't need a god damn mythology up in it. Stop trying to make this shit deeper than it has to be.

I mean, are we going to have long story line where Black Cat becomes a werecat and starts stealing cream and laying on peoples keyboards? Jesus.

Look at this god damn writing. Look at it. Stop writing like this please. "Nothing truly dies on Earth. There is balance"/ Stop trying to be deep when you can't do it. This is Spider-Man for fucks sakes.

[shadowpsykie]

also... i liked the spider totem story.

whats wrong with searching for a deeper meaning.

i mean, if the radioactive spider had been anyone BUT Peter Parker, that person would not have the kind of moral upbringing that caused peter to choose to be a Hero.

why can't peter have been MEANT to be spider-man, it does not take away from the story, but adds to it.

[punishermax]

It's not that things can't be deep, and yeah my final line is kinda flippant, but Totem was always so fucking dumb to me. I like deep morality ideals and shit, but shoving in some weird spider mythology after decades of never even hinting at it then implying it's some ancient force behind all this shit annoys me.

[bradhanon]

Actually, I think it takes a LOT away from the story. JMS likes writing stories about Destiny-With-A-Big-D, which is cool and all, but I don't like destiny stories. I don't like the idea that only certain special destined people can be heroes. I like stories where people become heroes through luck and smarts and doing the right thing.

Spider-Man's story is about a nebbishy teenager from Queens who, when he was 15, got one enormous stroke of luck, and made one enormous, irreversible mistake. His life has been defined by those two things ever since. That's what made him so compelling as a character in the first place, the relatability of his struggle to be a hero. He was the guy who had the ordinary life the readers did, the same self-doubt and fear, but he got that one break, and made that one terrible misjudgment. Could happen to any of us.

Only no, according to JMS, it couldn't happen to any of us. It could only happen to the perfect person selected in advance by the spider-gods. So Peter Parker is now Peter Parker, Perfect Person, and we have as much chance of being him as we have of being Tony Stark or Reed Richards or freakin' Kal-El. That's not an improvement, in my human, fallible opinion.

[fifthie]

The spider-totem was cool up to that one arc right before Sins Past where it was an interesting way of looking at things that didn't really change the core mythology and fucking stupid in any usage after that where it became about a literal Spider God that made Peter eat himself or whatever the hell.

[foxhack]

I mean, are we going to have long story line where Black Cat becomes a werecat and starts stealing cream and laying on peoples keyboards? Jesus.

FUCK YEAH I WANT THIS TO HAPPEN LIKE RIGHT NOW.

[fifthie]

I'd buy that for a dollar.

[halloweenjack]

are we going to have long story line where Black Cat becomes a werecat and starts stealing cream and laying on peoples keyboards?

See, rants are more convincing when you don't throw in funny lines like that. I would straight-up buy Spider-Man if they did some of this Silver Age DC-type stuff once in a while.

[tsunamiwombat]

I would actually love a Black Cat storyline like that.

[shadowpsykie]

i also th ink he took her eyes....

[colonel_green]

No, you can see her eyes on the third panel of the second-last page.

[sir_mikael]

Ooookay what is with this story and switching characters names around?

[foxhack]

Also, "A Brother"?

Really? That's all they could think of for his gravestone?

[nezchan]

You'd prefer "A Funk Soul Brother"?

[big_daddy_d]

EW!! KILL IT!

[seriousfic]

This new character intrigues me. I wish to see a five-issue miniseries about him being offered acne cures and being confused with a Daredevil villain.