Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: Unintended Consequences
Written by: Fiona Avery and JMS
Penciled by: John Romita JR.
Inked by: Scott Hanna
Colored by: Dan Kemp
Lettered by: Russ Wooton
Editor: Axel Alonso
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Claudia Christian: Previously on Spiderman…
Spiderman: FIGHT HIM WILL! FIGHT FLINT! DON’T LET HIM TAKE CONTROL OVER YOUR MIND!
Sandman: TOO LATE… THERE IS NO MORE WILLIAM. ONLY FLINT MARKO.
Captain America: For failing to save Sandman from his evil Flint Marko personality, you are excluded from all future Avengers activities.
Spiderman: Even from JLA/Avengers?
Captain America: Especially from JLA/Avengers.
Cut to Captain America, Peter, Doctor Doom, and Mary Jane in an airport lobby.
Mary Jane: You have to decide. Do you want to try and make this crazy marriage work? Or am I alone in holding out hope that our marriage still exists inside of your heart?
Peter Parker: You know I still love you and I want us to be a family again!
Doctor Doom: Then hug the redheaded wench already and move back in together! Doom tires of watching you two whine over how you can’t be together when it is quite obvious that you two desire much wedded bliss!
Captain America: Are you supposed to be burning in hell?
Doctor Doom: That was a Doom-Bot. And Doom has already taken steps to punish the dog who arranged the murder of Doom’s childhood love. Doom’s flunky Jemas has arranged for the cursed scoundrel to be fired from his job as head of the Doom-Bot factory in this company for dare besmirching Doom’s reputation in such a manner.
Ezekial: YOU ARE THE SPIDER-TOTEM’S WARRIOR! YOU’RE POWER FLOWS FROM THE MIGHT OF THE MAGIC SPIDER! AND ALL OF THE OTHER ANIMAL TOTEM WARRIORS WANT YOU DEAD.
Peter Parker: Ezekial, take your magic spider and stick it in your ass.
Image of Green Goblin pouring liquor into Flash Thompson’s mouth against his will. Then cut to the hospital, where a doctor is removing bandages from Flash’s face.
Doctor: He’s brain-damaged but his face is surprisingly undamaged.
Peter Parker: Typical Thompson luck.
Cut to Venom attacking a girl in an alley who’s reading a newspaper, which has “Where is Black Cat?†as its main headline.
Venom: I WANT TO SUCK YOUR BRAINS OUT!!!
Cut to Aunt May pacing inside of her home.
Aunt May: Peter can never, EVER find out Ben and I are his biological parents… Or was it hat Peter can never find out that I had an abortion when I was a teen after getting knocked up by Ben. I can’t remember which one what with the stroke I had……
The Story
Another crap story from JMS, with the help of his hack writing protégé Fiona Avery. The plot involves Peter beating up some punks harassing the family of a young black female protégé who he meets at the school he’s working at. Unfortunately for Peter, his desire to help the girl is conflicted by the fact that he busted her older brother for carjacking a couple of months back and Peter’s shocked reaction to this info makes the little genius think Peter has something to do with her brother being in the big-house.
The Skinny
JR JR’s art is great in this issue and once again is the best thing about this book. It’s a crying shame he’s stuck with a crap writer whose stories are really, really bad and come off as JMS coasting on his name and not even trying to produce quality material. I mean you can hate Kevin Smith (for crimes too numerous to mention here) but at least he puts time and effort into the comics he writes and seems at least take pride in the fact that he’s writing a comic. JMS’s entire Spiderman run lacks any depth or emotion, as if JMS is only writing the book because his “Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers†movie bombed on the Sci-Fi Channel and he needs a project to make a quick buck on.
Furthermore this issue sees the return of Mary-Sue, AKA Ezekial. No one gives a damn about Ezekial or this “Magic Spider†BS. You know why? Because no one wants to see Marvel or any self-important writers f**k with the Spiderman origin. That’s why “Chapter One†bombed as bad as it did. The old origin works and doesn’t need f**king with. But JMS has it in his contract that no one at Marvel can even breathe word that his stories need editorially tinkering with to him, which means that his crap keeps getting published without someone filtering out the crap.
