Review: Spider-Man 2099 #8

“I’m sorry. Were you saying something?”

WRITER Peter David
ART Will Sliney
COLOR Antonio Fabela
LETTERER VC’s Joe Caramagna
EDITOR Devin Lewis & Ellie Pyle

Miggy and Lady Spider, alone and fearing for the future, form a desperate plan to counter the Inheritors.

But will Lady Spider’s enemies, the Six Men of Sinestry, stop them before they can help Peter?

SUMMARY: We pick up in the Safe Zone (you remember, the one filled with dead people) where Miguel and Lady Spider are left pondering their fate. They’re unsure if they’re the only two Spiders left in the multiverse. The two heroes cling together for a brief moment before Miguel reassures Lady Spider that though they will die one day, it won’t be today.

The two come upon the shattered remains of the Leopardon robot and start to devise a plan to take on the inheritors. But repairing the massive machine will require a lab, so Lady Spider uses the portal device to transport them back to her stomping grounds – the Steampunky New York of 1895 known as Earth-803. And over in that reality Lord Harold Osborn is asking his father’s permission to use ‘the Stadium’ to help his friend, May (or as we call her Lady Spider). As Harold departs, his father (Norman, naturally) contacts his fellow ‘Six Men of Sinestry’ in order to stage an ambush on their nemesis.

Over at the lab, called ‘the Stadium,’ Miguel notes that they need a source to emit radioactivity since, according to their analysis of Daemos’s clone body, the Inheritors are somehow susceptible to it. While Lady Spider gets to work repairing Leopardon, Peter contacts Miguel across space & time. Miggy is relieved to hear that Peter’s alive, and tells him he and Lady Spider are working up a surprise for the Inheritors. Across the lab, Lady Spider is surprised when Lord Harold arrives to meet her (we find out he’d asked May to dinner previously) but their reunion is cut short when the Six Men of Sinestry – the Steampunk Sinister Six – arrive to kill Lady Spider.

Things from zero to 60 almost instantly. Miguel takes the Goblin out of the fight pretty much before he can even get into it by slashing his throat. With Osborn down, Mysterio flees and Otto engages Lady Spider while Vulture and Electro go after Miguel. Electro hits Miguel with his electrical generator bolts and Miguel is blasted through one of the lab’s large windows, colliding with a floating police gunship tube outside. Miggy quickly overcomes its pilot but back inside the lab Otto, Electro and Vulture corner Lady Spidery. As they close in for the kill, Leopardon’s head awakens and his detached giant robot fist makes short work of Electro and Vulture. As Otto stares on in shock, Miguel guns him down with the police gunship’s cannons.

Lady Spider and Miggy complete repairs on the massive robot. Back at the Osborn home, Harold busts into his father’s office to tell him about the villain invasion – but discovers to his horror that his father is the Green Goblin. Despite bleeding from his throat, Norman shoots Harold in cold blood with a pistol. With Leopardon’s repairs completed, Miguel and Lady Spider ride his shoulders and the three head off to find Peter Parker and hopefully stop the Inheritors once and for all.

ANALYSIS: Holy Cow, was that awesome. For the first time since Spider-Verse started I found myself really into one of its side stories. The partnership between Miguel and Lady Spider is flat out fantastic and the fight between the heroes and the Six Men of Sinistry was insanely fun.

Again, Peter David shows us the vast difference between Peter and Miguel. While Peter will try to save everyone and anyone, even his enemies, Miguel will just mow people down if they represent a threat to him and make him feel cornered. I love both characters for that. This is what makes Miguel stand out as a ‘Spider-Variant’ and why he was always so successful through the years. He doesn’t have time to be a White Knight when he needs to get the job done and get out. His attack on Norman and Otto were quick, violent and effective. He gets how high the stakes are here.

I continue to fall in love with Lady Spider, and found myself regretting not having picked up Spider-Verse #1 for her origin story. If you’re interested, our newest podcast panelist Ashley reviewed that very issue in one of our recent Spider-Satellite podcasts! I really did get a thrill out of watching Lady Spider and Miguel take down the steampunky Six Men of Sinestry. Artist Will Sliney does a fantastic job with the fight.

My only nitpick? Miguel makes the observation that somehow the Inheritors are susceptible to radioactivity. To that end, they take a radioactive power core from Otto’s tentacle harness. But if the Inheritors are susceptible to radioactivity why the Hell are they eating Peter Parkers? He’s (err… they?) have radioactive blood! Heh!

REVIEW: A+

Being part of a bloated crossover didn’t knock this one down a grade letter this week. This issue was just remarkably entertaining.

–George Berryman!