Alford Notes: ASM #50 – Last Remains Part 1

The long-awaited issue has finally arrived – #50 and Kindred sets the table!  Who will be coming to dinner?  Will we see who is behind the bandages?  Can Norman Osborn swim?  Can Madam Web be any more annoying?  Is there anything remotely interesting after the end splash panel?  Read on, dear reader, and let’s find out!

 

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Story Title:  Last Remains part 1 (of 11 – Jeez!)

Writer: Nick Spencer

Artist: Patrick Gleason

Colorist: Edgar Delgado

Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga

Cover Artist:  Patrick Gleason and Morry Hollowell

Asst. Editor: Tom Groneman and Lindsey Cohick

Editor: Nick Lowe

Published: October 14, 2020

 

Remedial ASM 101

Some dude with little to no fashion sense and who probably sits around writing emo poetry has been lurking in the shadows longer than Kane ever dreamed of.  He knows who Spidey is and calls himself Kindred.  He also hates Norman, who incidentally, has been left high and dry (well, actually low and wet) by Spidey to meet his fate against the Sin-Eater.

Announcements

In case you haven’t heard, Ryan Ottley is done with his drawing of Spider-Man.  Gleason has picked this up and whether he will be the main artist or not is yet to be seen (though with the 10 more issues between now and mid-December, I doubt it.  Also, we have two new assistant editors in the Spidey Office.  Rumor has it that the last one rightly questioned the inclusion of so many letters from the same guy and was fired for it.  I, of course, will leave no rock unturned until I find the truth of the matter.

 

OOTI (Onomatopoeia of the Issue)

On a scale of 1 (POW) to 10 (BLRKBQRKPQRBLNB), KNOCK KNOCK rates an 2.  Yes, I know there were more interesting ones to choose, but I didn’t choose them, now did I?

The Story and the Analysis – Two for One!

What we really have here are three story threads that are coming close to intertwining – Kindred’s story, Norman’s story, and Spider-Man’s story.  I guess we can say that Sin-Eater’s story overlaps the three and in the darkness binds them.

The story is told a bit out of order, which Spencer loves to do.  Let’s go through it more or less how it unfolds chronologically.

Kindred – He’s lurking in a graveyard yet again, but this time goes full into digging up the grave of none other than George Stacy.  Boy is Arthur going to be ticked at this one.  Now, I’ve got to give props to Kindred here because he is really getting his money’s worth out of those centipedes.  We’ve seen him use them as decoration, stabby-stabs, and to hang on the wall, but here we see him using them as shovels.  That’s pretty awesome.  Unfortunately for Kindred, this also counts as Aggravated Cemetery Desecration and in New York state, that is a Class E felony and could be punishable with up to four years in prison and five years of probation, plus fines.

Spencer gets a bit cheeky and has Kindred say to us (via his soliloquy to Peter) “I’m sure you’re tired of the game.”  Then we pause Kindred’s story until it can overlap with Norman and Spider-Man’s.

Spider-Man – This issue is not as much about Spider-Man as it is about getting us ready to see what Spider-Man is about to go through in the next several issues.  What we do get effectively transitions him from the last arc to this one.  I freely admit when I make mistakes.  For example, I made one in college when I dated Jan (think Betty Brant) and I made my second one last review.  To me, it seemed Spider-Man just tossed Norman out of the boat once they had gotten away from Sin-Eater.  I mean, they were in the boat for quite some time and I just assumed that the boat was moving the entire time, but I was wrong.  Spider-Man dumped Norman right back to where Sin-Eater was.

Norman – Wakes up to see Sin-Eater standing above him.  It must have taken a lot of effort to get out of the ground, but Sinny has lost a lot of weight in the process.  He is no longer all bulgy-headed and his clothes are back intact.  I assume that as some point in The Closet of Ravencroft #4 that Sin-Eater shot Sybil Dvorak (aka – Gypsy Moth, aka – Skein) and used those powers to sew up his threads.  He probably had several of those masks left over anyway, from the way he was tossing them around to his disciples.

Here Norman does something that may have set some people off – he begs for his life.  Well, I don’t think he really does.  He is all over the place really and I think he is just trying to figure out if he can con Sin-Eater into going after Kindred for him.  If he is begging, I don’t think it is because of a fear of dying.  Norman knows that if he gets shot, he won’t die, but rather he will lose his Goblin persona.  He has fought too hard to get that back just to lose it now.  On top of that, if he loses it now, that means Kindred beat him, and we will see at the end of the issue why that is such a horrible ending for him.  But Sin-Eater is so fixated on making Kindred happy that he doesn’t buy it and shoots Norman.

Kindred – Whatever Sin-Eater was hoping he’d get from doing Kindred’s bidding, it doesn’t matter because Kindred just straight up humiliates him and then kills him.  Well, I think he kills him.  He says the wages of sin is death and then all these sins with little faces come out and Sin-Eater either explodes, dissolves, gets eaten, or turns into some fish.  The art is a but unclear.  So this begs the question – what happens to all the powers he stole.  Are they gone for good?  We know that Norman isn’t restored by Sin-Eaters death.  Do you have to kill Kindred to get all the powers back to where they belong like in The Lost Boys – you have to kill the HEAD vampire!  The other question is where do these sins go?  That, however, is not a mystery.  They go visit Spidey!

Spider-Man – OK, he’s minding his own business when the boat or sub or whatever floatation device they are on gets attacked.  Everyone braces for a fight.  Well, everyone except Madam Web who is quite the Negative Nancy.

The sins all possess the Order of the Web, making them now the Evil Order of the Web (or EOoW for short) and they proceed to give Spidey an off-panel butt whooping.  He barely manages to escape and go see Dr. Strange, who in turns lectures him.

Another marriage allusion.  It might be something Spencer is planning on taking care of later, but I believe that this whole Kindred mess is tied up in it somehow.  Maybe the deal is what gave Kindred the opportunity to come back or something.

Unfortunately for Spidey and Strangey, his house has less security than my local elementary school and evil Silk barges in, albeit looking cooler than she ever has before.

Kindred and Norman – While Norman is being rescued, he shows that he is truly remorseful, but he is concerned about what Kindred will do and what will happen to him.  As he is telling Dr. Kafka this, we see Kindred is setting a dinner table (and you can learn how to as well by reading your Emily Post!) and he already has two guests!

I think Spencer got the wrong Norman reference there…

Anyway, while he is doing this, Norman reveals that he is so concerned about Kindred because Kindred is……

Cue music

Now before anyone says that this was too obvious, I’d like to point out how many other possibilities were floating around.  People were certain that this was going to be George Stacy, Dr. Octopus, Ned Leeds, Gwen Stacy, Uncle Ben, or even Carlie Cooper, so the whole it whole obvious thing wasn’t as obvious after all.  Plus, I believe that the real payoff is not so much the reveal (that was more of a confirmation), but will be in why and how.  Now that we know who it is (no mistaking that Tootsie Roll hair), we can make some progress into the other.

I am very happy in the reveal – obviously because I was calling Harry since the Robot Master issue, so it is good to be right (and you want to get your orders in for those Mark Was Right T-Shirts soon before they sell out!), but also because the dynamic we have here of Spider-Man, Norman, and Harry are way too interesting.  The good thing about the Sin-Eater arc was that it removes any hope of Spider-Man and Norman teaming up against Kindred.

So what about the EOoW? Well, I think they will only serve to move the pieces into play and provide some fight scenes.  We have TEN MORE ISSUES left.  They can’t all be Kindred vs Spider-Man this is a superhero story, so we need to fight scenes.  Dr. Strange I believe will only serve to help get us into the spiritual side of this (and by that I mean the Marvel spiritual realms), help out with the Mephisto part (because you know with all of the ‘deal with the devil’ references, old Mephisto HAS to make an appearance), and once Spider-Man beats Kindred, it might take a Master of the Mystic Arts to send him back to hell or lock him in some jar or something.  Let’s just hope we get a “It is… a demon!” scene like in “Seven Little Superheroes”!

My only complaint?  I really wish it had not taken so long to get to this point.  The reveal was well done and keeping track of the clues and the special podcasts were great fun (even if Neil spent the majority of one of them talking about Transformers).  I don’t even mind that Madam Web was in this issue.

I know that some of you might be upset that Peter was not the focus of this issue as much as Norman and Kindred, but I think in this case it is justified since this is a story about Kindred, Spidey, and Norman and their connection.  We have to have a set and with TEN MORE ISSUES of this, we have time and space to spare.  My biggest concern is that this will dissolve into overly convoluted stories, but I’m not anxious about it.  Spencer has been wanting to tell this story since issue #1 and he has earned my respect. I am looking forward to seeing what he can do.

 

Participation Grade

OK, this is NOT Extra Credit – this is a mandatory grade – what are YOUR thoughts on the reveal?  We’ve waited 50 issues for this.  I want to hear your thoughts.

 

Final Grade

This was good.  I am excited for this arc.  I am pleased with the reveal. It was everything I wanted in this issue.

A

 

Your Turn

What grade do YOU give it?

 

But Wait!  There’s More!

After the story is over, there is a letters page and there is really NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE on the page at all.  Not really worth your time and energy.  Well, except for one thing and that is this answer to a rather bland and banal letter:

Anyone ready for Deb to make a comeback?  By the way, whatever happened to all of those books she had?  Did they just go blank?  She wrote those to make money for her mother’s surgery or something, so I guess that’s another casualty Kindred can add to the list.

 

OK, OK – there was one small important thing in the letters pages and that was YET ANOTHER STINKING LETTER FROM THAT CHI-TOWN PETER NORBOT guy.  GEEZ!

Good job, Peter….  I’m happy for you….  I’ll let him show off his letter in his review, so make sure you read it and pump his ego up (just don’t tell him I sent you because I’ll deny it).

 

What’s Next?

What’s next?  What’s NOT next?!  Here is the checklist:

Part of me is excited that Spencer seems committed to finally just telling this story rather making us wait until issue 75, and I’m excited that we will have so many podcasts where JR can go full Norman, but I’m also thinking of all the reviews….  There are THREE MORE THIS MONTH!  And FIVE IN NOVEMBER!  Holy webshooters!

 

Nick Lowe has asked people to let the Spider office know how they are doing by sending an email to spideyoffice@marvel.com and to make sure you mark it “OK to print”.  If you get published, make sure to draw our attention to it!  Unless, of course, your name rhymes with Norbot.

 

 

 

‘Nuff Said!