The finale of Sinister Wars! I gotta tell you, the cover looks awesome and it makes me wonder where old Doc Ock stands on all of this. Let’s hope it lives up to the hype! Read the issue, friend, and then dive into my review.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Story Title: Sinister War part 4
Writers: Ed Brisson and Nick Spencer
Pencillers: Mark Bagley, Dio Neves, and Marcelo Ferreira
Inkers: Andrew Hennessy, Andy Owens, Dio Neves, and Marcelo Ferreira
Colorist: Brian Reber with Andrew Crossly
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga
Cover Artist: Brian Hitch and Alex Sinclair
Asst. Editor: Lindsey Cohick
Editor: Nick Lowe
Published: September 1, 2021
Remedial ASM 101
Kindred has implanted every villain (well, about 40 of them) with a centipede in the brain and is threatening them all with eternal damnation if they don’t kill Spider-Man (which is redundant as they are all villains and will probably get eternal damnation regardless of their actions). Spider-Man has been fighting non-stop and Kindred as been monologuing more than that.
The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test
Spider-Man continues to fight, but it is just delaying the inevitable. About the only thing keeping him alive is that the other villains keep getting in the way and occasionally stop to fight each other. Doctor Octopus is active furtively* and Boomerang, just when Morlun is about to finally kill Spider-Man, saves the day by breaking Morlun’s hold on the webslinger. The Inheritor turns his attention to Fred and drains him of his essence. The Superior Foes, shocked at Fred’s face turn, decide to attack everyone in his honor. Kindred is pissed about this, but before he can do anything about it, Doc Ock short circuits all the centipedes, which both releases them from Kindred’s control and simultaneously knocks them out. Ock lets Spidey go so that Spidey can kick some Kindred butt. Doctor Strange won his bet with Mephisto.
What Passed and Failed
PASS – Oh so many villains! – I love seeing the villains fighting each other as much, if not more than, as watching them fight Spider-Man. I’m particularly excited to see the two Scorpions face off and I thought it was interesting to see the two Electros teaming up to knock someone into Hydro-Man (interested to hear Stuart Green’s opinion on that).
FAIL – Oh so many villains! -All those things I love about seeing the villains are cut short. They tend to be background
PASS & FAIL – The art was a bit jarring at times – Stegron looks like he has mutated (maybe I just haven’t been paying attention) and Ock looks really odd when Spidey says thank you. All in all, it’s not overly bad, and to draw that many characters has to be taxing on the artist, but there are a few scenes where it is distracting. Although, I’m willing to give bonus points for this panel:
I just really liked it.
PASS – Doc “Tiny Hands” Ock – Is this the first time we see his tiny robotic appendage (no, not *that* one, JR)? I don’t ever remember seeing him having something like this.
I like that Doctor Octopus is not allowing Kindred to run rough shod over him. Ock doing this and the Superior Foes banding together to avenge Boomerang gives us hope that Spidey can overcome Kindred. We need to know that Kindred is not as all-powerful as he wants us to think. And we see Kindred losing his cool a few times, which emphasizes that he doesn’t have everything as under control as he would like to make himself believe.
Why Ock doesn’t pass out as well, I’m not sure. Maybe since he knew it was coming he braced himself? I don’t really care.
Analysis
Boomerang – I think it is fitting that Spencer kill Boomerang. I’m sure Fred will make a grand return one day, but the character is really nothing without Spencer’s hand writing him. We know that Fred was actually inspired when pretending to be the hero. I love how he really dug working with Spider-Man. I also know that he cannot keep up the hero act (though I really wanted to see a Boomerang and Overdrive Heroes for Hire mini-series). So to have him die sacrificing himself for Spider-Man, well, it was a nice way for this character to go out.
Even more so since his crew rallied to him. They are his family, and families squabble, but when the chips are down, they have each other’s back.
Doctor Strange & Mephisto – If you forgot exactly what they were betting on back in Sinister War #1, Doctor Strange, referring to Peter Parker, told Mephisto, “Whatever you’ve done, Devil, end it now.” Mephisto arranges a game of chance at that point. So, what does it mean that Mephisto has just lost? Is he undoing the deal? It seems that way from the text and it doesn’t. Mephisto is acting like he and Strange are done, like Spider-Man surviving was what the bet was, though that is clearly not what we were told they were betting on.
Of course, it could be that Mephisto has a trick still up his sleeve. You also have to think that perhaps “losing” the bet was what Mephisto wanted after all. I mean, if he unblocks Peter and MJ’s memory, then they will remember what they did. They will remember they would have had a baby girl that will now never exist. I cannot imagine that this will do anything for their happiness. Maybe Mephisto knows that eventually, Peter and MJ can get back together, sees that happening, and here comes Dr. Strange basically handing Mephisto the opportunity to sabotage them finding each other again. Yeah… I’m thinking the house didn’t lose after all. That said, I think Mephisto is underestimating the bond between MJ and Peter and I think they will form a stronger bond as a result, not necessarily being a married couple again, but certainly bringing them together to get through this rather than them splitting for good out of angst.
Incomplete
OK, we have TWO issues left and still many plot closures not yet turned in. Like many of my students, Spencer seems to be waiting until the very last minute to get his work turned in. Here is what we still don’t have resolved:
- Peter/MJ dealing with the Mephisto deal
- Peter/Kindred
- MJ/Kindred
- Norman/Kindred
- Peter’s proposal to MJ
- Harry’s body in the morgue
- Kindred needed Chameleon serum
- Carlie Cooper and the Harry (Osborn? Lyman? LMD? Chameleon?) capture/morgue escape
- Chameleon owning Threats and Menaces
- Kingpin/Mordo/Kindred – It certainly seemed like Kingpin still had plans to use Kindred
- Mephisto/Dr. Strange confrontation
- Preggo Betty/Evil Ned
Did I miss anything? Can it be done? I believe Spencer has a plan to do it. I am cautiously optimistic, though, that it won’t feel like a rush job. In fact, I find it very hard to believe that after all of this build up, there is no way to NOT make it feel like a rush job.
Prediction
Kindred has pulled his mask off in the last ASM and MJ looks shocked. I believe that whoever it is that she sees under the mask, it is Harry using the Chameleon serum. Don’t be the victim of a Gotcha, folks!
Alternative Assignment
What if Spencer is not leaving for good, just taking a hiatus to get his new platform up and running? If that is the case we may not get the resolution we think we are going to get, but it will be left dangling until his return. This would also explain why ASM will be focusing on Ben Reilly while waiting for Spencer to return and drag out Kindred for another 2 years. I’m not championing this idea, just throwing it out there for your consideration.
Final Grade
For me, this book suffers from my expectations of what this was going to be. I am not sure that this is a fair metric, but these things happen. What I wanted from this was more focus on the bad guys fighting Spider-Man and each other, rather than panels with it happening in the background.
B-
Your Turn
What grade do YOU give it?
Was It Worth More Than…
This Donner Party Dinner Game?
Well, as much as I love learning history, I don’t think encouraging hungry dinner guests to participate in cannibalism is maybe the smartest move. I’ll weighing in on Sinister Wars as being the better buy.
Happy Birthday Chi-Town!
I waited until today to release the review just for you! Happy B-Day, bud! Since we’re best buds, I had this commissioned just for him!
What’s Next?
We have two issues of Spencer’s run left!
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!
* Chi-Town, ‘furtively’ means ‘secretively’
‘Nuff Said!
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@michael. When I saw that preview my first thought was “if all past 74 regular issues plus all the .issues where leading up to such a crappy bait and switch and retcon THAT instead of OMD… Spencer’s run will go down in infamy as the same kind of garbage slotts pulled off”
I really hope this is not it. Otherwise… God damn it would be disappointing!
@Michael – I’ll have to wait until I read it, but first instinct is that would be a disappointing way to go out on the title. There has been WAY too many references to OMD for him to just not touch it. Maybe he is going to try to address both of them, since both Norman and Peter made a deal with Mephisto? Address both of them at one time?
There’s some interesting pages from Amazing Spider-Man 73 up here:
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/nick-spencer-isnt-reversing-one-more-day-hes-reversing-sins-past/
Apparently, the big reveal is going to be that the twins aren’t the children of Norman and Gwen but creations of Harry Osborn and Mysterio, and therefore, of Mephisto. So Kindred could be Harry’s soul using Sarah Stacy as a vessel or something along those lines, we’ll have to see.
Sorry, I meant issue 71, not 73.
@Mark- there’s another reason why it can’t be Gwen. In issue 73, Kindred goes to an ambulance and thinks about how he died here, with his friend holding his hand. Gwen didn’t die in an ambulance with a friend holding her hand but Harry did.
You’re not the only one who’s having trouble seeing comments when they get on. That’s happened to me too.
@Everyone – Couldn’t get on yesterday and now there are so many to respond to -plus, when I responded to Michael earlier, his was the only one I could see, but now it looks as if I snubbed Sthenurus and Prof Warren, which was not my intention. So let me just try and respond to the comment thread as a whole rather than my usual person to person.
While I am really liking the Spencer run I can’t ignore the valid points some of you have against Spencer – the pacing. Comics cost too much money to not get movement in a story. It doesn’t have to be impactful or life-changing, just give me a story each issue! That may be my ’80s comics mentality, but it is also my wallet’s mentality too! I do get tired of saying, “This was good, but I was expecting more.”
Yes! I forgot to write about the Rose not being used after taking great pains to bring him back. I wonder if the Rose will be important in the upcoming Devil’s Reign?
I also forgot to put the splitting with the Isotope thingee. Spencer can easily leave the Lizard split for another writer to handle later, but it does seem that Kindred thought it very important to get his hands on it, so maybe that will be addressed in the two books left?
And Brandon on FB commented on this review and said that #74 is supposed to have 80 pages, so it is like we have about five more issues for all of these things to be resolved.
Since the preview came out trumps anything that happened in this particular issue, I cannot believe that it is Gwen Stacy for two reasons – The talk Kindred had with Norman back in Absolute Carnage (#30 and #31) do NOT fit it being Gwen. He repeatedly uses the first person pronoun ‘I’, but refers to Gwen in the third person ‘she’, and while you could claim that Gwen now sees herself as a different entity than what she once was, I think that is stretching it too much to fit the theory. I believe Spencer picked his words very carefully. Plus, Kindred is shocked and a bit cowed when Norman as Carnage responds back – not something an evil Gwen-returned-from-the-dead would do, I believe. So what about the theory that there are two Kindreds? That is not a bad theory and on the first podcast that we had on Who Is Kindred, we discussed that briefly. It would allow us to tie in the conflicting clues we were getting at the time. However, those clues are no longer conflicting and we don’t need the multiple Kindred theory to fit them together. Harry ties them all up. Let us not forget that Harry LOVES the Gotcha! We’ve seen it several times this run. Time and again prior to Spencer, he has played mind games with Peter. He picked Mysterio as his harbinger for a reason. There is more smoke and mirrors here than truth, so when we get a spoiler image of Gwen, I don’t believe it. What I do believe is when Kindred and Spencer both said that the person who IS Kindred is not the question – it’s WHY Kindred exists to begin with that is the question. The second reason I don’t believe the two Kindreds with one being Gwen is that I do not believe Spencer wishes to return to the Hydra Cap controversy. Why take Gwen’s memory and make her a villain? Plus, what would that mean when Gwen was ressurrected in Clone Conspiracy (and yes, I know it is just clones, but it is canon that those clones were indeed the real soul of the person (which also makes Kingpin’s snapping of Vanessa’s neck a bit more umph-ish!))? Of course, that last issue could easily be ignored. This image was leaked on purpose to drum up excitement and not to reveal anything.
Well, this is longer than I meant to write and I got off topic talking about the identity of Kindred too long. I felt that Kindred was Harry back in issue 3 or 4 (whenever Kindred told Stromm that he too understood what it was like living in another’s shadow) and I am not giving up on that as we go into the finish line.
@Stuart –
I think it’s pretty safe to say Spencer is done with Spidey after this. He’s not moving over to another title when this is done, he’s not coming back after Beyond, he’s just done. I don’t even see him doing any more Marvel, period. I imagine his work with Substack will be taking up all his time once he leaves. And after the way this run has ended, I can only hope that’s the case as I never want him touching another Spidey book.
I will reserve final judgement until the last two issues hit but, for whatever reason, he’s really been fumbling the ball on the way to the ASM finish line. Unless he gives a really honest exit interview we’ll never know why that is but I suspect the culprit is mainly that his focus shifted to Substack and his head just wasn’t in the game anymore regarding Spidey. Then again, you have to say that editorial didn’t do him any favors by ok’ing the ridiculous dragging out of the Kindred storyline in the first place. This should have never been structured as one three year long story. It doesn’t have enough meat on its bones for that. And if the pay-off doesn’t really deliver, what a waste this will seem like. Especially if all the OMD stuff has been just an empty tease – and the Strange/Mephisto scenes in SW amounting to nothing have me thinking that might be the case.
(Writing this again, because I wasn’t sure if my comment was posted. Delete if this was accidentally posted twice)
I thought Fred was going to die in King’s Ransom, but it’s more fitting that he died here at the end of the run. Boomerang was the main character of Superior Foes, a book that helped Spencer get the ASM writing job. Fred represents the beginning of Spencer’s writing for the Spider-Man corner of books.
Also, I could see some future ASM writer, who didn’t care for Boomerang’s big role, deciding to kill him off in a lame way to take a shot at the previous run.
I thought Fred was going to die in King’s Ransom, but it’s more fitting that he died here near the end of the run. Fred was the main character of Superior Foes, a spider book that helped Spencer get the ASM writer job. Boomerang represented the beginning of Spencer’s interaction with the Spider-Man books.
Also, I could see some future Spider-Man writer, who didn’t care for Boomerang’s big role in the run, choosing to kill him in a lame way to take a shot at the previous run. So maybe Spencer was trying to get ahead of that too.
I was just thinking — Maybe Kindred takes the form that he feels will be most meaningful or shocking to this to whom he unmasks, most probably intentionally. In Norman’s case, it was Harry, and in Mary Jane’s case, this was Gwen.
But again, this presupposes that Mary Jane and Gwen were super best friends, which we all know isn’t the case. I know that Marvel sort of retconned their relationship, so I guess we’ll see a lot of Mary Jane talking about how much Gwen always mattered to her, etc.
Also, happy birthday, Chi-Town!
Gotta love how CBR put “Spoiler” in the title of the article title, but “Gwen” appears in the link text.
Doc Ock kill the centipedes? That’s Crazy Town & Banana Pants!
Gee, I hadn’t thought about Kindred being around for two more years while Spencer’s on hiatus. On the one hand, we’ve waited this long for OMD to be over, so what’s two more years? On the other, I just don’t see him doing that to us, especially how respectful of fans he appears to be — He would know exactly what state that would leave us in, and, whereas some writers would do something like that on purpose (not mentioning any names), I don’t think he would.
I really hope this comment posts this time — Lately my comments have not been appearing after I submit them. Sorry for the apparent lack of participation!
LOL, happy birthday to Chi-Town, that’s really a fantastic present. They look really good together, like soulmates.
We could add the return of the Rose to the list. I want to believe that Spencer is just taking a hiatus (as already suggested before), because the alternative is a rushed and\or incomplete finale.
I agree with Stuart Green, it reeks of editorial mess or disagreement. We’ll see.
Mephisto’s bet, as I recall it from issue 1, wasn’t clear, but I am sure it was never about the deal. It appears to have been about the souls of all the villains. I also think Strange didn’t actively partecipate in it, but was just an irked spectator.
*Meant to write “none of the villains really stood out in Sinister War”. Sorry about that. I still think that “Gwen” is just a fake-out with the Chameleon serum, though we’ll find out soon enough.
Say my name and I magically appear! Seriously though, thank you for the mention, Mr. Alford, I appreciate the shout-out! Before I post my comments, I’d like to wish a very Happy Birthday to Chi-Town! I hope you’re having a wonderful birthday!
– First things first: In regards to Electro, I stand by my previous statement that the Spider-Office dropped the ball with his return. Electro could’ve been replaced with literally anyone for this story, since Electro (and, to be honest, none of the villains) really stood out in this story. Electro’s return was spoiled with the reveal of the “Sinister War” #1 cover, Electro gets five lines in “Sinister War” #3 and is mute for the rest of his post-resurrection appearances, and we don’t get any character development or interaction with Electro and anyone after Doctor Octopus resurrects him. Mysterio and Spider-Man aren’t shocked and don’t question how Electro is alive in “Sinister War” #1, and now in #4 the two Electros get a brief panel together aside from not interacting at all. Francine Frye isn’t shocked (no pun intended), she doesn’t apologize for killing Max, Max doesn’t try to kill her for killing him — nothing. In four issues of non-stop fighting, to not have any character moments or reactions, however brief, is frustrating.
– Man, the art was all over the place. Villains like Doctor Octopus and Shocker have had their costumes change in different pages of these issues and in Ock’s case in the pre-“Sinister War” issues of “Amazing”. Even in this issue, villains’ costumes change in different pages. In the pages where Doc Ock explains to Spider-Man how he defeated Kindred’s centipedes to free the villains, his glasses suddenly don’t have hinged arms! I love Mark Bagley’s art, but I think he should’ve been the only artist and had plenty of time before hand to draw “Sinister War” instead of having this four-story event rushed out.
– I don’t know if Spencer is leaving Spider-Man for good or if he’s just leaving “The Amazing Spider-Man” for his own Spider-Man comic. It’s happened before with Paul Jenkins going from “Peter Parker: Spider-Man” to the relaunched “The Spectacular Spider-Man”. I do think something happened behind the scenes with Spencer though in regards to what “Sinister War” was meant to be. Between changing the Sinister Six from replacing Hydro-Man with Mysterio, dragging out the Kindred storyarc, having Harry’s corpse revealed (or maybe it’s actually Norman Osborn’s corpse? His clothes reminded me of Norman’s suit from “Peter Parker: Spider-Man” #75 in part four of “Revelations”), etc., I wonder how much of “Sinister War” was changed at the last minute. At this point, we can also add Doctor Octopus searching for the truth about his past after the Mephisto deal to the list of the recent unresolved Spencer plot lines. I don’t think of this as Spencer “waiting until the very last minute to get his work turned in” so much as I think “Spencer’s original plans were changed at the very last minute by someone higher-up at Marvel”. It seems to me that Spencer could’ve gone on longer, but Marvel wanted to wrap his dragging Kindred story up, didn’t like the Peter/M.J. engagement endgame he was building up to after all, or maybe both.
– The Mephisto/Doctor Strange scenes seem pointless unless Spencer and Marvel say otherwise. The “big loss is imminent” statement could refer to anything, from losing Harry all over again, losing Aunt May all over again, losing his secret identity being private all over again, losing Mary Jane again (highly unlikely, plus been there and done that too many times), realizing they lost their marriage and unborn daughter with the latter being the big loss, etc. Since Doctor Strange dies and has some kind of request he wants the Ben Reilly Spider-Man to fulfill or whatever in the upcoming “Spider-Man Beyond”, maybe Strange dies before he can tell Peter and passes his information on to Ben to undo the deal in his place. Marvel does like to do anything and everything in their power to keep Peter’s marriage from Mary Jane not be restored, no matter how many teases, references and “One More Day” jabs they include in their stories.
– I could see the “Gwen” face being a fake-out if Kindred needs the Chameleon serum to alter his appearance. Or maybe it’s an evil Gwen clone, a Gwen from another Earth, Gwen look-alike Sarah Stacy — eh, let’s be honest, who cares? Marvel’s gone Gwen crazy ever since the mediocre “The Amazing Spider-Man” films.
– I honestly don’t know what Marvel has planned for Nick Spencer’s final issue and at this rate, my interest has waned further after the recent filler issues that his recent “Amazing” and “Sinister War” issues have turned out to be. Until Marvel actually has a solicitation in an upcoming issue that says something to the effect of “Because you demanded it! Finally, after fourteen years of waiting, it’s happened! This is not a dream! Not an alternate reality! Not a “what-if”! Peter Parker, the ever-amazing Spider-Man, and Mary Jane Watson are husband and wife! Join us as we begin this exciting all-new chapter in the ongoing series of our Friendly Neighborhood Wall-Crawler as we see what changes are in store for Mr. and Mrs. Spider-Man!”, I honestly don’t care what Marvel has planned for the future at this point. We’re going into 1995 territory all over again with Ben Reilly coming back as Spider-Man and Peter sidelined, so we’ll see how long Ben’s return lasts.
Thanks for reading my nonsense. Stay safe, everyone.
Nice review Mark. With friends like you, who needs enemies. Photoshopping over beautiful Carlos Gomez art…shame on you. Anyways, I too am a little disappointed that we didn’t see more interactions between the villains. Given how they were pressed for time with a time ticking centi-bomb in their brains, I can understand that they don’t have a moment for chit chat.
Give on the preview ASM 73, I’m going to throw that Kindred is a combination between Harry and Gwen’s soul. Harry, despite dying a hero, soul was already sold by Norman. Gwen hated Spider-Man, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to hell. However, she did cheat on Peter with Norman, that could be considered damnation. Reading back to ASM 30 and 50 I can see Gwen as Kindred given the dialogue. Harry and Gwen could be considered “Kindred Spirits” on that they hate Peter.
We’ll find out more, I’m sure next week.
In terms of dangling plots, there’s the Connors and Lizard split one as well, and by extension, what the Last Son of Kraven wants him for! Granted, I’m biased bc the Lizard is a personal favourite villain, but I found it baffling it was such a large part of the prologue, and it’s just never come up again, with the split!Lizard mostly not doing much aside from fighting in some splash pages, just like everyone else.
Did Kindred even bother planting a centipede in its brain when it’s a mindless monster that wouldn’t understand deals with the devil? Did the split fully work compared to how it almost killed Peter at the start of Spencer’s run, given how Connors had been ready to start human trials? Do they need to be merged back together anyway to prevent a feral monster with no humanity or inhibitor chip from running rampant? Has Connors been chilling out in the sewer the entire time? If the splitting works now, is it going to come up again in some way? Did the Last Son of Kraven take up Doc Ock’s offer of the Lizard bc he wants revenge for being humiliated in Hunted? Is he cool with it just being the Lizard half? Are we not going to get any resolution on this bc Lizard stories only happen every five or so years these days?
@Michael – Are you reading Silk? I think she is going to be his new hero. I’m reading it late on Marvel Unlimited. I haven’t really read anything else of hers because the Slott take on the character left a bad taste in my mouth, but the few issues in the current run that I have read seem to match up.
About the centipedes, I’m glad you said that. I want to assure Evan that the two big centipedes – Crazy Town and Banana Pants – are probably safe from Doc Ock’s nefarious plan to kill them. 🙂 I assumed that while the little ones are magical centipedes, they are centipedes nonetheless, so are subject to the whims of a centipede helmet.
There is no way that Kindred is Gwen. Too many gotchas already; this is yet another one! Gwen doesn’t fit my carefully crafted chart o’ clues.
Welp, I gotta say the annoyance at waiting for answers has gutted any sense of enjoyment for me at this point. There is a lot left to wrap up in two issues – even if one is oversized! – and I just hope Spencer can get to all of them in a satisfying way. If he can knock my socks off with the resolution of all his storylines I’ll give him due credit for pulling it off but, man, the fact that this has dragged out for so long is tiring. And for how dragged out it’s been it also somehow feels weirdly rushed with many key moments and plot points hurried through, leaving them with little to no impact (like Fred’s death, for instance). More power to anyone who’s been enjoying these recent issues but for me they’ve only been souring me on Spencer’s run as it winds down. But hey, there’s every chance the next two issues will win me over!
Welp, I gotta say the annoyance at waiting for answers has gutted any sense of enjoyment for me at this point. There is a lot left to wrap up in two issues – even if one is oversized! – and I just hope Spencer can get to all of them in a satisfying way. If he can knock my socks off with the resolution of all his storylines I’ll give him due credit for pulling it off but, man, the fact that this has dragged out for so long is tiring. And for how dragged out it’s been it also somehow feels weirdly rushed with many key moments and plot points hurried through, leaving them with little to no impact (like Fred’s death, for instance). More power to anyone who’s been enjoying these recent issues but for me they’ve only been souring me on Spencer’s run as it winds down. But hey, there’s every chance the next two issues will win me over!
I’m not sure how I feel about Ock being able to control Kindred’s centipedes by modifying Black Ant’s technology. Yes, it should have worked on normal centipedes. But these aren’t normal centipedes. These are magical centipedes created as a result of a deal between Norman Osborn and Mephisto. OTOH, magic often depends on symbolism, so I guess Kindred’s centipedes might have some of the weaknesses as normal centipedes.
Re: Strange and Mephisto- I think the spanner in the works is that Harry became Mephisto’s vassal as a result of NORMAN’s deal, not Peter’s. So even if Peter’s and MJ’s deal is undone, Mephisto still owns Harry (and possibly Normie?). It’s not clear how Peter and MJ will handle that.
The other question is, will undoing the OMD deal affect Aunt May?
Re the unresolved plots- Two other ones are Jameson’s search for a new hero and the final fate of Mysterio.
Regarding who’s behind the mask, the preview for issue 73 is up now :
https://www.cbr.com/amazing-spider-man-73-gwen-resurrection/
There’s no way that Kindred is who it appears to be in the preview.
So after 4 issues… Nothing happened. The big fight was just a waste of time. Just like the . LR issues, the entire mini could have been compressed into 5 pages or so.
My guess is that Harry Lyman is a clone. He was a “contingency” in order to beat Mephisto at his own game. And he was create (in story) during the clone saga (recovering in Europe after his “death”)