“I will slit your throat. Do you understand?”
WRITER Peter David
ART Will Sliney
COLOR Frank D’Armata & Andres Mossa (#2) and Rachelle Rosenberg (#3)
LETTERER VC’s Cory Petit
EDITOR Devin Lewis
Miguel tracks down Tempest’s alleged killer, Mac Gargan schemes at Alchemax and not everything is as it seems in Miguel O’Hara’s corner of the Hickmanverse!
Apologies for the lateness on the 2099 reviews, folks. Can’t remember if I mentioned it on the podcast or not but I started a new full time job at the start of November. My free time of course flew out the window and I’m still adjusting. I did cover these on the most recent satellites podcast, but on with the opera!
SUMMARY: Following last month’s shock ending, Miguel wakes up in the hospital, surrounded by doctors, nurses – and the douchey new Tony Stark/Peter Parker hybrid that Marvel is pushing as the original Spider-Man these days. Miguel hears the unthinkable – that Tempest is dead, the victim of an apparent attack, and that two other similar attacks took place elsewhere in the country. Miguel swears he will kill whoever was responsible for killing Tempest and wrecking his new-found happiness in the Hickmanverse.
While Mac Gargan and Ty Stone discuss ideas for genetically modified super prison guard torturers, Miguel has Lyla recreate the scene of the attack – and gets a visual on what appears to be a robot driving the car that drove explosives into the restaurant where he and Tempest had been eating. Miggy returns to work and finds out from Raul that the robot design is similar to the work of ‘Doctor Cronos,’ a robotics engineer who taught Doctor Doom about robotics many years ago. When Miguel gets ready to go get some two-fisted justice, Lyla gives him a lecture on revenge. She goes to far though, and changes her form into Tempest, which does nothing but make Miguel more angry. Miguel then armors up (apparently Spider-heroes must armor up now, because Tony Stark reasons) and heads out to find Cronos to get some answers. And maybe a little payback.
At first, Cronos appears like an affable, polite psychopath – initially trying to kill Spidey 2099 with poison. But then the real crazy starts to come out and the fighting jumps up a few notches. Miguel uses the Spider-Armor Spider-Weapons (because Spider-Heroes apparently need those now) to hold his own against Cronos, and the two go back and forth until finally Miguel is ready to end it and just strangle the evil doctor with a webline for Tempest’s death. But Cronos manages to break free and seems to gain a second wind against Miggy.
The fight breaks out of Cronos’s lab and into the street. Miguel sees an opportunity to divert Cronos by faking his own death, then takes the advantage and once again has the baddie on the ground. As Miggy threatens to kill him, Cronos reveals that he works for a terror group called ‘the Fist’ – then he dies as someone elsewhere cuts a cord. Literally, someone cuts a cord with scissors and Cronos croaks.
After the fight, Miguel tries to debrief his boss Tony Stark… err, Peter… about what went down. Eventually he gets tired of talking about it and just shuts the conversation off. Elsewhere, we find out that Tempest is still very much alive in the hospital and being hidden by her very over-protective mother.
ANALYSIS: Solid issues. #2 was a big set-up but we did get a lot of proper angst and resolve from Miguel after Tempest’s “death.” Once again Peter David reminds us of the differences between Miguel and Peter. Peter may get mad enough to threaten to kill someone, but Miguel’s fine with actually doing it if the situation calls for it. Everything about Miguel here in #2 and #3 is on point, and it’s great following his reactions to everything going on around him.
The fight scene in #3 is very entertaining, and Will Sliney does a great job with the battle sequences. Sliney’s art… the angles, the close-ups… a lot of it really seems to reflect what’s going on inside Miguel at the time, and it’s very strong work.
I do have some small gripes though. Why do we have to see Peter in this book? The current Peter is so unfamiliar now… can we just ‘Hold the Peter, Please?’ when it comes to 2099? I really don’t need to see him in here, reminding us of how off the rails Amazing Spider-Man currently is. Also, what’s going on with Liz? Liz’s new level of smart-crazy was one of the strengths of the previous volume of 2099. We need more Liz. Take out Peter, give us Liz.
Another gripe, and I don’t blame Peter David for this so much as editorial. Marvel, please. We beg you. Stop forcing Spider-Armor on us. It’s Spider-Man, not Iron Man. We get it, Alonso. You have an armor fetish. But Spider-fans know full well that Spider-heroes are capable of delivering a beating without having to do Iron Man cosplay. So please, throw away the tin cans and just give us Miggy in a suit.
REVIEW: (#2) B (#3) B+
Solid set-up issue with a nice range of emotion followed by a great fight. 2099 continues to be the best Spider-Man book out on the stands.
–George Berryman!
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The villain of issue #3 reminded me of Mendell Stromm
Nice review! The “Fist” sequence reminded me of the Fates from that Disney Hercules movie, so I wonder if the Fist organization is like the “Fist of Fate”? We’ll see.
And congratulations on the new job, GB. Job hunting sucks. I’m happy for you man
@5 – Oh yeah, I forgot about that last issue of X-Factor where Miguel showed up and revealed that he and the Sereval (?) CEO were both from 2099 and knew each other. Would be nice if that was followed up on.
I get what you mean about the Armors George, but I actually started liking Miguel’s new suit a little more (even if the design pales in comparison to his old suit), once someone compared it to the Batman Beyond suit. Which actually makes a lot of sense when you take into account the boot jets.
Poor Lyla :(.
I can understand your dislike for Secret Wars George, but there were some good minis in it (including RYV, of course). And I include Secret Wars 2099 in that list. Roberta is a really interesting character who’s likely going to have a very interesting dynamic with Miguel, so I’m happy to see her make it into 616. Frankly, she’s a lot better addition to this book then Peter is as Miguel’s handler as he tries to act like a corporate hotshot.
I wonder how you’d feel if PAD brought in the X-Factor team into the book to tie-in to his last run and continue that story?
I do agree, having Peter in the book is sadly bringing it down, despite Peter David’s writing. I was not surprised by Tempest’s fate, especially after David has spent the last two years building up the character and her mother’s. However, do I think this is going to come back to bite Tempest’s mother, oh you got that right. I am growing to like the new costume, but the maker over was a Marvel editorial mandate and note a natural move on Miguel’s character.
What annoys me about seeing Peter is that he is stealing Miguel’s thunder. Peter was the broke spider-man and Miguel is supposed to be the spoiled corporate Spider-man. I am also annoyed that Peter is Miguel’s boss. In the 90s Spider-man 2099 MIguel was head of Alchemax and in the 2014 version he was right under Tiberius Stone. Now he is under a guy like Peter who did not earn his degree and who knows nothing about Business. Miguel has so much experience in the corporate world. I understand that Miguel is pretty unknown in this era but he should be Peter’s boss. It makes little sense for him to be Peter’s right hand man. I just do not buy Peter as a corporate type especially one that is Miguel’s boss. This is just Miguel’s domain. The whole drive of S-man 2099 was corporate take-overs, corporate warfare, and corporate abuse. Stop stealing Miguel’s thunder, Peter!!
Hey Craig. Nah, I haven’t gone back to Byrne-steal the SW2099 stuff. I read that first issue, wasn’t thrilled. Probably not going to check it out. All the SW stuff is anathema to me. I’m aware of CA2099 when she shows up but these moments with her are really just “hey she’s here.” She’s the least intriguing thing to me in this story. I’d prefer we didn’t have SW2099 spillover in the title, same as I’d prefer we not have to keep seeing what passes for Peter now.
George, one thing I haven’t seen you mention in these reviews is the appearance of Roberta, aka Captain America 2099 from the Secret Wars 2099 book. So far she has had very brief appearances so it’s not a big sub-plot, but at least I don’t feel that I totally wasted my money on that book which, like the other SW books, were just What If issues.
Did you go back and Byrne-steal the SW2099 issues to get caught up on her?