Web of Spider-Man 61 - Acts of Vengeance

We come now to the penultimate Spider-Man issue in the crossover, though we'll be seeing Spidey rather more than just one further time in this crossover. However this chapter has all the hallmarks of a filler designed to mark time.

Web of Spider-Man #61

Writer: Gerry Conway
Penciler: Alex Saviuk
Inker: Keith Williams
Letterer: Rick Parker
Colourist: Bob Sharen
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

As noted before, Web of Spider-Man was often the series that didn't seem to know just why it was there and this especially shows here as we get a chapter putting the hero through a classic cycle of quitting his role only to come running back at pretty much the first sign of trouble. It's easy to lose track just how many times this has been done with Spider-Man now. Sometimes it works as part of a broader plot or even relaunch. But at other times it becomes all too simple a plot device. There is admittedly the added complication that he's struggling to handle the additional powers he's gained, but Peter should know all too well by now that no matter how often he tries, he can never ditch the web slinging for good. And it seems his foes know this as well, with both the Kingpin and Doctor Doom doubting the Wizard's reports of what he's heard. Nevertheless the Wizard decides to use a discarded mask as a scent to send Dragon Man to find and destroy Spidey.

(Noting the continuity errors surrounding the leading villains can be tiresome but two things stand out here. Firstly it's not clear how the Wizard could just casually bring Dragon Man to the meeting room and hide him behind a curtain, especially given the Red Skull's failure to bring the Controller into the room. And the Mandarin is wearing his hideous bare-chested costume rather than the blue armour he donned nearly a year earlier and which he wears in most of his other appearances in the crossover.)

The actual fight with Dragon Man is extremely straightforward with Spidey ultimately just exhausting the android's flames before webbing it up, though it's good to see a positive reaction from the people he's saved. But otherwise this issue advances a number of plots, with Doctor Doom trying to assimilate the energy that Tess One absorbed from Spider-Man, a plan that worries the mysterious stranger who assembled the villains. Doom's plans reach a conclusion here but it's such an anti-climax it's as though developments in the main parts of the crossover were suddenly brought up, necessitating a speedy resolution. Elsewhere we get a scene with Mary Jane and her bulimic cousin Kristy. This was a storyline that seems to have started out with good motives, though appears to have been targeting a non-existent part of the audience and so fizzled out. It's a pity as one of the features of Peter and Mary Jane's marriage should have been to introduce complications from the in-laws but Kristy seems to have been about the only one ever used and fading out fast rather than hanging around a good while and becoming another obstacle for the secret identity to navigate.

This issue is clearly just marking time before the conclusion of the cosmic powers story and it's a pity, though it continues to confirm the problems of giving one hero three titles with relatively little to distinguish them.

Web of Spider-Man #61  has been reprinted in:

• Spider-Man: The Cosmic Adventures (1993)
• Acts of Vengeance Omnibus (2011)
• Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Cosmic Adventures (2013)