Slott (w) and Ramos (p) and Olazaba (i) and Delgado (c) and Eliopoulos (l)
Parker Industries is trying to work out ways to safely capture Electro, including an electric proof net (which is such a cartoon idea. In fact, it's so cartoon that it's something Team Rocket constantly uses), but again Peter is quick to disappear when an Avengers call comes in, to the concern of Anna Maria and to the frustration of Sajani. She storms off and is taken by the onlooking Black Cat, who has stolen some of the plans for the Electro capture tech and needs someone to help her understand them. Meanwhile, Peter arrives at the ORIGINAL SIN storyline, thrilled to be hanging out with his Avengers pals again, as the truth bomb reveals to him that there was another person bitten by the spider that bit him. Ezekiel Sims, totem of the spider and convinced that Peter is too, found young Cindy Moon and had her locked away while she trained and explored her powers, claiming to do it to stop Morlun from finding and killing her. Peter races to go save his totem sister and lets her out of the room she's in, telling her Morlun is dead. As Cindy, codename Silk, excitedly joins Peter out in the world, he admits that Morlun has a way of coming back from the dead and she flips out on him, proving that her skills are maybe even a little more advanced than his. Indeed, though, Morlun does wake from some sort of slumber, awakened by "the spider-bride." And then Peter and Cindy make out. PRETTY AGGRESSIVELY, YOU GUYS.We're four issues back with Peter and it remains very clear that Dan Slott loves writing the true Peter Parker. He should, too, he's pretty good at it. There's always a sense of fun and, dare I say, whimsy to the character under Slott's direction. The other thing Slott always manages to do really well with Peter, even if it doesn't always look like it's heading that way, is construct a story that feels rather like it's closing in on our hero at all times. There are always wheelings, dealing, stealings, healings, and feelings that Peter isn't privy to but that the audience sees from issue to issue and that tend to culminate all at once. That's happening pretty blatantly here and it's entirely possible, maybe even likely, that it will wind its way towards an excellent conclusion. However, it's also possible that it will remain as skeptical-eyebrow-raising and frustrating as it is now. There are still moments to enjoy in this issue but the Black Cat/Electro storyline makes very little sense to me (with Black Cat on some sort of crazed revenge fantasy and Electro just crazed, seemingly to correlate with the worst parts of the last Spider-Man movie) and it's clearly making its way into the spotlight. On top of that, I've never been a big supporter of the Spider Mythology sort of storyline that the series occasionally heads back to. I like Peter Parker and I think his longevity and his appeal, part of it anyway, comes from the fact that he's just an average guy who gained these powers and, after a brief hiccup of being a jerk, realizes he has a responsibility to use his powers to help, not for self-profit. The totem stuff makes it feel that he's not an everyman, he's a very specific man and he was chosen to be Spider-Man, not that he himself chose to be Spider-Man. I think it weakens his story and plays more to the idea of fate rather than choice, which rather feels like the opposite of Spider-Man's story. LOOK, what I'm trying to say is that it's kind of weird that the Spider would have these two make out.
Total Score: 2/5
Daredevil 6
Waid (w) and J. Rodriguez (p) and A. Lopez (i) and J. Rodriguez (c) and Caramagna (l)
Daredevil's been ORIGINAL SIN'd and he's learned, perhaps, that there was more than meets the eye to his father, or, in the very least, that he'd repressed some seriously bad memories of the man who has stood so tall over Matt's life. Memories rush back to him of a beaten and bruised mother with Battlin' Jack standing over her and he has to know the truth. He tries to track his mother, a nun, only to learn that she and two other nuns have been arrested and await extradition to Wakanda for trial after trespassing and graffiti-ing on private Wakandan property. Matt can't believe the story and moreover can't believe the extreme punishment for what amounts to a tiny infraction. He attempts to investigate but is shut down in every direction, eventually leading him to stay silent in a closet in the Wakandan embassy for hours in the hopes of hearing some hint of the proceedings. Eventually he does, learning that there's a coverup from the American military involved as well. He confronts the Wakandan and an army general only find himself stopped dead in his tracks by a waiting sonic. The Wakandan informs him that Wakanda has purchased the land onto which his mother trespassed, making it officially Wakandan soil and therefore any crimes committed are to be treated as crimes against Wakanda, dealt with however they want. With perhaps more than a hint of WATCHMEN, the Wakandan tells Matt that he's only giving out this information because there's nothing the hero can do about it as the nuns were sent on a plane an hour ago.Let me say this first: I think the Wakandan storyline, while a bit farfetched because of my biases towards Wakandan and the idea that Black Panther wouldn't check his cellphone once in a while from someone who he's been so close to in the past as Daredevil, is a fairly interesting one. I think pitting Matt against such a powerful nation on behalf of his rarely-seen mother is an intriguing storyline. I think that the abusive father storyline, while not necessarily unexpected out of a down-and-out boxer, is perhaps a bit overdone in the Marvel Universe as a whole. Not to say it's not pertinent or meaningful for the character, particularly one like Matt who rather sees his father through rose-colored glasses (because ALL OF HIS GLASSES ARE ROSE-COLORED, though I suppose he doesn't really see through them so never mind, my bit is ruined). Still, I couldn't help saying "aww, nooo" when the reveal was made. Again, it's not necessarily unexpected and it's not exactly farfetched (it may not even be the first time this has been seen from Battlin' Jack, I'm not sure) but it did kind of make me go "aw, can't we just have one character without daddy issues?" I'm not saying this to minimize the horror and wrongness of abuse (particularly in the light of Ravens running back Ray Rice's minuscule two-game suspension for pretty clear and public spousal abuse and the terrible comments from the terrible people on the ESPN comment sections on any articles referring to it) but rather to shine it as something of an overused trope in fiction (important to remember they could just as easily have not made Jack hit Maggie as these aren't real people with real histories) which makes the actual act seem less flagrant by its overwhelmingly abundant usage. LOOK, maybe when I make a real statement of some sort, I shouldn't conflate it by adding two long parenthetical statements in the middle. LOOK, maybe we're all just learning that now?
Total Score: 3/5
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