Did you ever notice...?

I love JM DeMatteis and his work, especially the psychology and depth that he added to the characters. That seems to be a pretty controversial opinion. Not a whole lot of in between. I have to admit, I'm a little uncomfortable with plots that he has used.

• First instance was in Spectacular Spider-Man #182. Spidey is facing off against Vermin, aka Edward Whelan. Edward's memories of his childhood are starting to come back and they aren't nice. It isn't explicitly said, but "the bad thing" that Vermin keeps talking about is sexual abuse by his father. Confronting his mother, he grips her and screams "You..were never there to protect me! All the time..when he was touching me...hurting me...making me so ashamed--where were you, Mommy?!" Spider-Man shows up in time, and Vermin reacts by saying "At last! Someone I can hate...without feeling so confused! Someone I can hate!"
• In Amazing Spider-Man #393, Spidey is dealing with Shriek and Carrion II. Shriek has been having brief flashes of memory to her childhood and some kind of trauma. Carrion, meanwhile, is being forced by Shriek to choose between her and his natural mother. While his mother is afraid of Spider-Man, Carrion realizes that while he doesnt know who to love, he knows he can hate Spider-Man. Later, as Shriek removes the virus from Carrion, she thinks about her childhood. "There was a little girl: Beaten down. Terrified. Abused. And she would hide sometimes, in the old church across the street from her house. Hide in the shadows for a few hours. Forgetting the voices that screamed, the sweaty hands that touched and hit."
• Finally there is Spider-Man The Lost Years #3. Ben Reilly’s new girlfriend, Janine Godard, explained her background. Her real name was Elizabeth Tyne and had murdered her father after years of abuse. The art showed him looking at her ominously as she slept.

Okay, so we have some pretty heavily implied incest in these stories. Yet there is one more aspect of Amazing #393 that I noticed. I kinda felt like a perv for thinking of it as a teenager, but I still cant ignore it. The scene where Shriek extracts the virus from Carrion seems oddly sexual. Before she tries to cure him, she says she loves him. She then straddles him and the wordless panels that follow do kinda look sexual. The virus is then absorbed by Shriek and Malcolm is cured of being Carrion. In a later issue, Shriek is locked away at the asylum, caring for the virus inside her like a pregnancy. (Spectacular Spider-Man #223) The only time that she could have gotten "pregnant" was in that ambiguous scene. Keep in mind, Shriek and Carrion call each other "mother" and "son" throughout the story. Incest has been a theme in DeMatties stories before, so it makes me wonder if he hid even more under our noses.

Finally, in a plot that was never resolved, Mary Jane was stalked by Mad Jack. While drawing back the curtains at May’s home, she saw the leering face of a flaming pumpkin head. Shutting the curtains in terror, she soon looked back out the window and saw nothing. Little did she know, the madman was waiting on top of the roof. (Spectacular Spider-Man #241) In a later issue, Mad Jack met with another bad guy named Conundrum, who had kidnapped the daughter of a Middle Eastern ambassador. Conundrum wanted to trade the daughter for the Hand of Mumthazi, a ruby. Jack had already stolen it but was willing to trade it in exchange for the girl. Conundrum laughed and said he always had a soft spot for women. That’s when Prodigy (Spider-Man) arrived. (Spectacular Spider-Man #257) That was the last time Jack’s amorous intentions showed up. Keep in mind that this happened after Mary Jane was nearly assaulted by the Chameleon. (Spectacular Spider-Man #245)

So, during DeMatties time writing Spectacular Spider-Man, he used themes of rape and incest quite a bit. If you'll excuse me I need a shower.