Amazing Spider-Girl #28

Background

After being forced out of her own body, then forced to inhabit Araña's body while she tries to make sense out of what has happened, May Parker has returned to her own body just in time to find herself fighting the Black Tarantula. Meanwhile, Norman Osborn has possessed Peter Parker and the Brand New May is also on the loose. Just another day on the job for the Amazing Spider-Girl.

Story 'Grim, be My Goblin!'

Araña's betrayal of Black Tarantula has sent him into a violent rage, and he is so consumed with anger that he has failed to notice that May is inhabiting her own body again. As May's personal "spirit guide" looks on, it is all Spider-Girl can do to stay out of BT's way until he mentions that Araña kissed him. Thinking quickly, May jumps over and kisses BT, which stuns him long enough for him to catch his own ricocheting eye blast. BT finally realizes who he has been fighting, and begs May's forgiveness.

Araña, meanwhile, has come back to her own body just in time to stop herself from a potentially fatal fall. Catching herself on an oh-so-convenient flagpole, Araña shoots back up into the sky to catch a rapidly departing Spider-Girl (actually, the Brand New May.) Araña figures out quickly that this Spider-Girl is the imposter. As the two fight, Araña tries to rip off her mask and catches a glimpse of what is underneath. "Those eyes--but you can't be a s--" The Brand New May catches Araña with a brutal right cross, knocking her out of the fight.

After a quick stop home to regroup and make sure that her duplicate hadn't hurt her family, Spider-Girl reunites with BT as they crash the hideout of the Goblin Cult. They meet René DeJunae, who tells BT (under duress) that Peter Parker is at Osborn Chemical. What he does not tell Black Tarantula is that Normie Osborn called earlier and offered to turn himself over for Peter Parker.

At Osborn Chemical, Normie and his friends have set up an ambush for Fury when she arrives. They are taken aback, however, by the appearance of Peter Parker. This hesitation is their undoing, as the Osborn-possessed Parker tears through Phil Urich in his Goblin outfit, Darkdevil, and is tearing into Kaine when Spider-Girl arrives alone (Black Tarantula has gone off in search of Araña.) Kaine frantically warns Spider-Girl to leave, but she springs into action and pummels the Goblin... until he lifts his mask and reveals himself to be her possessed father. Stunned, Spider-Girl is taken off guard by a gas attack and cannot defend herself as the Goblin nearly kicks her to death.

The Goblin doesn't finish May off, but boasts that he is heading over to her house to murder her family. "If I win, Mommy and Benjy die. Or you could just try to stop me by killing dear old DAD!" As the Goblin flies away, Spider-Girl shoots a strand of webbing at the glider and lets it pull her off the rooftop. As they near her house, Spider-Girl shoots another strand at a nearby chimney and brings the glider to a halt... just long enough for Spider-Girl to let go of the second strand and snap herself into the Goblin's back. The two crash through the roof of May's house. Spider-Girl recovers herself long enough to tell her mother to run, but ignores her spider sense and takes a blow to the back of her head.

She turns to face the Green Goblin and the Brand New May allied against her.

General Comments

Well, we went a whole issue without any new body-switching incidents. Thankfully.

This was a better issue than the last two largely because the plot is starting to come to fruition and as a result we're seeing more butt kicking. The scenes of Peter tearing through his daughter's allies are chilling, and Frenz and Buscema play the whole scenario out for all it's worth. A nice touch was Peter's horrified face in the pupil of the Goblin's eye as he was bludgeoning Spider-Girl. Little things like that can really make a story better.

Finally some new information about the Brand New May, though only enough to tease us for the big reveal in the next issue. Frankly, BNM has been little more than an afterthought of late; since that scene when she humiliates Gene Thompson in ish #25, we've barely seen her. Too much time spent trying to figure out who is in whose body. I honestly think the BNM's story over the space of the last three issues would have been more interesting than what we've seen. Maybe TPTB can devote a story in Amazing Spider-Man Family to the clone's exploits between ish #25 and now.

I wish I could like this storyline more, but the biggest problem with it (aside from all of the hokey possession bits) is that we've seen this whole Goblin-Spider thing played out too many times of late. I'm tired of hearing about "the Osborn legacy" or "the true heir to Norman Osborn" and Scriers and the Goblin Cult and all of it. It's been done to death. We've read these kinds of stories before and, frankly, there are much better versions of them than what we've seen in this book of late.

Overall Rating

Two and one half webs. Better than last ish, but still below par.