Sensational Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #26

Story 'The Beasts Within'

Madame Web tells Spidey to go where 'nature's thickest' to find the Lizard and follow him 'to the infection's source'. Spidey deduces she means Central Park and heads off there. His new powers/suit allows him to fly – sort of – it is described as 'ballooning'.

Felicia has left the FF building and run into Puma. He says he has been tracking her and can smell her fear and anger. He tells her to attack him.

Back at the FF building, Reed tells Billy and John Jameson that something external has triggered their transformations into Lizard jnr and Man-Wolf.

Cat and Puma feel as if they're being pulled uptown, while Vermin and Lizard begin to fight elsewhere. Spidey leaps in and the three of them end up falling into a lake. Spidey can apparently breathe underwater now, thanks to his new suit. As Spidey gets out, he thinks he has found the source of the problem – Stegron.

General Comments

Clayton Crain is the penciller on this book – a change from Angel Medina and I love his work. The Vulture, Lizard and Man-Wolf montage across the middle of one of the earlier pages is fabulous. It has a gritty, dirty look, which befits the villains excellently. Spidey's costume looks very good too.

That's the positive – as for the rest … well, nothing really happens. Reed makes a fairly obvious deduction. Vermin and Lizard have a scrap, which looks great but doesn't really achieve much … and Madame Web doesn't really seem to say anything. In fact, there's no real reason for her to be involved. It's a bit of a shame really as the arc was going quite well and Crain's art befits it perfectly. But this is a dead linking issue, of which there seems to be so many around at the moment.

Overall Rating

The mark is for the fabulous art. The writing … it's just filler.