Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #166

Background

The Arranger is having problems with his former boss, the Kingpin. Spider-Man is an unfortunate piggy-in-the-middle.

Story 'The deadly lads from Liverpool'

Beetle in the first issue, lads from Liverpool in the third... a good and subtle pun.

Peter goes to Thomas Firehart to get him to pay his trip to London, settling his debt of honor. Thomas agrees to pay it, but he says the debt won't be settled.

At the airport, Peter says his goodbyes to MJ, and she meets a fellow actor there, Jason Jerome, who she hadn't met in a long time. They go and have lunch together, with Jason apparently having second intentions.

In London, Peter has a few scenes with a stereotypical cab driver, a stereotypical bunch of back robbers, a stereotypical British audience and a stereotypical Scotland Yard. The latter, inspector MacDougal, fills him in on Knight and Fogg's life. You can check the details in our Knight and Fogg profile, but the most relevant is: Malcolm and Leo Knight were adopted by an old drunk named Edgar Fogg. His son, Thomas, befriended Malcolm. They were two terrors as kids. Leo was a good boy. Malcolm only listened to Evelyn Fogg, the big sister, but Thomas' hold on him was stronger. As they grew, they became mercenaries and murderers. When they were sent to kill a scientist, one of his experiments bited back, and they were reduced to quantum particles and reconstructed. Fogg became a mist ghost and Knight a mediaval armored knight. Don't you just hate it when characters are named after their powers, long before they ever get them? Anyway, MacDougal tells him to go find them in Liverpool.

In Liverpool, Spidey watches as a drunk Edgar Fogg is carried home by his daughter Evelyn while he badmouths her and Thomas (Fogg). Meanwhile, Fogg (Thomas) ambushes Spidey from behind. The Spider-Sense is fuzzy again, and Spidey can't react while both Fogg and Knight grab a hold of him. Just when Knight is about to impale him, Evelyn screams to the unknown creature not to kill that man. So, Knight, instead of impaling him throws Spidey to the Mersey (River -- they were on a bridge). Spidey plunges unable to react, he bumps his head on a barge and hits the water, sinking. MJ wakes up from that nightmare, not knowing it wasn't a nightmare...

MJ is an oracle??? Heh.

Peter wakes up in a barge. The captain pulled him out of the river. He's undressed, covered in a blanket and he can't remember his name.

Oh, and some kid is serving him something hot, yet they keep Peter lying down in the upper deck. What the?...

General Comments

This is really average stuff. Average, heading down towards mediocre.

Overall Rating

Two and a half webs.