Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #25

Background

During the first two installments of "Sins Remembered: Sarah's Story", Peter Parker has traveled to Paris to be with the daughter of Gwen Stacy and Norman Osborn, Sarah Stacy, after she may or may not have tried to kill herself. But Sarah is surrounded by shady happenings, such as mysterious people spying on her and Peter, and thugs attacking her in the subway. And to make matters even more complicated, Peter's wife Mary Jane has now arrived in Paris as well...

Story Details

This issue opens with Peter and Sarah picnicking when Peter's spider-sense alerts him to a sniper about to fire. Peter on top of Sarah to protect her as the sniper fires. Sarah makes a flirty comment, and Peter swings off in pursuit of the gunner. Meanwhile, at Charles De Gaulle Airport, Mary Jane is being watched by a mystery man.

Back with Peter and Sarah, Sarah leads Peter down a series of hidden tunnels that allow them to gain entry to the Stacy Estate undetected from whomever was shooting at them. Sarah insists that the gunner was simply trying to scare her, but Peter is skeptical. Back at the airport, Mary Jane meets a man named Luc Beldron who offers to help MJ find Sarah's house. Luc ushers Mary Jane into a cab, while the man who was watching her before watches helplessly as they escape.

Back at the Stacy Estate, Sarah is telling Peter about her childhood. It seems that Sarah and her twin brother Gabriel got mixed up with a circle of criminals. Sarah and Gabe used their superhuman abilities working for a man named Dupres, and they received money that they spent on the drugs for their headaches. But eventually Gabe got the idea to double-cross Dupres by stealing his drugs and selling them himself. Sarah wanted no part of this idea, but once Gabe disappeared (during the events of "Sins Past" in Amazing Spider-Man), Dupres' men came looking for her.

Meanwhile, the men tracking Mary Jane have followed her and Luc to the Stacy Estate. Peter and Sarah are arguing inside, but Peter manages to calm her down by saying how much he cares for her. Sarah misunderstands as kisses him, just as Mary Jane walks into the room. Peter freaks out, Mary Jane freaks out, and Sarah is stunned. Peter tells her that he cares for her like a sister and then chases MJ down before she can leave. Peter tries to convince Mary Jane that nothing's going on, but when MJ discovers that Peter has been staying at the Stacy house, she gets fed up and leaves. Sarah, meanwhile, is infuriated with Mary Jane for coming to her house and ruining everything. She goes into a hidden room to see her brother Gabriel, who apparently has been there all along. Gabe is complaining of the same headaches that plague his sister, and after a moment, he doesn't even recognize her any longer. He lashes out at Sarah, but she manages to clamp some chains on her brother to restrain him.

With Mary Jane gone, Peter goes looking for Sarah, but cannot find her in the house, so he puts on his Spidey togs and goes looking for her. Meanwhile, Mary Jane is out for dinner with Luc Beldron, but when look tries putting the moves on her, MJ sneaks out the bathroom window, and once again inadvertently escapes the man from the airport that had been following her. Back outside the Stacy Estate, Spider-Man decides to confront the man that he's spotted several times lurking outside the house. It turns out that he's an Interpol agent named Francois Benoit. Spidey tells Francois that he's here to help Sarah and her friend Peter Parker, and Francois says that he has some information that the web-slinger might find useful, so the two of them drive off. Once they leave, Mary Jane wanders back to the Stacy house. She goes inside calling for Peter or Sarah, but instead she finds only an enraged Gabriel...

General Comments

Ugh, this keeps getting worse. I'll talk about the art first before I start picking apart the story. Penciler Scot Eaton and inker Cam Smith do the same serviceable job this issue that they've done in the first two. Their work isn't bad, but it's not great either.

Now, as for that story, it hasn't been terribly interesting so far, and it doesn't get any better here. Samm Barnes' script is still fairly dull and uninspired, but now some of the plot points are getting simply outlandish. First, Peter has been living under the same roof for the last couple days with someone who fairly recently put on a goblin costume and tried to kill him. I realize that Peter is far from being a detective, but I think that his spider- sense might give him just a bit of a warning blip. Secondly, Mary Jane storms off after seeing another woman kiss her husband. Okay, fair enough, but MJ saw how Peter reacted to the kiss, and MJ knows that Sarah is actually much younger and immature than she looks. I would have thought she would come to her senses a little before Luc tried seducing her. And finally, Spider-Man tells an Interpol agent that he's in France looking out for Peter Parker, who's also in France. I had no problem with Peter Parker web-slinging around France because, like he said, no one knows him there. But when Spidey establishes a connection to Peter Parker with someone working for one of the foremost intelligence agencies in the world, it just seems to me that he's being pretty cavalier with his secret identity. I think Spidey would know better than that (in fact, I can think of a couple occasions off the top of my head where Spidey's taken much better precautions than that to protect his identity when he's in another country), and I think Ms. Barnes should have known better than that.

Overall Rating

I can't wait for the next issue... because hopefully this story will end there. One web.