Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #26

Background

Last issue, Peter Parker's wife Mary Jane arrived in Paris and immediately became embroiled in all the craziness that's been going on ever since Peter arrived to help Sarah Stacy recover from her possible attempted suicide. Sarah tried putting the moves on Peter, conveniently just as Mary Jane arrived, which resulted in MJ storming off, and then Sarah disappearing as Peter went after her. And once Mary Jane finally returned, she found herself confronted with Sarah's psychotic twin brother Gabriel...

Story Details

This issue opens with Gabriel hulking before Mary Jane, demanding to know his sister's whereabouts. When MJ replies that she doesn't know, Gabe comes to the conclusion that Mary Jane actually is Sarah, so he carries her up to her room. Meanwhile, Spider-Man arrives at Interpol Headquarters with agent Francois Benoit. Spidey and Benoit exchange information on Sarah, and then the wall-crawler suggests that instead of arrersting Sarah for her crimes, Interpol should work with her to help put away Dupres, the crimelord that Sarah was working for. Benoit is considering the offer when another Interpol agent bursts in and informs them that Mary Jane is in the Stacy House, and she's not alone. Spidey quickly uses his spider-detective skills to determine that the other person in the house must be Gabriel, and he races to help his wife.

Meanwhile, Sarah has gone to kill Dupres. She bursts into his house and easily dispatches all of his security using her superhuman abilities. Sarah and Dupres are at a standoff when his reinforcements arrive and Sarah is forced to flee. Meanwhile, Spider-Man smashes through a window at the Stacy Estate in search of his wife. Spidey quickly finds her, but he also finds Gabe, still under the belief that MJ is Sarah, guarding her with his Green Goblin weapons. Spidey and Gabe briefly tussle, before the web-slinger is able to get Mary Jane safely outside with Gabe following on his goblin glider. But when Gabe asks Mary Jane to fly away with him, she turns her back on him, causing him to fly away as Spider-Man holds his wife.

Spider-Man now races to Dupres' compound, where he discovers Sarah pointing a gun at Dupres head as snipers outside line up for a shot at Sarah. Spidey uses his spider-enhanced people skills to talk Sarah out of executing Dupres, and when she lowers her gun, Spidey embraces her and the cops come in to arrest Dupres. Afterward, Sarah reveals that in exchange for helping Interpol build a case against Dupres, not only will they drop the charges against her, but they will try to help her with her rapid-aging disease. Sarah and Mary Jane have a heart-to-heart and all is forgiven between them. Peter arrives and says his goodbyes with Sarah, and Peter and MJ catch their flight back to New York.

General Comments

Whew, it's finally over! This storyline, written by Samm Barnes, started out as simply being really dull, but the previous issue actually gave it some hope by being so painfully bad that it was actually funny. And I was pleased (I guess) to see that this issue was even more ridiculous than the last. Once again, Peter is practically begging Agent Benoit to figure out his secret identity by standing right in front of him and talking about him as if they're familiar with each other, despite the fact that Agent Benoit has only met Spider-Man. But even worse than that is the conclusion to Spidey's fight with Gabe. After Mary Jane spurns Gabe, he just turns around and flies away on his glider, while Spidey just stands there! Hello??? Great power and great responsibility, where are you?! I mean, it's bad enough that Gabe could potentially go and murder anyone's uncle that he wanted to right now because of Spidey's inaction... But instead of being a common crook, he's a super- powered, delusional offspring of Spidey's greatest nemesis who knows Spidey's secret identity! I would think that the wall-crawler would want this guy off the streets, but maybe that's just me.

As for the rest of this issue, the story, aside from those two points, is not terribly interesting. The art, again by Scot Eaton and Cam Smith, is actually pretty nice once again. Too bad that it's stuck depicting such an awful story.

Overall Rating

One half-web, for having nice art and being the end of a pretty bad story.