Spider-Man Unlimited #10

Story 'A Promise To Keep'

Ben's back in New York while uptown the Vulture gets a massive pain in his head and crashes to the ground. He seems to be returning to his proper age again after the events in ASM #387 where he used Spidey's life-force to make himself younger.

Ben realizes it's the anniversary of Uncle Ben's death and goes to visit the grave. Someone else - an older guy - shows up too to mourn his death. Meanwhile the Vulture swoops down on a guy in the subway and steals his life-force, determined to keep himself young.

The old guy at Ben's grave weeps and tells a story of how Uncle Ben tried to help him out with money for education just before he died. Now his own son, Jimmy, won't go back to a school that he's saved money for and is living life on the wrong side of the tracks. Ben (Reilly) introduces himself as Peter and says maybe he can help.

Elsewhere, Jimmy's in a lot of trouble as his employer has just ordered to go kill someone. Meanwhile, Vulture realizes he can't just keep sucking people's life force and wants a permanent way to stay young. He comes across Jimmy, who's part of a gang put together by his boss Whitten to rob some place which involves killing the guard. Vulture stops them doing so but takes the life-force from them just as Scarlet arrives, saving Jimmy.

Vulture takes the old guard with Scarlet in hot pursuit, He saves the old guy after Vulture dumps him. Jimmy goes back to Whitten, who's annoyed that he wants to quit and that the others are dead. He gives Jimmy a real beating before dumping him at a local hospital.

Colm Mulligan - Kimmy's dad and the guy from the cemetery sees what has happened to his son and leaves to go after Whitten. Scarlet contacts Colm's home and finds out what's happened. Scarlet gets to Whitten's office and stops Mulligan/Whitten from killing each other. He sends Mulligan on his way, then goes after the Vulture. Vulture tries to steal his life-force, but Scarlet is wearing insulation which he figured out would save him from the Vulture's electrical life-stealing invention.

He webs up the Vulture and destroys the device, leaving him for the police. In the epilogue, Jimmy does enroll at ESU and everything's all right.

General Comments

I fail to see how the fourth part ties into the first three or, to a lesser degree how parts two and three link to the first.

This Vulture story isn't that good, although seeing Ben with the scientific skill and knowledge we've seen Peter use is quite good. It's also refreshing to see Mary-Jane with some sort of story of her own (even though it's only around 3 pages in the entire four-part tale).

Overall Rating

I love the art throughout all four parts but I don't like the way the story doesn't connect to each other and I just wasn't drawn into the story-telling.