Ultimate Spider-Man #98

Background

Peter breaks up with his girlfriend and best friend Mary Jane - because of his overwhelming fear that she will die because of his crime-fighting career - and soon starts dating Kitty Pryde, of the world-famous mutant team, the X-Men.

Peter tries to maintain his friendship with MJ, and on a casual mall outing with her, Peter confronts a rambling, mysterious man in a scorpion suit - with destructive powers to match.

Spider-Man's fight with the Scorpion ends with Spidey unmasking the villain, only to discover that the Scorpion is - impossibly - Peter Parker... or at least an identical twin...

Several weeks ago, Spider-Man had started up a casual friendship with Johnny Storm of the now well-known science adventurers, the Fantastic Four... and as Mary Jane heads back home, Peter sets his sights towards the FF's headquarters, the Baxter Building.

Story Details

The Fantastic Four are at the Baxter Building. Spider-Man arrives with the Scorpion. Reed examines him and concludes it's a 94% match to Peter Parker. Spider-Man unmasks, and yells what's he going to do? Reed asks General Fury whether his S.H.I.E.L.D. has been doing any cloning. The answer is no. Peter looks at the time, and heads home in a hurry. Leaving the Scorpion behind.

Afraid to confront his aunt May for being late again, Peter thinks of an excuse. But it's not really an issue for Mary Jane has gone missing. As Peter rushes to MJ's home, he find her mother there. Unseen to Peter but visible to the reader are hand and foot prints on the outside wall, near the bedroom window. Peter than rushes to a warehouse where MJ would like to go to, to write in her journal.

At the warehouse, he's met by a lady dressed in a black Spidey suit. Although masked, she looks like MJ. They fight. The masked lady then knocks out Peter when she shoots webbing from her finger tips. She then leaves.

When Peter is awake, he calls for MJ. It's no use, so he goes to his old house, trying to find her there. The door is open, inside he finds Gwen.

Then we see Mary Jane in a glass prison. A shadowy figure observes her, he knows how to protect her. MJ calls him by the name of Peter and asks where they are. The last page shows the outside of the Oscorp building.

General Comments

I was very tempted to write the review like this: Meet FF, run away, meet aunt May, run away, meet Mrs. Watson, run away, meet MJ clone, fight, run away, meet Gwen clone, show cliffhanger. And add the following ingredients to the mix for additional flavor: get scared, unmask and S.H.I.E.L.D. Also, do not bother to talk about what happened to aunt May a few issues back, leave that plot line for later.

But if I were to keep the review that short, you surely wouldn't want to read the issue. Please, pick it up yourself and read it. What actually happened that needed that much space? You tell me.

Overall Rating

Oh no, they did it again. Last issue had potential, this one was a major let down. To me, this was just an issue to stretch the story, thus nicely filling the TPB edition in a few months time. I was going to give it only 2 webs, but the absence of Kitty Pride scored +0.5.