"Dark Reign: Mr. Negative" #1-#3

**** (four of five stars)

Favorite Quote:  "Aahhh...using a street-light to take out Lightmaster.  'It's like rain on your wedding day!'"  -- a corrupted Spidey, who still has excellent taste in music despite being, you know, evil

Summary

The White Dragon tries to shake down Mr. Negative, telling him he has to turn over 65 percent of his profits to the Hood.  Instead, Mr. Negative corrupts him and sends him to attack the Hood in his hideout.  Meanwhile, Betty Brant exposits Martin Li's history:  he was the only survivor of a ship of smuggled Chinese immigrants that ran ashore outside New York City, who later converted his Chinatown garment shop into a financial empire and became one of the nation's leading philanthropists.  However, Betty discovers, on a deep background trip to his home province in China, that Li has a secret:  his wife is living in close to poverty in Chinatown.  The Hood uses his connection to Osborn to get H.A.M.M.E.R. to lock down Chinatown and sends in a bunch of his B- and C-list hoods to take down Mr. Negative's operations.  Aunt May is on the phone with Martin Li when he breaks off communication to address the issue and calls Peter in her worry.  Spidey goes to rescue Li, who instead corrupts him, just as the Hood's squad arrives at his front door.  Spidey makes quick work of the B- and C-list hoods and Mr. Negative sends Hammerhead on a special mission to deliver a canister to Norman Osborn.  Betty visits Li's wife and is close to her revealing her secret before she instead flees.  Betty follows her to Martin Li's home, where Li's wife tells Mr. Negative that she didn't tell Betty anything.  Mr. Negative sends Spidey to take care of Betty while he then battles the Hood.  Betty escapes Spidey and finds Mrs. Li, who tells her that the Martin Li the world knows is not her husband.  Meanwhile, Mr. Negative exposits his story to the Hood, revealing that he was in fact one of the smugglers (not smuggled) on the doomed ship, and he stole the Li identity from one of the victims who died in the crossing.  Spidey threatens to kill Betty until Peter recognizes her and shakes off the corruption.  The Hood is called by Osborn, who tells him to call off his attack, later revealing that the canister that Hammerhead couriered contained proof of Oscorp's experimentation on the illegal Chinese workers.  As such, Osborn agrees to let Mr. Negative keep operating.  Betty eventually visits Li at the site of reconstruction of many of his properties, where he reveals his plans to rebuild so he can keep doing good.

The Review

This mini-series is awesome.  Seriously, it's fast-paced and action-packed.  It keeps you guessing and makes you think.  But, I don't understand one thing:  why wasn't this story told in "Amazing Spider-Man?"  I read this mini-series two years after it was published, because I hadn't realized it existed at the time I was making my way through the "Amazing Spider-Man" back issues.  A lot of the questions that nagged me about Mr. Negative (though not all, I'll note) are answered in this mini-series.  I don't understand why the editors decided to shunt so many of the new characters introduced in "Brand New Day" outside "Amazing Spider-Man."  For example, Jackpot is handled almost entirely outside the core series:  she's killed in Annual #35 and her replacement (or predecessor, depending on how you look at it) is active only in her own three-issue mini-series.  Did they just wind up being too ambitious so they had to move these stories to the side?  Anyway, I hated pretty much everything about Fred Van Lente's run on the core series, but he's pretty great here, so it's a shame I didn't get to see this side of his talent earlier.  If, like me, you haven't read this mini-series because you didn't know about it, I highly recommend it.

The Good

1) Van Lente clears up A LOT about Mr. Negative here.  We discover that he was actually a human smuggler who took on the identity of one of his victims (who had died in transit).  It's revealed that he got his powers as part of the same Maggia-sponsored testing done on Cloak and Dagger (a brilliant twist), which also explains his vendetta against the Maggia.  We even get confirmation that Oscorp was experimenting on the Chinese sweat-shop workers, revealing that they appear to have been, in fact, the same groups of people as the ones freed by Spider-Man during "New Ways to Die!"  (See "Amazing Spider-Man Extra!" #2 for my questions about that.  Also:  man, Norman Osborn is a bastard.)  I still don't understand why these revelations come here and not in the core title, but at least we got 'em!

2) The series is really well paced.  It never got dull and it never moved too fast.

3) Norman's interaction with the kid who has to go potty is just effing brilliant.  Applause, Mr. Van Lente, applause.

4) Gugliotta's art is beautiful.  If only he drew Spidey more often!

The Bad

1) Some questions still remain, however.  We know that Martin Li, garment-factory owner, was not actually Martin Li, Mr. Negative.  However, it seems a stretch to make us believe that a small-time human smuggler really embraced his role as a garment-factory owner and converted himself into a billionaire.  I mean, sure, it's America, but it still seems a lot for us to believe.  Even if he was supplementing his income with his illegal activities as Mr. Negative, the core business' books would have to be somewhat clean or someone would've discovered the truth.

2) it had previously seemed that Martin Li might have been aware that he was Mr. Negative (see "New Ways to Die!" and "Amazing Spider-Man:  Extra!" #2) but the ending of this issue makes it seem like he didn't know (though Mr. Negative knows about Martin Li).  I don't know if I buy this whole "do good, do evil" dual-personality schtick.  It's an interesting concept, but I'm not sure Van Lente totally sells it here.

3) So, what does Betty write?  After learning that Martin Li isn't Martin Li, she appears really chummy with him at the end.  She seems to imply that she's going to write what she's learned, but I don't think we ever see the end result in "Amazing Spider-Man."  It seems weird that her investigation into Martin Li is basically the framework for the issue, but then we just kind of drop it at the end.

4) Mr. Negative expositing his origin to the Hood was a little eye-roll inducing, but it's hard to hold it against Van Lente, since it's not like he's the only one guilty of it.