* (one of five stars)
Favorite Quote: [This space intentionally left empty.]
Summary
Spidey faces down the Horizon Lizards...only to discover them acting completely docilely. Sajani informs him that humans and lizards aren't natural enemies, so it makes sense that they're not attacking. Spidey hears gunshots and follows the sound to Carlie, who tells him that she had just fired some warning shots at the Horizon Lizards approaching her. When Spidey tells her what Sajani said, Carlie wonders why then the Lizard has been trying to kill Spidey for years. Spidey hypothesizes that it was Dr. Connors driving the aggression, just in time to spot "Dr. Connors" holding the Lizard Formula. The Lizard exposits that he had decided not to revert to his Lizardform, but realizes that he now has no choice lest Spidey capture and imprison him. He injects himself with the Formula and Spidey realizes that, when he completely resumes his Lizardform, he'll be able to control all the other Horizon Lizards. He webs up the still-transforming "Dr. Connors" and makes a break for an exit, instructing Carlie to see if she can figure out a way to cure everyone. Spidey uses the Lizard as a battering ram to bust through the security panels and suddenly finds himself confronting him at South Street Seaport. The Lizard reveals a new form, one that he calls his final one, and attacks Spidey.
In Horizon, Carlie informs the non-Lizarded Horizon members that she has a copy of Dr. Connors' final formula; Sajani and Uatu agree to help reverse engineer an antidote. Meanwhile, the Lizard begins attacking everyone around him, cursing humanity for its ability to feel, touch, taste, and enjoy things that he can't as a lizard. He tells Spidey that he hates him most of all, throwing him into Horizon's outside wall. Uatu appears in the hole that Spidey created and hands him one of Morbius' harpoons, filled with the cure as well as a sonic agitator, necessary to dissolve the metal once injected. Spidey engages the Lizard, realizing that he has to inject the cure into his brain, something that could kill him. With Madame Web watching, wondering if he will "forever cut another's skein from the great web of life," Spidey realizes that the Lizard will kill the people around him if Spidey doesn't stop him. He decides that saving dozens is worth the risk, leading Madame Web to comment, "It's decided." However, before he can attack, the Lizard attacks him. Suddenly, the Lizard gets distracted when everyone around him appears as Billy or Martha and Spider-Man appears as Dr. Connors himself. Spidey realizes that part of the Lizard wants him to use the antidote, since, by viewing Spidey as Dr. Connors, he's obscuring the fact that Spidey's holding the harpoon with the cure (since it's in the hand that the Lizard sees as Dr. Connors' missing arm). Seeing his moment, Spidey injects the LIzard, who survives, telling Spidey that he failed, that he's "not human." Spidey visits the Lizard later, expressing relief that he's alive, even though he claims that the men harbored at the Raft mean "nothing" to him.
At Horizon, Max brings Hector to his office, telling him that he needs to conduct a private investigation into who stole the Spider-Jammer schematics. (Earlier, he had noted both Peter and Stone were absent during the brouhaha.)
The Review
I think I'm giving Dan Slott the worst review I've ever given him. But, truthfully, the last two issues of the Lizard arc have just been an absolute mess. I really got the sense that Slott phoned in this issue, half-heatedly presenting several interesting ideas but failing to connect the necessary dots to make them work. I'd normally be a little more tolerant of that, but the problem is that the end result of this mess is Slott destroying the new Lizard, who was one of the more interesting characters to emerge from "Brand New Day."
The Unknown
1) We never really got a sense whether anyone realized Peter's identity, the threat that theoretically drove Spidey to Horizon in the first place (not that he knew that). In fact, it's now unclear whether the revelation of Peter's identity was the "threat" that led Madame Web to suggest that he return to Horizon immediately or if it she was merely trying to create the scenario where he would have to face his decision whether to inject the Lizard with the harpoon. So, either she had his best interests at heart and it resulted in an unfortunate side-event or she's really just fucking with him. At any rate, I'm over Madame Web. But, at some point, Slott has to address the identity issue.
2) I'm not really sure how we're supposed to view Spidey's mental health. Slott was starting to set up the idea that Pete was losing his grip on reality. But, here, he seems pretty in control, even if he's embraced a darker view of villains that he usually does. Slott tries to pin it on his guilt over Silver Sable, with Spidey pondering why he would sacrifice Sable to save the world but wouldn't sacrifice the Lizard to save dozens. But, Spidey knows Sable isn't dead; Madame Web told him that last issue. Does he not believe Madame Web? Or, is he still carrying around that guilt, regardless if she's alive? I think Slott had to be a lot clearer on that point, since this whole new attitude towards villains seems to rely on it. Of course, I'm not actually convinced that we're going to see this view persist, since I don't think Slott has a license to change Spidey into, say, Batman. But, we'll see, I guess.
The Bad
1) Last issue, the Horizon Lizards were all clearly aggressive, ready to attack the Horizon humans. Then, suddenly, this issue they become all docile. Slott gives a totally bogus explanation, claiming that a switch in their behavior never really happened, since lizards aren't naturally aggressive against humans. However, they were certainly portrayed as threatening last issue and not just asking people for belly rubs. Annoying.
2) I don't buy the Lizard's sudden embrace of humanity. OK, video games and flavored Doritos are great, but I don't know if they're so great that they would convince the Lizard to give up his reptilian self. After all, the new Lizard (the one we've seen since "Shed") has essentially been a reptilian supremacist. He spends one day as a human and he abandons that position? I feel like Slott needed to do more work than just the somewhat goofy events of last issue to convince me that the Lizard really had a change of heart.
3) I also don't know if I buy Slott's depiction of the nature of the Dr. Connors/Lizard relationship. Slott wants us to believe that the Lizard side of the duo was never the violent one. Instead, we're supposed to believe that it was Dr. Connors' rage of the lost of his arm, wife, and then son that drove his aggression. I'm not sure that I buy that assertion in no small part because Slott contradicts himself at the end, when we see Dr. Connors in control of the Lizard...and acting docile. Clearly something intrinsic to the Lizard's reptilian pscyhe brought out aggression. When the Lizard was in control of Dr. Connors, he was aggressive. When Dr. Connors is in control of the Lizard, he's not. That seems to directly refute the idea that Connors is the aggressive one.
4) I felt like Slott really overhyped this idea that Peter was somehow willing to kill the Lizard. I get where he was going with it, since injecting the harpoon into the Lizard's brain clearly had the possibility of killing him. Pete certainly acknowledges as much as he's contemplating doing so. Sure, he goes to a dark place when he reasons that it was worth trying because, if the Lizard wound up dying, it wouldn't be any great loss to the world. But, if he really thought that he should kill the Lizard, he could've just, you know, killed the Lizard. Instead, he's still trying to save the Lizard, just acknowledging that the remedy might actually be lethal. Again, it was one of the parts of this issue that I felt like Slott could've made it work if he had just put some more effort into it.
5) I don't understand why Morbius' cure would work on the Lizard in the sense that Dr. Connors has now regained control over the Lizard. Morbius' antidote wasn't a psychotropic drug intended to stimulate a different part of the Lizard's brain; it was intended to address the physical transformation of Dr. Connors into the Lizard. I don't see how the cure would return Dr. Connors to control, even if it was injected into the Lizard's brain. Sure, Dr. Connors "disappeared" when he ate Billy; but, it was a psychotic break, not some sort of auto-immune response. It's not like he was locked into a metaphoric cage and the antidote suddenly provided the needed key.
6) Am I supposed to believe that Max doesn't know exactly who stole the Spider-Jammer schematics? After all, at some point he's going to realize that someone re-set the security system. Given that he knows that Stone had access to the system, it seems pretty reasonable to believe that he's already come to that conclusion. Am I supposed to believe that he's going to blame Peter? Of course, it's hard to take this whole storyline seriously, because I still can't believe that Max would've just left them IN HIS DESK.
The Really Bad
Are you fucking kidding me with the Roderick Kingsley switch? Phil Urich killing "Roderick Kingsley" was one of the most spectacularly unexpected twists in comics, giving Slott's entire run a certain inevitable energy from the start. Undoing this event feels like a betrayal in a way, like everything we've read over Slott's run has been a lie. I might be overstating the case, but it doesn't help that he presents this twist in the same issue that he turns the bad-ass new Lizard into the weak-willed old Lizard. Both developments feel like a definite step in the wrong direction.
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