*** (three of five stars)
Favorite Quote: "Look straight down that way, you can see the theater district all lit up. Y'know, I hear they're finally closing 'The Fantastiks.'" -- Gabe to Kasey (theater humor!)
Summary
Announcing himself as "Travesty," Sgt. Estevez attacks Miguel, telling him that he became this "travesty" in order to kill Spider-Man in revenge for him ruining his life. Miguel avoids Travesty's blows and fires off some one-liners, but he's really wondering what he did to inspire Travesty to become the monster that he's become and if all the good that he's done as Spider-Man is going to be outdone by inspiring this "unspeakable, monstrous evil." Angela tries to get Travesty to focus on Headhunter and the Corporate Raiders, reminding Sgt. Estevez that Spider-Man has solid "anti-corp" cred and hypothesizing that he's at Nightshade because he heard about the hostile takeover and wants to help. Travesty rejects Angela's attempt to sway him, reminding her that he only allowed Nightshade to experiment on him to get revenge on Spidey. Meanwhile, Headhunter orders his Corporate Raiders to continue their attack and Miguel attacks him, barely avoiding his cane's plasma blast. Worrying that he's fighting on too many fronts, Miguel's life gets more difficult when the Corporate Raiders throw their briefcases at him and they become mini-planes shooting their own energy blasts. Miguel decides to go vertical to get some maneuvering room and the mini-planes and Travesty follow him.
Meanwhile, in New York, Gabe and Kasey are enjoying the lovely evening on a park bench when Gabe tries to broach the Spider-Man subject. Kasey asks him not to deny who he is, since she'd hate to think that he doesn't trust her. Gabe puts his head in his hands and Kasey posits that he's under a lot of stress. She tells him that she wants them to leave town for a while, without the costume, so that she can prove that she's attracted to him for being Gabe and not Spider-Man.
At Nightshade, its defenders try to repel Headhunter and the Corporate Raiders, but their guns' blasts bounce off them. Elsewhere, Miguel manages to lose the mini-planes by throwing off their heat sensors while hiding next to a warm generator, but Travesty finds him. Angela orders Xina and Miss Pivot to evacuate to the underground shelter and then activates a self-destruct sequence. Outside, Travesty destroys the mini-planes, thinking that Miguel had sent them after him, while Miguel tries to stop Headhunter and his cronies. Pondering how they're the most cold-blooded villains that he's ever faced, Miguel finds himself grabbed by two of them, only to be freed when Travesty attacks them, since Spider-Man is his prey. (At Travesty's arrival, the Corporate Raiders scatter.) Angela makes her way to the evacuation tunnel just as Headhunter blasts into it, announcing that Nightshade is now a division of Alchemax. Two of the Corporate Raiders make their way into the research and development facility, marveling at the sophistication of Nightshade's research. However, one of them realizes that Angela has activated the self-destruct system and they leave in a hurry.
Outside, Miguel manages to take down Travesty just as Headhunter and the Corporate Raiders flee past him. Miguel attacks Headhunter, who tells him that the facility is going to blow and take down the city (or, at least, most of it) with it. Miguel hears a scream and lets Headhunter go. Before Headhunter can shoot Miguel in the back, Travesty breaks his gun, laying claim to Spider-Man once again. Miguel finds Angela, but, before he can get them to safety, Travesty arrives. Miguel tells Travesty that he has to let him go or they'll all die, but Travesty refuses, since, even if they do, Miguel will know that Travesty killed him. Miguel points out the obvious problem with that statement while Miss Pivot and Xina hope that Angela is on her way. However, the facility then explodes.
In the back-up story, Miguel hears Xina's scream from the locker room and he hesitates worrying that it's a prank to get him to go into the girls' locker room and have everyone laugh at him again. In the locker room, Kron strips off Xina's towel and admires her. But, Miguel arrives, jumping on Kron's back and wrapping a towel around his eyes. The two fight and Miguel manages to block Kron's knife thrust with the towel. When Miguel tells him to be careful with the knife because he almost cut him, Kron tells Miguel that he still doesn't get it. Xina (now wearing a t-shirt) grabs Kron's arm, but Kron throws her into a locker, knocking her unconscious. Miguel tries to flee, but Kron follows, so he throws some sort of sports ball at him. He then unloads the entire basket full of balls, tripping Kron. However, Kron follows Miguel into the showers, telling Miguel that he's in a dead end and that he's going to hit the showers "piece by piece."
The Review
This issue is solid, giving us some more insight into Nightshade than we got last issue. Although I can't quite remember why Sgt. Estevez, now Travesty, is so mad at Miguel, he proves to be a great foil for Miguel, seriously complicating his efforts to save the day and raising some difficult questions about the unexpected consequences of Miguel's heroism.
The Good
1) I like Miguel's comment about babbling to fight his terror and buy some time. Peter Parker did the same thing and I always appreciates David's efforts to remind us of the similarities between them, since they are so different in other ways.
2) I thought Miguel pondering the repercussions of his actions was great, how all the good that he's done might be overshadowed by the bad that he inspired in the creation of Travesty. It's the sort of philosophical contemplation that most superheroes face at some point in their career and Miguel's facing it now actually reminds you how new he is to the superhero business.
3) I love the Laserbeak-esque briefcases! Seriously, profoundly awesome.
The Unknown
My guess is that David is having Gabe and Kasey leave town for a while so that he can focus on other plots. But, I still wonder where he's going with the two of them. As expected, Gabe doesn't seem to be directly lying to Kasey yet about being Spider-Man, but he's certainly misleading her by not correcting her and I think we can definitely expect some interesting repercussions to that.
The Bad
1) It might've been useful for David to recap why Sgt. Estevez wants Spider-Man dead. I searched my previous reviews and found that he was fired because he opened fire on Spider-Man for having assaulted his son (a fellow Private Eye officer), thereby provoking the wrath of Tyler Stone, who had ordered the Private Eye not to open fire. But, since most people aren't anal-retentively chronicling Miguel's adventures, it probably would've been useful to be reminded of that, since it happened 23 issues earlier.
2) Continuing on the Sgt. Estevez theme, Angela promised Sgt. Estevez that he could get revenge on Spider-Man with his new powers when she made the initial approach to him in issue #8. Now, I understand that she was trying to redirect Travesty to the more immediate threat, but her sudden declaration of Spidey's "anti-corp" cred was a little disingenuous. Travesty himself reminds her that getting revenge on Miguel was part of their deal. I think it would've made more sense to have her stress that he could get Miguel after he defeated the Corporate Raiders, rather than having her imply that Spidey was one of the good guys beyond reproach.
3) The back-up story had some weird art to it, in the sense that Boller used all sorts of comic devices that didn't fit the fact that it was an incredibly dark story. I'm surprised the editor let it pass. Using cartoonish eyes to depict Miguel fleeing from a knife-wielding Kron seemed to undermine where David was going with the story.
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