** (two of five stars)
Summary
Spidey and Strange burst through Morgez's skylight, demanding to know what's happening. (Miguel initially threatens a piñata due to his sight problems, but, thanks to Strange pointing him in the right direction, redirects his ire at Morgez.) Morgez, holding his sister's skeletal hand, tells them that he wants to help his sister. When Strange sarcastically notes that it might be too late, Morgez retorts that he knows that, blaming the amulet for not doing its job. Strange takes the amulet from him but suddenly transforms into a demi-demon. On the streets, the reanimated dead begin to mingle with the parade participants while Spidey and Strange fight in Morgez's apartment. The demon controlling Strange reveals that it shares her body with her and wants the amulet for its power. (It also wants Morgez dead.) Morgez flees into the hallways where he runs into the super, who's brought in some muscle after their encounter last issue. However, Spidey and Strange burst into the hallway and Strange goes after Morgez. On the street, Gabe bumps into a skeleton who growls at him. Gabe comments on how bad the skeleton's breath is and sprays breath freshener in its mouth. The skeleton attacks him and Kasey tries to pull it off Gabe, warning it that it doesn't want to mess with him. However, when she pulls off the skeleton's arm, she screams. Elsewhere, the disembodied voice from last issue watches Strange fall under the sway of the demon, remarking that it's another example of why she needs its help.
Now on a balcony, Spidey webs Strange to the railing in order to disarm her, punching her across the jaw and helping Strange shake loose the demon's control. She refuses to tell Spidey what happened, saying that it was "repressed hostility," and they go searching for Morgez. Meanwhile, the reanimated dead begin attacking the parade participants and Kasey screams for Gabe to do something. Gabe, however, ducks into a doorway, saying that he's helpless as always, with too many people between him and Kasey to get to her. On the balcony, Spidey tells Strange to do something to calm the crowd on the streets, but she says that only stopping Morgez will help. Morgez's sister suddenly appears behind them (as a reanimated corpse) and Spidey stops Strange from returning her to the "netherworld" that "spewed" her, because he has an idea. In an alley, Morgez thinks on the moment from his childhood that precipitated these events, when his sister accidentally startled him while he was holding a gun stolen from his father and he shot and killed her. On the streets around him, Kasey flees with the crowd, but gets knocked onto the ground and almost trampled. Wondering where Gabe is, Spidey arrives and saves her. Morgez, for his part, decides that he's going to take control over the reanimated dead; since everyone returned to life but the one that he loved, he decides that his sister's sacrifice was so that death could rule over everything. A skeleton attacks Xina and she faints while Spidey continues attacking reanimated corpses.
Clearly unhinged, Morgez continues to gather undead, but gets interrupted when Strange appears with his sister. His sister asks what he's done to her and he says that he wanted to restore her fully. She asks him to return her and all the others like her to the light. He agrees, but vows to go with her this time. Strange tries to stop him, but the siblings disappear in a burst of flame. Spidey observes the rest of the reanimated dead heading for their graves and he finds Strange, who tells him that Morgez fell for the ventriloquism and mild hypnotic push enough to believe that his sister was talking to him. But, she express grief that Morgez killed himself, since she just wanted him to stop animating the dead or put down the amulet. Spidey tells her that she did what she had to do and she decides to destroy the amulet. Spidey notes that he left New York to get "away from all the weirdness" in his life, but suggests that returning the U.S. would actually be a return to normalcy after the craziness of the last few days. (An image of the White House flying Doom's flag implies that he's mistaken.)
In the back-up story, Miguel reveals that Kron had previously tried to drown him, which Tyler Stone uses to note that Miguel has a history of lying, given that he had told everyone that it was an accident. Miguel says that he can prove it, since Kron was wearing a skull-head ring that dented Miguel's head. Kron says that he wasn't wearing one when he tried to drown him, falling into Miguel's trap of admitting that he did so. Enraged, Kron leaps at Miguel and Tyler pulls him off Miguel. Angela suspends the session, saying that they've seen enough her and will render a decision shortly.
The Review
This arc felt rushed and I wonder if David was under pressure to get Miguel to return to New York so that he could participate in the "One Nation Under Doom" event. If he wasn't under pressure to do so, the "Young Miguel" back-up story didn't help matters. I'm giving this issue two stars, despite not having any goods, because I did enjoy the story overall. I just wish David had spent more time developing it.
The Unknown
1) Strange is an interesting character, but we don't really learn all that much about her. She's apparently sharing her body with a demon, which makes her feel a bit like a carbon copy of Ghost Rider, and she's got some disembodied voice that might be using her for its own means rather than really helping her. But, again, we don't really get more details, because David is sometwhat rushing the story.
2) I'm not entirely sure why the demon possessing Strange wanted Morgez dead. I get that it wanted the amulet, but did it want Morgez dead simply because the amulet burnt Strange when she took it? I guess we don't need to dwell too much on the motivations of demons? Also, what happened between Strange threatening Morgez in the hallway to Spidey and Strange suddenly fighting outside on a balcony?
3) I'm guessing that Kasey is going to persist in believing that Gabe is Spider-Man, since he wasn't present when Spidey saved her.
The Bad
1) How did Spidey know where Morgez was or, for that matter, what his name was? We ended last issue with Strange saying that she wasn't really sure what was happening, implying that she didn't know that Morgez was the source of the problem. They presumably simply followed the light to him, but it doesn't explain how they discovered his name. (Also, how many skylights does he have? He already broke one last issue and Spidey and Strange break another one in this issue.)
2) I'm surprised David killed off Morgez. The moment halfway through the issue where he seems to have some sort of psychotic break after realizing that he failed in resurrecting his sister seemed to set up him becoming, I don't know, the Lord of the Undead or something. It would've been pretty damn cool had he sent the undead after Spidey and Strange in a more organized fashion. He could've even come after Miguel in New York in later issues, blaming him somehow for his failure to resurrect his sister and seeking revenge. Instead, he falls for a pretty simple ventriloquism trick and commits suicide to be with his sister. It seemed like a real squandered opportunity to me.
3) Rather than getting a 44-page story over these two issues, we got a 36-page story with an eight-page back-up story. Given the lack of a more complete origin-story for Strange and the squandered opportunity with Morgez, it's clearer to me than ever that the back-up stories are making David compromise on the main story.
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