Amazing Spider-Man #16: The tone of these "Dark Web" issues remains weird. We went from oddly jokey last issue to bro-y aggro in this one. Peter isn't even remotely sympathetic when it comes to Ben's situation and simply throws hands. It's weird because Peter is the most empathetic characters in comics; you'd think he'd understand that Ben doesn't have a moral code because he needs Peter's memories to have one.
Putting aside the tone, the plot is also weird. Madelyne's "secret mission" is to send Venom into the Treehouse to recover her "soul." I'm assuming she means her Cerebro back-up, but they're stored in Krakoa and not New York. If it isn't her back-up, I have no idea what she's doing.
Also, I still don't get Hallows' Eve. She uses a mask to become Frankenstein's Monster, seemingly to accompany Eddie into the Treehouse to take on the X-Men. But once Eddie enters she takes off the mask and apparently plans on entering stealthily while Eddie attacks. Why change into Frankenstein's Monster then?
Moreover, I thought Ben was using the orb he displays here to steal Peter's memories, somehow channeling the Tree of Exquisite Liberation (which we saw in issue #14). Instead he sends Peter to Limbo, where he also has JJJ, Jr. and Robbie Robertson. Doesn't that get him farther from his goal of stealing Peter's memories? He seems more focused on the demonic attack of New York, and I still don't get how that furthers either Ben's or Madelyne's goals.
In other words, I'm just at a loss here.
Dark Web: X-Men #2: I haven't liked a damn thing about "Dark Web," but Jean Grey smacking Madelyne Pryor and telling her, "If you want to go, let's go" is 30+ years coming and I'm here for it.
Captain America: Symbol of Truth #8: This issue is just awful.
Throughout the issue, we get a series of statements that either contradict previous statements or just don't make sense. To wit:
- Nomad uses a "Theseus and the minotaur" metaphor to describe why he and the refugees are safe from the oncoming tanks as they walk through the village's ruins. Sam says soldiers may get lost in ruins but tanks don't. Does he mean the tanks will somehow run over the ruins? It isn't clear.
- A small child is leading Nomad and the refugees to a safe house, whose location apparently only he knows. We're never told why he, and not a single adult, alone knows where it is.
- It turns out the shelter has a hidden button you press to enter, like it's the Batcave.
- Sam notes the tanks are getting closer, and Ian quips that he "was hoping maybe they had other rides to drop off." Is that a joke? If not, I have no idea what he means.
- As Sam and Nomad discuss the situation with the resistance leaders, Nightshade appears. She apparently emigrated to Wakanda as part of the Wakanda Forever movement. She claims many émigrés had "no way back" to America and found themselves stuck in Mohannda. I find it hard to believe that the Wakandans not only revoked the émigrés' citizenship but then dumped them into an apartheid state? Who's running Wakanda's PR team?
- Nightshade says she isn't a villain anymore, which I guess is true-ish, but she then claims, "I'm not someone with a past," which is very not true-ish.
- Nightshade then tells us that she didn't just go to Mohannda because she had "no way back" to America, but because she believed in the deceased prime minister's cause. Pick a reason!
I went to the trouble of listing these inconsistencies and oddities to show that I'm not just exaggerating. The issue reads like a bad AI wrote it. It also comes nowhere close to explaining what Sam is planning to do about the White Wolf, particularly now that he knows the White Wolf was the one behind the prime minister's assassination, ostensibly the reason why he's there.
I've said it before, but Sam doesn't deserve this series.
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