Peter Parker: Spider-Man #45 synopsis
the plot:
While Peter Parker tries to deal with the accident last month that put Flash Thompson in a coma, he has his hands full with Norman Osborn who not only engineered Flash's accident, but is going out of his way to use it to interfere with Peter's life at Midtown High. After Peter finally does find the time to visit Flash in the hospital in his Spidey-duds, he goes after Osborn (now in full Goblin-garb), and a violent fight breaks out. Spider-Man warns the Goblin to stay away from his family, and that they're not going to fear him anymore. Osborn agrees, since he no longer has any use for his grandson, and his first order of business after defeating Peter is to murder Normie.
The issue ends dramatically with Peter telling Osborn, "I'll kill you."
the review: I'm really enjoying this arc, in fact I think that if the concluding chapter holds up, it'll go down as some of my favorite books of the year. Not bad considering the saturation of Spidey titles we've experienced, especially in the summer. And while I thought that Humberto Ramos art, which I really, really like on books like "Out There", would be out of place on such a heavy story, it's holding up well. It works for some odd reason, and is appropriatly moody.
Aside from that, it's nice seeing the esteemed Mr. Jenkins using his pull as a Spidey scribe to bring in some threads from all over the place in this title. Last month J. Jonah Jameson, Liz Osborn and Flash Thompson appeared, and there was a nice mention of Tricorp, the lab were Peter worked for a brief period. This month we get some nice carry over from Amazing Spider-Man, with the appearences of Principal Harrington and Kyle Jacobi from Midtown High, and while I strongly doubt J. Michael Straczynski will ever reference the accident caused by Osborn in his book, the continuity between the two here is very nice otherwise.
Aside from that, I still find myself bothered somewhat by Osborn's curious motivations this time around, and can't quite understand why he's doing all this, and now. Not only that, but his sudden admission that he wanted to murder Normie, his grandson, seemed rather inconsistent with other issues. I got the impression Osborn thought Normie his successor, but this issue proves otherwise.
Well, aside from that bit, I liked this issue and am looking forward to the final part next month. Let's hope it's a real humdinger, huh?
Peter Parker: Spider-Man gets ***1/2 out of *****.
continued in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #47
