Picking up shortly after the previous full-length comic strip left off (the Fabulous Fiftieth Full-Length entry in the Phil Wrede Marvel Action Figure Comic Universe!), we’ve got ourselves another appearance from Clint Barton, Hawkguy himself, and the introduction of a few other familiar faces (although, Spider-Man did earlier reference his fraught relationship with She-Hulk)! Even in the darkest part of Spider-Man’s No Good, Very Bad Night, there’s still some light!
I’m not the biggest fan of how the MCU “handles” Spider-Man, which is why I’ve not outright plucked him for my comics the way I have certain other MCU characters (like, say, Thor). I’m a Tom Holland fan, sure, and a Marissa Tomei fan, too, but the MCU’s Spider-Man is not my Spider-Man.
If I had to pick a favorite version of Spider-Man, I’d probably pick something in between the Maximum Carnage arc in the comics, the Saturday morning cartoon from around when I was growing up (where Ed Asner voiced Jonah, and they apparently couldn’t show anybody punching anybody else onscreen), and Tobey Maguire. I think it’s pretty apparent that “my” take on Spider-Man in these comics is a hodgepodge of those three versions. He’s awkward and weird in a less genuinely earnest way than MCU Spider-Man. My Spider-Man is definitely performatively weird, to try and cover for his actual weirdness, which he thinks would be more off-putting to people.
I do, however, like that everybody who’s close to the MCU’s Peter Parker makes fun of his Spider-Sense, and I’ve decided to incorporate that into how people interact with my version of the character, too.
In case you’re wondering, dear reader, I have to give momentary inspiration all the credit for Hawkeye’s Delorean. I was looking through my little collection of toy cars, trying to figure out what exactly he’d be driving to deliver Spider-Man to She-Hulk and Claire Temple, and the light caught the Delorean in just the right way. I couldn’t pass it up then, and I think it was still the right decision, now.
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