The Spectacular Spider-Men # 2

 By Mark Rodriguez

The two Spider-Men, Peter and Miles have decided to hang out at least once a week. They faced a mindless monster version of the Jackal and afterwards checked on his lab. They found the remains of someone trapped under fallen debris in the lab, but they never discovered who they belonged to. Meanwhile one of Miles' college friends, Cedric take a job application for 'beta testing'.

'Arachnobatics Chapter 2- Community' opens with two forensic scientists, Shari and Charlie trying to identify the mystery corpse alongside Dr. Jane Foster. Foster says it looks like every cell in the person's body exploded, which messes with the dental work. 

Elsewhere Detective Sebbens meets up with Spider-Man to see what she can find out about the body. Peter says it might be a clone since it was located in Miles Warren's lab, and clones were his specialty. Sebben agrees but states it could have been an innocent man caught in the wrong place and the wrong time. She would like to speak with Warren and Spider-Man says he'll let her know if he finds him.

Meanwhile, Cedric is making out with Shelly. While he's been in love with her for some time, he still feels guilty since Shelly's boyfriend Kenny is a friend of his. Shelly says she told Kenny and he understands that they were meant to be together.

Elsewhere a young man is running through the sewers being chased by something. He trips and falls and turns to face it. 

Days later, Miles is swinging across the rooftops to meet up with Peter. Miles is running late but figures that Pete can't complain since he's always late. Miles arrives at the coffee shop and greets Shelly, Kenny, Sha Shan and finally sits with Peter. Mile and Peter discuss how they found their own little community within the coffee shop and enjoy their drinks.

Seymour Frapps gets called up for his order, but takes Darjeeing Tea rather than his regular coffee. Raymond Warren is surprised and says that's what his brother Miles used to order.

Elsewhere, Daredevil is chasing down a crook named Turk. They fight it out and surprisingly, the crook wins the fight.

Cedric arrives at the Coffee Bean and tries to kiss Shelly, right in front of Kenny. Cedric says that Shelly already told Kenny, and they should start acting like a couple. Shelly says they are not a couple, and Kenny has had enough of being nice and takes Cedric outside. 

What is up with Cedric's face????

Miles sees this and says something isn't right, since Cedric never acted like that. Peter says love does that to a man. Miles grabs Peter and tells him to follow him. 

Elsewhere a lesbian couple walk down the city and one of them poses alongside the Leaning Power of Pisa, as if she was holding it up.

Pete and Miles follow Cedric as he's talking to himself. He says he will 'make things right' and make sure Shelly and Kenny remember. He says he needs to return to 'Arcadium' and enters a building. Pete and Miles decide to follow but as the Spectacular Spider-Men.

As the costumed heroes sneak inside, someone is watching them on a monitor and is surprised to see both of them. The person says he divert them so they don't find out about 'us' and 'the Arcadium'. 

The heroes hear a whirring and a 'ker-chunk' sound, and then see that the stairs lead them down to the sewers. They encounter Vermin, wearing a tag with the number 5 on it. Miles asks about the tag, and Pete explains that the original Vermin was cloned and the clones escaped into the sewers. Peter never had a chance to round them up. More Vermin clones arrive, surrounding the heroes.

Pete and Miles get into action and start webbing up the Vermin clones. Miles calls this Arachnobatix, which Peter approves of. One of the Vermin clones is a woman, and Miles takes her down before she can slice Pete with her claws. Pete calls her a 'she-rate' and Miles says that's Patriarchy-Speech and to 'do better'. Pete says he dares him to say that to She-Hulk. 

Suddenly a muscular clone of Miles called Shift arrives and tell them to stop. He explains that he's helping the Vermin clones since they can learn to do good. Sewer dwellers appear and tell the Spiders that Shift is teaching the Vermin clones to protect them. 

Back at the Coffee Bean, a suspicious looking man named Marv arrives right before closing. Marv says he's working for a start up and could use Shelly and Kenny's help to beta test his latest game. He offers to pay them triple the minimum wage, and Shelly and Kenny agree they could use the money if they want to own their own place by next semester. Marv tells them to finish closing up so they can all head over to the Arcadium.

Yeah... that's a face I would trust.....

My Opinions-

Things seem to get interesting as Cedric is acting weird after going to the Arcadium. So far, it seems to me that will be some sort of virtual reality that is so realistic, people can't tell it apart from the real world. We can assume that Cedric was making out with Shelly in the simulation, and is confused that Shelly 'doesn't remember this' when he returns to the real world. 

This might explain all these random 'day in the life' scenes of random people that the comic keeps cutting back to. They might all be in whatever the Arcadium is. The lesbian couple appear again in this issue, so I'm guessing one of them is in a situation where they can't come out in the real world but are free to do so in the Arcadium. It will also explain how that one random dude beat Daredevil in a fight. Man, is that dude in for a bad time if he runs into the real Daredevil after this. 

I know part of this will be part of the 'big reveal' of the villain's 'master plan', but I guess it would have been a larger surprised if we weren't so well versed in comics, cartoons and movie plots.

The mystery is how this is all tied together. With something called the Arcadium, it's possible Arcade might be involved. For those that are unaware, Arcade is an evil genius that murders people by trapping them inside super-elaborate game-related death traps. Is he working with this Marv guy or is he Marv in a disguise? The question is, how does this tie to the sewers, Shift and the Vermin clones. Also is the mystery corpse part of this, or it's own separate subplot?

                         

It was cool to see Shift, as he is something more related to Miles than Peter. We see so often of Miles thrown into Peter's messes (even this story introduces Miles to Jackal and Vermin), it's refreshing to see Peter encounter some of Miles'.

I wish they showed how the fight between Cedric and Kenny went. Cedric was seen putting up his dukes while Kenny just stood there before the story cut to something else. Kenny is a much bigger dude than the scrawny Cedric, but he's too nice to rough him up more than he had to. I would have liked to have seen how that scene played out, even if they are side characters.

Pretty good story that has my attention so far, though sometimes the art goes wild with some of the faces. Also what was up with this random woman giving Miles and/or Peter the stink eye? Well excuse you, lady. 

Maybe she's put off by someone saying 'howdy partner' in New York City?