The Spectacular Spider-Men # 3

By Mark Rodriguez

The two Spider-Men, Peter and Miles decide to meet up once a week at a local coffee shop. They run into a savage version of the Jackal, which led them to finding a mysterious corpse in the Jackal's old lab. When one of Miles' college buddies, Cedric, starts acting weird after getting a job as a beta tester, they follow him as he enters the building. The building leads the Spider-Men into the sewers where they encounter Mile's clone Shift looking after several Vermin clones. Meanwhile a shady man named Marv tries to hire the coffee shop employees Shelly and Kenny to the same beta testing job that Cedric went to. What will happen next?

Arachnobatics- Chapter 3- Meanwhile... opens with both Peter and Miles getting ready for big dates. Peter is teasing someone about theirs, while Miles is set for his own date. On Peter's side, Gwen Stacy's father George is about to date Aunt May. On Miles' side, he's about to go out with Kamala Khan. 

Elsewhere, police detective Shari Sebbens, hospital coroner Jane Foster and police forensic scientist Carlie Cooper all discuss the mystery corpse the Spiders found earlier. Cooper says all they have is the fact that Spider-Man guessed it was a clone. Jane says they found nothing indicating the body was a clone, but there's a chance the corpse was replaced by a clone. 

Peter and Gwen discuss how lonely George and May have been since their spouses passed, so it's good that they're together now. Just then Peter calls out for their kids, Benny and Helen. 

Elsewhere, Miles and Kamala enjoy their dinner date together.

Elsewhere, we see the criminal that defeated Daredevil is making lots of money. We see someone on a talk show, earning lots of trophies. We see the lesbian couple watching the scenery from the Eifel Tower. 

Peter plays with his kids as Gwen watches over them. Miles and Kamala take a nightly stroll after dinner, as Kamala says it was the best meal she had after she died and came back to life. She apologizes for bringing it up and Miles says even when they were just friends, she could tell him anything. Miles and Kamala say they're more than just friends now.

Elsewhere, the two people running the Arcadium program are watching Peter and Mile's fake lives unfold but they have no idea who Peter Parker and Miles Morales are. One of them laments that not even a last name was mentioned. One man asks if they can just read the intel out of their minds. The other says their tech makes it's all automatic, which is a bug not a feature. 

Later on, Peter can't get his order at the Coffee Bean since both Kenny and Shelly haven't shown up for work in days. Meanwhile we see that Kenny's knee has been cleared so he can play again as The Giants are calling him up. Shelly is now an archeologist and she discovered a Triceratops. 

Peter and Miles find out from Raymond, Seymour and Sha Shan that  Kenny and Shelly are missing, and realize that Cedric is still missing. Meanwhile, Cedric is living out his fantasy, driving alongside Shelly in the open road.

Meanwhile, Peter dances with his kids and sends them off to sleep. As he leaves, he accidentally steps on a Spider-Man LEGO-ish figure. Peter says it doesn't matter how long ago he retired from web-slinging, Spider-Man continues to be a pain.

Later on, Peter and Miles swing through the city lamenting they didn't follow up on Cedric. Peter admits finding Shift and Vermin clones was a distraction. Miles says they were found in the sewer tied to the building they saw Cedric enter. The Spiders decide to hit the sewers and hopefully get a lead on Cedric, Kenny and Shelly. They're surrounded by the Vermin clones and Shift says they can help. Peter tells Miles that sometimes the clues find them.

Meanwhile, Peter and Gwen watch TV together, when they decide to kiss, now that the kids are asleep. As they kiss, Peter sees a Vermin clone from the corner of his eye. Elsewhere, Miles and Kamala go through the city now as Spider-Man and Miss Marvel. Miles admits he finally feels happy when he spots a Vermin clone from one of the rooftops.

Shift leads the Spiders to an area that has a lot of new walls they don't recognize. Peter sees that the bricks are fake and the walls are decoration. The Spiders suspect Mysterio is behind this, but when they break through the walls they find tech that seems to be too much for their old foe. 

The mystery villains note that the Spiders have returned to Aracadium and they can destroy everything. Suddenly a loud ear piercing sound knocks both of the heroes out. 

Currently, we see that the ones behind all this were Arcade and Mentallo. Arcade says they now have the Spider-Men trapped forever and it doesn't matter if they don't know who their secret identities are. Mentallo says they have them trapped in their own ultimate wish-fulfillment fantasies. As they watch Peter and Miles, we also see Cedric, Kenny, Shelly and the other people stuck within the same simulation.

Nice to see that with all the character redesigns and whatnot, Arcade hasn't changed his look since his old SNES days

My Opinions- 

So it all seems to come together now, as we find out that Cedric and the random bystanders we've been seeing in the previous issues are indeed stuck in some sort of simulation. A simulation so real, that the person can't tell when they're in it or back in the real world, as the case was with Cedric last issue. 

As I thought, Arcade was involved, though this is the first time I've ever heard of Mentallo. He's a mutant that tried to overtake SHIELD once, so he was fired and he went to work for HYDRA and other super villains. Seeing that his real name is Marvin Flumm, I'm assuming savvier and more well-read comic fans than myself would have figured it out last issue when the man called himself Marv. 

I'm still not sure how Shift and the Vermin clones fit into all this. They don't seem to be part of Arcade and Mentallo's plans. When they dumped the Spiders into the sewers, they either were expecting them to be a lot more feral, or just didn't know they were there.

As for the fantasies, it seems Gwen Stacy will always be the love of Peter's life. We sure don't see Mary Jane being the mother of his children in this fantasy. I'm guessing Miles has always had a thing for Kamala but was never brave enough to ask her out. 

I like the fact that the villains have no idea who Parker and Morales are. It reminds us that in the grand scheme of things, Peter and Miles are average Joes in their world. After all, not every superhero can have a super famous alter ego like Bruce Wayne. Though I guess this means that Parker didn't make much of an impact back when he was running Parker Industries, now that I think about it.

I'm curious to how the effects of 'so real you think it's still real when you step out of the simulation' will hit Peter. Similar to Cedric, Miles will just be surprised or confused that his date with Kamala never happened. In Peter's case he's going to have to face that Gwen Stacy died and his 'kids' never existed.

Good story so far. This is the 'all is revealed' portion of the story. Now we have to see how the heroes get out of it. There were many full page spreads or pages that are just 2 long panels and so forth, so this one went by pretty quick. 

One last thing to note was that this comic has something I haven't seen in a long time. A letters column. I might send something too but I wonder if I missed the boat since I'm a good 5 issues behind.