The Spectacular Spider-Men # 7

 By Mark Rodriguez

Peter and Miles agreed to meet once a week at a coffee shop. When some of the regulars started going missing, their search leads them to The Arcadium, a virtual reality created by Arcade and Mentallo while being funded by Hammerhead. Meanwhile we find out that the Jackal has somehow cloned himself into the body of his brother, and he also gets involved when he finds out that Peter has gone missing. The Arcadium's AI has taken a mind and body of its own and is now going after the Spider-Men.

"Arachnobatics Chapter 7- The Kitchen Sink" opens in multiple places at once. Turk starts to get away since the spider-webbing is starting to dissolve. Detective Sebbens and Sha Shan are getting closer to the Arcadium, while Sebbens gets a call from Jane Foster. Arcade and Mentallo see that the AI is preventing them from using Contingency Zed and should get away while they still can. One of the Coffee Bean patrons is wondering where everyone has gone, as the cafe is empty.

Meanwhile, Peter, Miles and Hammerhead see that the Arcadium's AI has become self aware and created its own giant body. Peter says he wishes this kind of thing would surprise him anymore. Poor guy has just seen so much by now. 

Peter and Miles tries to reason with the Arcadium. They say they understand that Arcade and Mentallo were not counting on the AI becoming sentient and creating its own body, and now it wants to live. They agree to leave it alone as long as it released the people trapped within the virtual fantasies. The AI says it goes against its interest, which is to study its servants to learn and evolve. Hammerhead takes offense to being called a servant or a flunkie. He says he paid for the place and for the AI, so he belongs to him. He charges towards the Arcadium. The Arcadium easilt swats Hammerhead away and says he might have belonged to him once, but now he owns him.

Peter says he doesn't mind if he slaps Hammerhead around, but keeping the other people prisoner makes him a villain. The AI says it has studied villainy and finds it to be the most logical course to achieve its goals. It will now be called K.N.A.I.V.E which stands for New Artificial Intelligence Villain Extreme. Peter says there's a 'K' in 'Knaive' and the AI says the K is silent. Miles says it's time for some arachnobatix.

The giant robot grabs Peter and Miles and says it has studied them both. Shift appears with an army of Vermin clones to help out in the fight. Knaive says they might have allies, but he can build unlimited constructs, as Tombstone and Daredevil robots start attacking the Vermin clones. Hammerhead is angry to see 'Tombstone' helping Knaive, so he charges into him, blasting him to pieces.

Knaiv tells Hammerhead that it can summon endless Tombstone robots if he wanted. The Spider-Men tie up the robot with their webbing, and Hammerhead charges into it, making it topple and fall to the ground. 

Suddenly the Vermin clones start attacking Shift. Peter says he thought they were on their side. The Jackal appears and says while he didn't create the clones, they were done using his research so they have protocols he can use to take control of them. He sees that Shift is immune, so he must have been created by someone else's research and he doesn't like the competition.

Peter asks The Jackal what he's doing there since this isn't his fight. Jackal says he and Knaive share goals and he taught him how to experiment with organic nanotech. He reveals several versions of Jackal clones. Knaive says there is nothing the heroes can do that the villains can't counter. Jackal says he finds admitting that they're villains feels liberating.

Knaive frees itself and says he feels they won't be able to control the three Spiders and Hammerhead. Jackal says he can handle Shift and Hammerhead. Knaive says it will decide that 'K' in its name will now stand for 'Killer' as it charges towards Peter and Miles.

Peter and Miles fight Knaive as they smash through all the different fantasy set pieces within the virtual world. In one stage, Cedric is about to marry Shelly, in another, Kenny is a football star with Shelly by his side, and in yet another is Shelly's own fantasy of being an archeologist. Peter says there seems to be a version of Shelly in every fantasy. Unfortunately the battle also takes them to 'Paris' where Knaive smashes into one of the lesbian lovers. 

The battle takes them to Peter's fantasy where Gwen Stacy, Gwen's father, Aunt May, and his what-if children all start to attack him. Peter struggles to get them off of him and Miles reminds him that they're robots and to just knock them off. Just then robot duplicates of Miles' parents show up, which makes him hesitate. Peter tells him it's difficult to fight them when the robots look like people they love. To make things worse, the Kamala Khan turned giant-size and is trying to smash Miles into paste with her giant fists.

Peter says the Arcadium has to be powering both Knaive and the robots, so he tells Miles to use his electric powers to cut the cords and shut them out. Miles slams his electric sword into the ground, making Knaive and all of the robots fall over. Shift tackles Knaive down. Peter and Miles celebrate but The Jackal tells them that it's not over yet.

Just then Sha Shan arrives to kick some of the smaller Jackal clones down. Detective Sebbens aims her gun at Jackal and tells him to order his minions to stand down. She unmasks the Jackal, and Peter is surprised to see that he's Raymond Warren. Sebbens explains that the monstrous Jackal from before was a distraction so that Miles Warren can replace his brother with a clone. Raymond isn't a clone, he's Miles, and Jane Foster confirmed it. Miles Warren admits he's always had a strong resemblance with his brother. Miles Morales asks about the corpse they found in the lab earlier, and Sebbens explains that it was the real Raymond Warren. Warren says it was a necessary evil. Peter angrily punches him out, saying that Raymond was a good man.

The huge Jackal clone starts to charge forward, but Miles holds up the Jackal mask and tells him to stand down. The Vermin clones have also regained control of themselves. Peter and Miles say the only thing left is to deal with Knaive. Arcade and Mentallo finally managed to purge the files from the Arcadium and Knaive. Knaive shuts down as it realizes it was wrong to pursue villainy in the end what he wanted was to make people happy. 

Miles asks if it's over. Peter says it's over for Hammerhead, Jackal and Knaive, but it's not over for them, and it's also not over for their friends from the Coffee Bean.

My thoughts- 

This was a fun story. What makes me happier is the fact that there's a next issue. There are too many mini-series out there with one story and once it's over, the whole thing ends. It wouldn't be so bad if the comics were called mini-series or the covers said 'part One of Six' right off the bat, but you get stories like White Widow, Black Widow & Hawkeye and that Batman and the Outlaws run from a few years back that just end as soon as their story ends, instead of just continuing with new stories. This one might still end, but at least we're still getting a new adventure.

The biggest questions regarding the Arcadium is how it works, since it's not actual virtual reality. It looks like you enter a room that's a fake set with robots that impersonate people related to your fantasy. I just don't get how it works in the case of room and whatnot, especially since we see that the Spider-Men and Knaive were breaking through the sets. I mean... how big are these sets? You had Turk running from Daredevil through alleys, Kenny running through football fields and the lesbian couple seeing the sights in Paris. Just... how does that work?

The story did start confusing at first with all these random scenes of random people, but later it made sense that they were all people using the Arcadium. I don't know if Cedric himself was just delusional, but so far he seemed to be the only one to have trouble separating his fantasies from the real world.

There were a lot of good moments in this story, from 'the K is silent' to Hammerhead kinda/sorta helping the Spider-Men during the fight. I also liked the scene where Miles didn't understand that Peter was having trouble fighting off robots that looked like Gwen and her father, until he was confronted by robots that looked like his parents. 

The part where the fight took place across several fake sets was a bit scary for the couple in Paris. Yeah, Knaive accidentally smashed into the fake robot woman, but he could have just as easily have accidentally killed the real woman that was in the set.

I'm assuming that Arcade and Mentallo got away. Even though Peter and Miles figured out that they were behind this, they never got to confront them directly. As for Jackal, I missed out on whatever things he was up to over the years, but it looked weird to see the almost unstoppable schemer from the infamous Clone Saga get arrested so easily by a regular cop at gunpoint. 

As we now enter a new story, I do hope the Coffee Bean regulars appear as they're a fun supporting cast. I also wonder if they will pursue Miles' apparent hidden feelings for Kamala. I guess we'll find out next issue.