The Spectacular Spider-Men # 8

 By Mark Rodriguez

Peter and Miles have decided to meet up once a week at The Coffee Bean to discuss their superhero lives and unwind. When the regulars started going missing, they uncovered a plot devised by Mentallo and Arcade, which was funded by Hammerhead, to use people's fantasies and dreams against them. After the Arcadium gained sentience and started to attack the heroes, all while the Jackal was leading an army of Vermin clones underground. Having defeated both threats (and the comic actually continuing instead of it being a mini-series), Peter and Miles now face a brand new adventure. Let's see what happens now.

 

"Strange Love Part 1 Triage" opens with Cedric Harrison, Shelly Conklin, Kenny Kong, Billy Shakes, Adam Blackveil, Juliet Marcos and of course, Peter Parker and Miles Morales going over recent events. Peter tells Miles that he got this and he starts to explain.

We flashback to the arrest of Hammerhead and the Jackal, as both Spider-Men and Detective Shari Sebbens look on. The Arcadium is gone but the repercussions won't be fading away any time soon. Peter is angry that Jackal killed his younger brother to take his place, and wishes looks could kill. 

 

The AI villain K.N.A.I.V.E was destroyed. Shift took the Vermin and Jackal clones into the sewers. As clones, they are innocent and can be rehabilitated without Jackal's influence. Elsewhere, cops storm the Arcadium building and Mentallo and Arcade try to find some way to not get caught. Just then a man named Turk Barrett says he can help them escape. He says the Arcadium was a brilliant idea and they have to rebuild it. Turk says he has ideas.

Outside, Sebbens says they still haven't found Mentallo and Arcade. Miles says they never actually laid eyes on them, so they must have had an escape plan. Sha Shan Nguyen tells the Spiders that two of her friends, Peter and Miles, are still missing. Both Spider-Men awkwardly blurt out that they'll find them. 

Later on, there was a triage formed for the victims at the Coffee Bean. Max Vinck and Seymour Krepps look on as everyone is pretty much worn out and depressed.

Peter explains that back in college he fell in love with a girl named Gwen Stacy. She died when they were still too young to figure out how things would have worked out between them. Peter thought he would never find love again until he met Mary Jane Watson. Eventually things didn't work out and she's with someone else. At the Arcadium, he imagined what could have been. Life with MJ would have been too real and too painful. Life with Gwen was too idyllic, which alerted him that it was too good to be true. Even so, in the fantasy he had a wife and kids, and even though they were not real, he's in grieving. 

Back then, Peter and Miles kept meeting up every week at the Bean, but they were just going through the motions. Seymour says they should seek therapy. Kenny says they can all get therapy together since they all went through this. Miles has a therapist but he wonders if everyone using his will be a conflict of interest. Peter says he knows where he can get a good recommendation. 

 

Later on we see Silk facing off against Francine Frye, the current Electro. Electro says Silk can't stop her as many Spiders have already tried before. Silk says many Spiders have already succeeded. Spider-Man shows up saying he should know since he is the original. Electro doesn't like her odds, especially since she knows that Peter uses insulated webbing, so she zaps herself out of there. Spider-Man says he hates it when they zap and run.

 

Later on Silk asks Spider-Man about his insulated webbing. Peter says there's advantages to not having organic webbing, like she does. Silk asks what brought him to her side of town. Peter said she once mentioned that she was in therapy. He asks her if she could recommend her person.

We flashback to the now, where Peter finishes telling the therapist how he was grieving over the loss of his fake wife and kids. Dr. Sierra Sinclair says he has nothing to be ashamed of and she commends him for being brave enough to be first. She asks if anyone else is ready to share.

Cedric wants to apologize to both Kenny and Shelly. He says he can't control what he dreams, but he should have been more respectful of their relationship in the real world. Kenny forgives him and says he gets it. He says he had a Kelly robot in his football fantasy (though with Kenny it would make sense since Shelly is his actual girlfriend). Shelly looks down and admits that neither Kenny nor Cedric were parts of her Arcadium fantasy.

 

We flashback to the funeral of Raymond Aaron Warren, who was killed by his own brother, Miles Warren, the Jackal, as an attempt to disguise himself as him. Several people were there such as Peter Parker, Aunt May, Flash Thompson, Liz Allan, and Dr. Curtis Connors. After the funeral, Sha Shan catches up with Flash. Seymour tells Curtis that Raymond was brilliant, and easily as smart as his brother. Curtis says he used that brilliance to inspire young minds. Peter watches this and remembers when Raymond used to inspire him when he was younger.

Sally Avril calls out to Peter. She says they might not have had the greatest history, as we see a flashback of her turning him down during their college days, but now she's asking if he wants to get some coffee. Peter agrees to it.

Back to therapy, Miles goes next. He says he had a good friend that moved away, so he started seeing someone else currently. In the Arcadium, he was involved with the friend, and even though it was a robot fake, it felt right. Meanwhile, his real friend moved back in town. Miles doesn't know what to do since his friend and his current girlfriend are both amazing. He asks what to do. The therapist says they can only hear him out.

Juliet Marcos goes next and says she's in a somewhat similar situation. She had a crush on a woman named Anna and they were together in the Arcadium. In the real world, Anna doesn't even know she exists. She feels invisible to most people. The therapist says she is seen, and the rest of the group supports her. Juliet wipes a tear from her eye and is glad to feel seen.

Elsewhere, Max Dillon, the original Electro watches the news and sees his female namesake run from Spider-Man and Silk. Max is angry this woman is taking her name and feels she is ruining his brand. He asks why she even has to use his name and not call herself Elektra instead. The bartender says he thinks that name is already taken too. Max says that he is the one and only Electro and he will soon teach her a lesson.

 

Adam is next and says his friend and roommate Kevin died some time ago. He fantasized that they were both heroes fighting cosmic evil, but it made him miss him even more. Shelly says that Kevin was a good guy. Kenny says Kevin was the hero Starbrand and they all miss him.

Billy looks down and feels embarrassed since everyone else seems to be dealing with greater trauma. Billy says he was an aspiring actor from Ohio but instead he ended up waiting tables. In the Arcadium he was a big star, but now he was back to being nobody. As the group comforts Billy, Peter narrates that they would go to therapy week after week, and the pain would start to ease.

Soon, we see the group hanging at the Coffee Bean when Juliet picks up her order. The barista asks her out, but Juliet kindly declines since she's gay. The bartender apologizes and Juliet says she doesn't mind being friends. Just then a woman steps into the coffee shop, which catches Adam's attention. Peter asks about her and Adam explains that's 'Juliet's Anna', except in the real world she's not 'Juliet's Anna'. Miles is worried and Peter says they got this.

Anna Romney picks up her order and Juliet says hi. Anna doesn't recognize her and Juliet says they live on the same floor in the same dorm. Juliet asks if she really doesn't know her, and Anna analogizes. Juliet mutters that she's invisible to her as she drops her coffee. 

Something pops and she suddenly turns transparent, into some sort of vapor. Juliet is frightened and asks what's happening to her. Peter reaches out to her. Suddenly there's another pop and Juliet becomes turns into a water form.  She asks for help and Peter promises that he will. Juliet loses her form and just splashes all over the floor as regular water which quickly starts to evaporate.

 My Thoughts-

So we start a new story, and not only am I glad that this wasn't a mini-series, we also get to continue to see the rest of the Coffee Bean crew. If anything, the cast got slightly expanded as now we see some of the other people we saw going to the Arcadium, as well as learning their some of their names. We not only get to learn Juliet's name, she also kick starts this new story.

The idea of therapy over the events of the Arcadium makes sense, especially in the Marvel Universe where all kinds of crazy stuff like this would happen. The Arcadium makes people live out their fantasy, feeling incredibly real and it seems time also flows differently, making one afternoon feel like a lifetime. In fact Peter's sense of reality should be all over the place. In the second Superior Spider-Man run, Peter returned after having lived in an alternate reality where his Uncle Ben never died and they lived a full life together... and then he returned to reality. In this series, Peter got to live a life where he married Gwen and had kids... and then he returned to reality.

One thing that's different with the case of Peter and Miles, other than them hiding the fact that they're superheroes, is that they never entered the Arcadium willingly. Peter and Miles were captured and thrown in there. Since we got to see the people elaborate on their experiences, I do wonder if we're going to see more of Miles and his 'feeling he never knew he had' for Miss Marvel. I'm assuming 'his friend moving away and moving back' was referring to Kamala's recent death and resurrection.

I do like the comparison between Miles' situation with Juliet's even though hers is more extreme. At least Miles and Kamala are friends. Juliet seems to admire Anna from afar, with the object of her affections not even knowing her name. 

When you really think about it, is Anna even gay to potentially go for Juliet? In Juliet's fantasy, Anna 'left her boyfriend' to be with her so maybe she's straight or bi? We don't really know how much Juliet actually knows about Anna other than the idealized version she made up in her head. Anna could just be not interested in relationships at all for all Juliet knows.

One thing I liked was that the series started with Peter and Miles checking out the Coffee Bean as a way to form part of their own community. They did get closer to the regulars, and now with this shared experience and group therapy, they've become even closer and first name basis with most of them.

We also have the extra plot thread of Electro going after the female Electro. From what I found out, Francine took the role after she accidentally killed Max and got his powers. Max, does eventually 'get better' and comes back to life thanks to Doctor Octopus. Though it seems like it happens with several Marvel characters lately, the new guy doesn't change their name once their original namesake either comes back to life or returns from retirement. 

Speaking of Electro, it was cool to get a Silk cameo. I like the part when the bystanders were running from the fight. There was a guy filming the action with his phone saying the video will get him a million views. A woman running alongside him says he'll catch a million volts if he doesn't run too.

So now we have Juliet turning into vapor and water, and we have an upcoming confrontation between the two Electros. We'll have to find out how all of this goes down. We also this other guy wanting Arcade and Mentallo to rebuild the Arcadium to worry about. The Arcadium might be the overarching theme throughout this series.

I wonder what happened to their letter column.. or should we call it an email column? They seemed to have stopped printing them and even stopped asking for people to send their letters... or um.. emails. I sure wish they printed mine before they stopped.