Spectacular Spider-Man #2: Review

Jul 2017
Chip Zdarsky, Adam Kubert

Story Name:

Sister act

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Spectacular Spider-Man #2 Review by (July 30, 2017)
Most of the cover stars don't appear in this issue, apart from Human Torch and Ironheart. But maybe they'll all get involved in the Project Twilight plot, even Howard the Duck.

Peter Parker's long-dead parents were revealed to have been CIA Agents in Amazing SM Annual #5.

Red Skull left several different robots called Sleepers to exact revenge if the Nazis lost WWII. originally we knew of 3 Sleepers awakened in the Captain America parts of Tales of Suspense #72-74. CA#101-102 saw the emergence of a 4th Sleeper, and CA#158 the 5th. CA(2005)#20-21 gave us another Sleeper in the lead-up to the 1st Civil War, but this 1 was probably constructed at the time and so wasn't really 1 of the originals. The designated Final Sleeper awoke in the aftermath of Fear Itself in The Fearless #10-12. So I don't know what that makes the Sleeper in Family Business, which is set between Infinity and Original Sin.

Family Business happens well after Brand New Day. As part of BND Dr Strange, Reed Richards and Tony Stark got together to give Spider-Man his secret identity back after Civil War. 1 component of this was a spell that prevented people from noticing anything that suggested that PP is Spidey. Peter has revealed his id again to some chars such as Johnny Storm, so maybe the spell didn't affect Teresa because she found out the truth after it was cast.

The Coffee Bean was the favourite spot for Peter and his college friends, and he's continued to frequent it ever since.

Johnny Storm can call on Inhuman Karnak for help because he's been hanging around with the Inhumans since the start of the Uncanny Inhumans series. But his relationship with them (and their queen Medusa) ended in Inhumans vs X-Men #6, as confirmed in Infamous Iron Man #9. So this issue is presumably set before those. And so definitely before Secret Empire.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Spectacular Spider-Man #2 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
Last issue Spider-Man learned about villains using hacked Stark phones. The only hacked phone an associate could track was in Chicago. Spidey went to the address and said he was here to arrest the user. And Ironheart answered the door.

So now it's time to apologise and ask for an autograph for Normie Osborn (Green Goblin's grandson). But Ironheart reacts by taking SM into the sky. And *he* reacts by webbing her armoured legs together and pulling her feet back so her jets send her crashing to the ground. (Something he says Tony Stark's knee-joint locks would have prevented.) IH says she was just trying to take them out of her neighbourhood to protect her secret identity.

A hologram of Ironheart's Tony Stark AI manifests to assure her that it's the real Spider-Man they're facing (he can tell by the bad jokes). Peter explains about the villains using hacked Stark phones with a replaced operating system which makes them untraceable. IH says she hacked a Stark phone herself to make her armour's comms system. She suggests he leave the phone he found with her to look at.

Spidey agrees and sends her his phone number. And then notices loads of missed calls from Human Torch who he was supposed to be going to a movie with. It's too late for that but Johnny Storm says he's let Pete's sister into his apartment. Ironheart gives him a lift back to New York, strapped by webbing to her back.

Peter Parker gets back to the apartment to find confused Torch with 'sister' Teresa. Pete stumbles through an explanation why a normal guy like him knows a member of the Fantastic Four, but Teresa says she knows he's Spider-Man. Peter's response is "You remembered?". He then explains to an even more confused Johnny the plot of the Amazing SM: Family Business GN.

Teresa Durand is a CIA Agent who contacted Peter because of his deceased CIA Agent parents. Apparently they had hidden some Nazi gold and the key to accessing it was Richard Parker's biometric readings. Kingpin was after the gold and needed Richard's son Peter to get it. Teresa was here to protect him, and herself because by-the-way she was his sister. But it turned out that Kingpin had used Mentallo to make Teresa *believe* she was the Parker's child so she would bring Peter with her and locate the burial place of the gold. However along the way Teresa and Kingpin discovered that Peter is Spidey.

They opened the tomb and Spider-Man fought yet another of Red Skull's Sleeper robots. But Mentallo rebelled against Kingpin and his mental blast made Teresa and Kingpin forget Peter's secret. (An epilogue suggested that Teresa might *really* be Pete's sister, but that isn't mentioned here. Except for the hint at the end of this issue.)

Teresa now claims that seeing Peter and Spider-Man in the news together (because SM supposedly now 'works' for Parker Industries in the ASM series) made her remember their real connection. Peter hopes Kingpin doesn't have the same flash of inspiration.

We learn that since the Nazi gold adventure she's quit the CIA and joined a SHIELD black ops division called the Gray Blade. There she uncovered their Project Twilight, a plan to kill all super-characters, villains or heroes. Her Gray Blade boss told her to ignore it so she copied and deleted the files and tried to take the info to SHIELD proper. But the Gray Blade/SHIELD have ordered her to be killed, so she's come to Peter instead. The data is stored in a nanofluid in her bloodstream.

While exhausted Teresa gets some sleep, Peter leaves her in the care of Torch while he nips out to get on with another bit of his private life. Last issue he arranged a 'date' as Spider-Man with stand-up comedian Rebecca London in the Coffee Bean. It doesn't go too well but Rebecca gets some good material for her stand-up. Spidey annoys an obnoxious customer who then outs him for bringing in his own food. Torch turns up (after getting Karnak to watch over Teresa) and makes a move on Rebecca when Spidey gets a phone call from Ironheart.

She's been working on the hacked Stark phone. Although *it* is untraceable, it still records where it's been. And it seems to have originated in or near the HQ of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. (And we get to see him - a heads-up for next issue's plotline.)

And Teresa Durand still has a photo of herself as a baby with the Parkers - which was supposedly something that she only imagined due to Mentallo's influence.



Adam Kubert
Adam Kubert
Jordie Bellaire
Adam Kubert (Cover Penciler)
Adam Kubert (Cover Inker)
Richard Isanove (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Travis Lanham.
Editor: Tom Brevoort.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Human Torch
Human Torch

(Johnny Storm)
Kingpin
Kingpin

(Wilson Fisk)
Spider-Man
Spider-Man

(Peter Parker)

Plus: Ironheart (Riri Williams), Rebecca London, Teresa Durand, Tony Stark AI.

> Spectacular Spider-Man: Book info and issue index

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