I should have known Japanese Little Miss Muffet would be weird.
Spider-Man: The Manga #12
Marvel Comics (June, 1998)
WRITER/ARTIST: Ryoichi Ikegami
TRANSLATION: Mutsumi Masuda
RETOUCHING/PRODUCTION: Dan Nakrosis
EDITOR: Glenn Greenberg
When Rumi still hasn’t come home Yu goes out after her over the objections of his aunt, who he has an argument with. Clearly the stress of all this is getting to him, and it doesn’t help that he’s having nightmares about becoming like this evil Spider-Fake. When he finds Rumi he bumps into a bunch of toughs who decide to beat him up, Yu afraid to fight back without using his powers. On their way home Spider-Fake swipes Rumi’s handbag, that includes photos of her mother and brother, and now she hates Spider-Man too.
What they got right: Ikegami does a good job showcasing Yu’s fears of being like Kangaroo and the fake Spider-Man.
What they got wrong: On other hand I think they’re pushing a bit hard to put all of this on Yu and force him back into the costume. This is a different take on Peter’s sense of responsibility that keeps leading him back to being Spider-Man even when he tries to quit (the only reason the Mainframe Entertainment version didn’t go back is that the show didn’t get a second season because MTV didn’t know what they were doing with the show) but they’re laying it on a bit thick.
What I think overall: I’m still enjoying the comic otherwise. The next issue teases Mysterio and I’m curious how that’s going to go…though I think we can guess where Spider-Fake is coming from now.
BW Media Spotlight 