“The Night Just Got Deadlier…” That’s the tag line? Hobie Brown was an amateur burglar who took on the Prowler role, and he’s moved from being a second-story guy to a titular hero. And in this story, someone who dresses like him is running around killing people. The top of issue #1 shows Prowler fighting crime the humane way—by breaking bones and knocking people out, while the bottom shows Bad Prowler killing people.
It’s like Goofus and Gallant. Remember them, from Highlights For Children magazine?
Love those guys.
Spider-Man shows up (hanging from a water tower) to help uncover the real killer and, thankfully, talks first and punches later. We avoid several pages of useless “hero on hero” violence.
The fake Prowler, we learn, is named Nightcreeper.
No, not the guy from Amalgam comics—those won’t arrive until 1996. This Nightcreeper is just (yet another) Punisher because everyone in the mid-90s is either a Punisher or Cable clone. His kids were killed in a drive-by shooting and now he’s killing everyone to get even. He stole the designs for his battlesuit from the same company that built Prowler’s suit, Bestman Electronics.
The two guys fight, then work together against Vulture, who is now young again (see Amazing Spider-Man #388) and who also happens to have become the new CEO of Bestman Electronics. Someone needs to investigate that company.
It ends with Nightcreeper injured and Vulture still at large.
Note the typos: Nightcreeper is officially Eric Cross, but when we see his backstory at Bestman Electronics, his called Eric Horst.