I’ll start with a couple notes. First, I don’t recall Michael Lark drawing Amazing Spider-Man before and it’s beautiful. Second, this story happens after several “Gauntlet” installments, but it mostly advances the Mr. Negative plot. Sure, Doctor Connors appears on the last page, but this is not a Gauntlet story.
Second: Why does it look like Negative, Spidey and Cat are having a threesome on the cover? Is that just me?
Finally, this series has been on a three-issues-per-month schedule with rotating writers, so there’s a lot going on. Peter Parker has multiple love interests, there’s all kinds of stuff happening with his supporting cast, and he’s got his first friend-with-benefits: Black Cat. Felicia agrees to help him with a mission…
…But she doesn’t need a recap. Unlike us readers, who could use a little reminder. So, they’re there to try to re-take a vial of blood that Mr. Negative uses to make a gas that is only deadly to Spider-Man.
They’re successful: Black Cat swaps the vial of Spider-Blood with pig’s blood. But to keep Mr. Negative busy while she does so, Spidey literally gets punched through a building.
Meanwhile, Detective Carlie Cooper (who is one of Pete’s current love interests) has a sample of the formula and hopes to re-engineer it. How does a cop know science? Well, her dad was a chemist for Mysterio. So, there’s that. He’s now in hiding, hoping to sneak out the country–with Carlie–rather than be arrested or killed by Mysterio. But she double-crosses her own dad and arrests him.
While all that is going on, Aunt May is acting like a total bitch because she was exposed to Mr. Negative’s “power” to make people be, well, “negative.”
Final page: Dr. Curt “Lizard’ Connors is working for some guy named Mr. King who is demanding “results” (of what, we don’t know) or else he won’t help Curt get his son back.