AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #353-358 (1991-1992): Round Robin, The Sidekick’s Revenge

Despite what it says on the cover, a story titled, “Round Robin: The Sidekick’s Revenger!” cannot possibly be “the greatest bi-weekly saga of all!” It is interesting to work into the title the name of the most famous superhero sidekick of all time, D.C.’s “Robin.”

Or wait, maybe it can be the “best bi-weekly saga of all”?  I’m not sure there has ever been a bi-weekly saga before. 

Also, Spider-Man’s other biweeklies, Web Of and Spectacular, are also doing 6-part stories.  So I guess you don’t need to buy those because Marvel is telling you that they’re inferior to this one.

Anyway, Al Milgrom returns as writer.  He’s not terrible, and he’s old-school, so maybe this won’t be just another 1990s fight-and-post-fest.

From the pages of Moon Knight, the clandestine Secret Empire have recruited Moon Knight’s sidekick Midnight to break the now-powerless Thunderball out of prison and build robots for them.  Yes, Thunderball is a good enough robotics expert that it’s worth breaking him out of jail.

Spider-Man finds out, and knows that Moon Knight believes Midnight to be dead, and offers to reach out.

The youngsters in the New Warriors get involved, and we see that Midnight has been brainwashed and is now fighting for the Secret Empire.

Meanwhile, Punisher beats people up until he gets enough info to join the battle. 

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He also hates bad grammar.

And sidekicks. Side note: I do not like seeing Punisher smile.

Even Darkhawk joins the fun.

Including guys like him and Nova/Night Thrasher is obvious cross-promotion, but the New Warriors is one of the better Marvel books so I’m not offended by it.

They’ve earned the right to gather new readers.

Nova gets captured.

As the heroes discuss options, Moon Knight acts like a complete dick.

I really don’t recall him having such a bad attitude. He also c-blocks Spidey when he’s in bed with MJ.

To be fair, there’s a bit of that in Moon Knight’s life, too.

As part of the rescue we get a big cyborg fight against The Seekers.

Midnight ends up being on the side of justice and dies fighting off Secret Empire. Moon Knight is all choked up and emotional…

Wow. Moon Knight is just awful in this comic.

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