Continuing from last issue’s cliffhanger, where Aunt May was on a date with Jarvis and saw Ben Parker on the street outside the restaurant, we are taken to an alternate Earth where Aunt May died—not Ben—and she’s killed by a fall. As a result, Peter Parker never learns responsibility and instead Ben becomes Peter the Spider-powered wrestler’s agent. By itself, that makes for a pretty good “What If?” story—and it’s written by Peter David so, yeah, it’s fun.
The Ben from that reality has been transported to Earth 616—along with an alternate future Hobgoblin who has “retcon bombs” that erase people from reality. And the villain’s goal is to erase all Spider-Mans (Spider-Men?) from all realities.
Okay. I was on board for the Peter/Ben stuff, but if you read my blog with any kind of regularity you know that the only thing I find more irritating than time-travel is alternate reality travel, and both are here. The story spends quite a bit of time developing Hobgoblin of the year 2211, then brings that year’s Spider-Man to Earth 616, too. And none of that matters because it’s just a possible future that will never happen. Mostly because both the character is recon-bombed in the end. (Also, Hobgoblin is actually the daughter of a future Spider-Man who is also in the story.) Then Uncle Ben shoots Spider-Man 2211. So they’re all dead and then Ben dies too.
Again, none of this matters. It’s fine as a standalone story if you’re into alternate universe adventures. Because I’m not, I’m only rating this as a C.