Title: Web Of Spider-Man
Issue Number: 37
Release Date: April 1988
Highlights
- First appearance of Elyse Nelson, Harvey Finklestein, Leslie, and Officer Richardson
- The story opens on a crime scene, where the police have found a dead body at the river
- The police have been on the hunt of a serial killer murdering fashion models, but have no leads, and no suspects
- The detective on-site speaks to Dakota North, the PI hired by several modeling agents to investigate
- Side note - Dakota is an obscure character introduced in her own five issue limited series in 1986, Dakota North Investigations
- As he's suiting up, the security guards of the building he's on the roof of show up
- Without his mask on, Peter jumps over the edge, and comes across an open window with a half naked Elyse inside - To which he thinks to himself, "Man is she cute." All of this in the same breath of thinking to himself that he's supposed to be meeting his wife
- It turns out this has a point in the long run, establishing that Elyse is quite the knock out
- A man named Harvey manages to get past security, and bring Elyse flowers to her dressing room
- As he's ushered out, Harvey grumbles to himself that Elyse and her friend, Mary Jane, are probably laughing at him
- He bumps into Peter, who's spider sense activates
- Elyse makes a comment to Mary Jane that she thinks herself to be fat, which Mary Jane informs her is quite to the contrary
- We're seeing Elyse has a complex that doesn't visually fit her physical attributes at all
- As Peter and Mary Jane leave, she tells him that her and Elyse will be in the upcoming fall fashion show
- Peter tells Mary Jane he can't attend the show because he's got a photography job out of town, and the money will pay his taxes
- Mary Jane informs him she's paid it, and it makes him feel bad
- After telling Mary Jane that maybe he will decline the job and attend the show, she tells him not to
- As Harvey walks through the unemployment office, he grumbles about being an unemployeed actor, and ponders how to get Elyse to notice him
- When he bumps into Leslie, a large man reading a paper, he notices the slasher headline, and asks the guy if he wants to make a few bucks
- The man put's Harvey's plan into action, holding Elyse in her apartment with a knife
- When her doorbell rings, the killer takes off, and Elyse begins scream, prompting Mary Jane and Peter to enter the home
- Peter gives chase, but instead of finding the man, runs into Dakota
- As Dakotah meets with Elyse, Peter chastises himself for losing the killer, and says there's no way he's leaving town now
- At Leslie's apartment, Harvey shrugs off that the plan didn't go off as expected, but then notices that Leslie has an awful lot of clippings of the slasher, and a lot of knives
- Leslie plays it off as being a character actor, and just him getting into character
- The next day at the shoot, Peter is sneaking in with a disguise on, after telling Mary Jane he was leaving for his assignment, and unknown to him Leslie is also working his way through the event
- Leslie, disguised as a security guard, enters the room of Mary Jane and Elyse
- Outside, Harvey knocks on the door, ready to play his part as protector, but as the girls and Leslie come crashing out of the room, he informs Harvey that his plan isn't working
- Meanwhile, outside the building, Peter has been taken into custody for sneaking around the bushes
- Hearing the ruckus upstairs, Dakota spring into action, as does Peter, who forgoes his secret identity, breaks his cuffs, and runs for the building after tossing the officers off of him
- They both give chase after Leslie, only for him to confess that he's just an actor
- Meanwhile, as Elyse and Mary Jane continue to run away, Elyse pulls out a knife
- Elyse tells Mary Jane that she's so pretty as compared to herself, and chases after her
- Spider-Man webs her up
- The whole story crumbles under its hokey narrative, and Dakota's closing words (see oddities)
- The story just ends abruptly, and the whole thing is dumb
Oddities
- Ricky, Dakota's brother, reminds her that tomorrow is their father's birthday, and proceeds to produce an 8 X 10 headshot of him, all this while standing at their car at a crime scene
- Does he always carry around such large photos of his dad? Maybe I should read that limited series and find out
- After the introduction to Dakota at the crime scene, we cut to Peter suiting up, and it says, "Days later in New York City," but we're not told where the opening portion of the story took place
- When Dakota shows up after Spider-Man has webbed up Elyse, she says, that Dakota had a history of mental illness, and was always her prime suspect - What? No way, that's not even believable it's just conveniently hokey
Rating (based on a 1 through 5 Stans grading system)
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