Missing Links: Spider-Man 2099 #8

Spider-Man 2099 (Vol. 1) #8
“Flight of Fancy”
Writer: Peter David
Penciler: Rick Leonardi
Inker: Al Williamson
Letterer: Rick Parker
Colorist: Steve Buccellato
Editor: Joey Cavalieri
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco
Released: April 6, 1993

“Spider-Man 2099” #7 was originally going to be that series' sole entry in the Missing Links feature, but then I realized I had read it somewhere along the way. I thought it still counted, but I also figured issue 8 would as well.

It opens in the old part of New York, which I mistakenly called “Lowtown”* last week, but which is clearly referred to in both issues as “Downtown.” In St. Patrick's Cathedral, which has become a forgotten structure as the city grew upward, Father Jennifer** walks among the homeless who have taken shelter there. She prays for a sign that things will get better, but just gets the 2099 version of Spider-Man and the Vulture crashing through a stained glass window.

Spidey is hesitant to fight in a church, but Vulture is a guy who casually eats people, so he has no such qualms. He tells Spider-Man they can take the fight outside, where his people, the Freakers, are clamoring for a piece of the web-slinger. Spider-Man doesn't want to oblige, but Vulture knocks him out a window and into the crowd.

Last issue's cliffhanger is resolved with the revelation that when Spider-Man-aka-Miguel's brother Gabriel shot his special lady friend Kasey, it was just a flesh wound.*** Before she and Gabe can compare notes on Miguel, Spider-Man and what brought Gabe to Downtown, her crew arrives. Turns out they're Throwbacks, one of the Downtown factions Vulture mentioned in the prior issue.

Meanwhile, Miguel's no-good boss Tyler Stone is trying to convince Miguel's girlfriend Dana that mega-corporation Alchemax is a magnanimous operation, looking to improve the world. Threatening Dana's job if she doesn't help convince Miguel to keep working there probably undermined that message a little though.

Back in Downtown, Spider-Man is nearly overwhelmed by the Freakers when Kasey and the Throwbacks intervene. Sadly, that's not the name of a Downtown band, but given they are pretty heavily armed and looking to help Spider-Man against the Freakers, their presented composition is probably more helpful.

Spidey attempts to draw the Vulture away from Kasey and Gabriel, prompting Kasey to express her admiration for both the new hero and his posterior. The wall-crawler climbs back toward the area of New York he's used to, then turns the confined spaces beneath the magnetic roadways to his advantage, finally subduing the Vulture and then...

...letting him fall to his death?!?

I was thinking this marked a dark turn in Miguel's development as a hero, but the Marvel Fandom wiki indicates this version of the Vulture appeared, alive, in subsequent issues. I guess I misinterpreted the unconscious guy with webbed-up wings falling and Spider-Man not catching him.

The issue ends with former Public Eye Sgt. Estevez meeting with a mysterious woman who offers him a chance for revenge on both Spider-Man and Alchemax. I bet he's getting powers soon.

This was an action-packed story that still spotlighted members of the supporting cast. The building of Miguel's world, and the 2099 one at large, continues. Stone's remark to Dana about the development of technology being interrupted by “that ugly business at the end of the Heroic Age” adds a dash of mystery while deflecting any thinking-too-hard criticism about the status of the world 100-plus years (then) in the future.

David conveys that, in his eighth issue, Miguel O'Hara is still very much a rookie superhero. Leonardi's art seems a little... maybe loose is the term? But because it's the style I associate with the character, it feels right, and the way he allows the action to spill across panels is cool. And hey, it's way better than anything I could draw.

Finally reading (or rereading) these issues not only takes me back to the intrigue of the early days of the 2099 line, it makes me want to go back and read more, not only for nostalgia's sake but to see how it hits me now that I'm... well, I was going to say more mature, but let's be realistic: older.

* - I guess I got future New York confused with present-day Madripoor?

** - Apparently in 2099, the Catholic church either allows women to be priests or doesn't have
a Downtown diocese, leaving folks like Jennifer to figure out their own way to serve God.
Either way, it's a detail that feels richer than just, “haha, lady priest!”

*** - I really hope she turns out to be Black Knight 2099.