Our tale starts with the narrator complaining about Aunt May. Yes, we're only fifteen issues in and even the narration is sick of her. She's nagging him to cal up MJ because he's got three women mad at him and even she can tell with her Alzheimer's.
Peter complains that he does have a girlfriend and that he can set up his own dates. When Aunt May points out that's all bullshit, he gets fed up and leaves. He goes out as Spider-Man to clear his head. Wai, I thought you wanted people to nag at you less. Why go out as Spider-Man where the criminals, police, bystanders, and Jameson are going to yell at you for even more pointless reasons?
Then again, this is New York. The only place people complain about any small or even made up thing is on Social Media and California in the 2010's.
Somehow, Peter ends up in Hell's Kitchen. Hell's kitchen is hundreds of miles away. I know it's in New York City, but this just makes Spider-Man seem lost as his nicest and trying to take over at his usual.
He tries to stop a robbery that's one block from Matt Murdock's law office. Matt Murdock, for those who don't buy the comics or watch the Netflix show, is secretly Daredevil. While Matt's blind, he's got super-sensitive 'radar' that can detect his surroundings just by minor sounds and he can ever hear heartbeats from several feet away.
Anywho, the robber run within inches of Matt, then decide to kill him because he heard their voices and can identify them. Yes, going from petty larceny to second-degree murder is a smart idea. Spider-Man jumps in front of them and proceeds to have the shortest fight yet, including where he knocked out Flash in one punch.
Matt thanks Spider-Man for beating them up and leaving them on the sidewalk and Spider-Man remembers he's nowhere near where he should be and goes back to his own neighborhood so he can stop being friendly (you can't have both yet).
Matt's somehow inspired by this to change into his Daredevil suit in a nearby alley. He rambles on about how his super-sensitive hearing-radar-power makes him 'see' better than anyone else while swinging around Hell's kitchen. Does he do anything? Not really. This is back when Daredevil had a black and yellow outfit and wasn't very interesting.
After that he's back in his law office, dressed normally. I guess he just got bored, like everyone else already is. He was leaping around for a good twenty minutes in what seems like the opposite direction, but neither his secretary Karen or his buddy 'Foggy' cares. I guess they're used to the blind guy getting lost for an hour every day. Foggy says the circus is in town and Matt, being blind, declines the insinuated invitation. Call me ignorant, but I don't know how a blind guy can enjoy the generic (and short) circus of a clown act, a juggler, and a trapeze stunt.
While Matt mopes about not being able to reveal his powers, the ringmaster of the circus yells his own exposition at his fellow co-circus-workers. It must suck in the Marvel universe; you can do a cool trick and dress up in a costume, but you're either a villain or a vigilante calling yourself a hero (how heroic you really are is up to you). I'll bet those people who play those dumb improv skits to teach kids about abstinence and how cigarettes will kill you or a rockstar with a punk image have to deal with someone trying to stop their evil schemes unless they file for a permit to look silly beforehand.
The obviously evil ringleader recounts that he was defeated by The Hulk a while ago. This was back when Marvel told you about past events. And gave a damn about them. What's his plan now? To advertise that Spider-Man will be at the circus when they obviously haven't hired Spider-Man. He also claims in the ads that all proceeds will go to charity when they won't. How...dastardly?
By the way, Evil Ringleader has a very obvious giant swirly thing meant to hypnotize Looney Tunes characters on his hat. Remember that because that's a Chekov's gun painted dayglo green and glows in the dark.
We move to Peter Parker seeing a big poster for the circus. He thinks, 'if the proceeds go to charity, why not show up? He's been a performer before'. Then he goes to The Daily Bugle for what isn't exactly drama, but more artificial drama flavoring that may or may not cause cancer. Everyone including Peter is a cliche that's already tired and nothing is advanced in terms of character or the plot. Whoop de doo.
Later, Matt changes his mind because he figures all crime will stop while the circus is going on and not to let Spider-Man handle any threat they may pose. When he goes with his friends to the circus, Peter parker notices him and then reassures himself Matt poses no threat. Why even think that? That's like noticing someone who was once your bank teller might cut you off in line at the grocery store and then tell yourself it'll never happen. Why is that even in your mind?
Peter sneaks into the circus to perform while there's already stuff going on in the circus, Ignoring the evil intentions: why? Shouldn't you go in the back and talk to someone to arrange when to perform? I'm sure SOMEONE here is innocent and could get hurt if you interrupt the act.
Don't think Matt's the only superhero who can keep the creepy to himself. He can hear Spider-Man's pulse and knows he's 'ready for action' as the wall-crawler sneaks around on top of the ten while Matt's in the audience right next to a huge loud audience. No one needs that in your word balloons Matt. Or are you trying to tell the reader's something, because Peter's not yet 18...I think.
Honestly, I'd ask for a refund if I saw Spider-Man's act. It's about as exciting as a kid who can quickly run the whole playground structure without falling or tripping. He swings on a ton of things, goes through a hoop, and that's it.
The Ringleader hypnotizes Spider-Man when he's done. In front of the entire crowd. BEFORE hypnotizing them. Either they waited politely to see if it was an act, or they're just that dumb. Take your pick.
So, like anyone with mind-power and not much ambition, Evil Ringleader demands everyone hands their wallets and valuables to his circus flunkies who go around the rows to collect a totally-not-suspicious-amount of stolen items and cash. I wonder what would happen if most people just brought their credit cards and nothing else.
Matt, of course, is the only unaffected because he's blind. No one was looking at their kids acting up or distracted by anything. The circus flunkies and Evil Ringleader (and Spider-Man for that matter) don't notice Matt not just unhyptnotized, but get up and wander off to a completely unsupervised part of the circus tent long enough to change into Daredevil. And no, Daredevil did not have powers to be invisible before he had his red suit.
Daredevil approaches Evil Ringleader and...approaches some more.
This is enough to worry Evil Ringleader, who sics Spider-Man on him. Or, rather, Spider-Man poses and lets Daredevil body-slam into him. Or maybe Spider-Man just blocked it like in a D&D game. The comic finally has backgrounds and furniture int he panels, and things make LESS sense.
Daredevil recognizes this and just starts climbing and swinging with Spider-Man following until using them leads him to land directly in front Evil Ringmaster and a giant ball animals stand on as a trick. He knocks off Evil Ringleader's hat and just by holding it and chanting he unhypnotizes Spider-Man.
Spider-Man decides to banter and Daredevil is too happy to oblige instead of stopping Evil Ringleader from slinking off. It's okay, because only when Evil Ringleader is safely behind his circus flunkies does he tell them to attack the superhereos.
The flunkies try to throw a net on Daredvil, who escapes and the flunkies ignore him or call it quits because they aren't paid enough. Three whole panels for and none of them are used to explain why they gave up. Spider-Man just jumps out of the way and all the flunkies smack into each otehr ala Looney Tunes...given how the comic was already set up like one, I'm thinking the writer was trying to get someone else's attention other than his editor.
Matt changes into normal clothes, while Spider-Man fights the circus flunkies some more. Hey, Spider-Man's supposed to the be asshole in this comic.
Spider-Man reminds the readers that this is his comic, not Daredevil's, despite him doing all the real work, by filling several pages with filler by continuing to fight the circus flunkies. They throw stuff at him, he throws it back. They shoot a guy out of a cannon and he throws him back. Wasn't the point of hypnotizing Spider-Man that you already knew he could do these things? Or did you just want a cheap acrobat and are hopelessly clueless and The Hulk things you need to go back to school?
Evil Ringleader decides to hypnotize Spider-Man again but makes the common villain mistake of announcing what he's going to do, so Spider-Man plans ahead. He approaches Evil Ringleader with his eyes shut. Why not close his eyes and shooting webbing and take the hat off and tie the guy up at the same time? I said he had a plan, not a good plan.
Spider-Man just flicks Evil Ringleader in the forehead and takes the hat and remembers to hold onto it this time. Matt yells congratulations for wasting the reader's time and Spider-Man can't hear him because the acoustics in the tent magically turn too inconvenient to he can't pinpoint the voice.
Spider-Man holds up the hat and spins the spiral thingy and unhypnotizes the entire crowd. Only after that does he web up all the bad guys. Yep, it just that easy and they are just that dumb.
Everyone in the audience thinks it just an act and goes home talking about how cool it was, despite remembering less than an hour of it. While chatting without realizing any holes in their own stories, Foggy and Karen realized Matt has wandered off. It turns out he was offering his business card to Evil Ringleader.
The comic ends with Spider-Man swinging off and talking about how all the women in his life are going to nag him for no reason. Marvel: laughing at equality until they hired Slott to do it.
WHAT THE HELL IS HE SWINGING ON: 1
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