Back issue review – Peter Parker: Spider-Man Annual 2000
Peter Parker: Spider-Man Annual 2000 is one of the annuals in that period of a few years when Marvel decided to number their annual releases by the year rather than the number. This one features two stories, each teaming Spidey up with a female character with questionable heroic credentials.
The first, longer story is from a plot by Chris Claremont and a script by Bill Rosemann. The art is by Joe Bennett.
Peter Parker is tending bar to fill in for roommate Randy Robinson, when he gets into a kerfuffle with a tall space bounty hunter in a midriff-baring outfit when he tries to slow her alcohol intake.
Their altercation spills into the street, where Peter doesn’t seem to be trying real hard to hide his secret identity. He finds out the bounty hunter, named Bounty, is just down after being rejected by Ben Grimm.
He catches up with Bounty again later that night, and they go for coffee, where they find themselves in the middle of a Romeo-and-Juliet situation involving rival gangs.
Bennett’s art is serviceable-to-good, and Rosemann’s clever quips and dialogue, for the most part, keep the reader from focusing on some of the story’s weaker points. Well, except this one: Peter reveals his secret ID to Bounty. A woman he’s met once, who drinks heavily and may or may not be on the right side of the law. I don’t know if Peter’s run into Bounty since, and I guess the magic that made everybody else forget Spidey’s secret ID after he revealed it to the world probably affects Bounty, too, but I just have to say:
Really, Pete? Really?
The second story is a less memorable one by Gregory Wright, also drawn by Joe Bennett, featuring a flirty team-up with the Black Cat. I assume this annual must have come out during a time when Marvel was trying to separate Peter and Mary Jane, given all the flirting Peter Parker does in this issue.
Overall, I don’t know that this issue is worth making a huge effort to seek out, though Rosemann, now a Marvel editor, has a good feel for Peter’s voice.
– Matt Price
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