Oh, those young toughs, how dare they break up a date between Peter Parker and… Jack Monroe (Nomad). Seriously, they’re on a date. They meet in an alley, beat up some threatening toughs, then head to see Rio Bravo together. All while Nomad is supposed to be delivering art to Steve Rogers.

Unfortunately, it’s a star crossed romance, with Taskmasker showing up to train a bunch of gangs to fight superheroes. So Spidey and Nomad have to break it up.

The writing is occasionally weak, but it’s some of the better stuff I’ve read from Burkett. While it’s a complete waste of time, it’s not terrible. Even LaRocque is stronger than usual–it’s mostly action this issue, so no heavy lifting.

There’s some funny forced continuity to the other Spider-Man books here. Peter’s taking a break from the alien costume trying to kill him for his date with Nomad.

What a lame issue. I mean, I wasn’t expecting much when I saw Cary Burkett’s name on it, but it’s a lot worse than I thought. Pretty sure Peter gives away his identity–or at least risks giving it away–at the end of the issue too.

There’s a lot bad about it–Burkett’s expository dialogue is terrible, his constant narration is tedious. It takes forever to get through a page because he’s got so many narration boxes. Or are they narration squares? Did John Byrne ever weigh in on that one?

Maybe if LaRocque were a better artist it might be more tolerable.

Wait, I forgot a couple things. The white guys saving Chinatown from itself–the Chinese are way too corrupt to not need Spidey and Moon Knight to save them.

And Moon Knight–who likes Moon Knight? He’s lamer than Jeph Loeb Batman.

Just a dreadful read.