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Dave Scrimgeour and Kevin McCluskey    Writer- Gerry Conway Penciler- Alex Saviuk Inker- Andy Mushynsky Colourist- Bob Sharen Designer- Dawn Geiger Editor- Jim Salicrup Assistant Editor- Glenn Herdling Published March 28th 1989 by Marvel Comics. SYNOPSISYou know what it's like; you get married to your soulmate, and in no time at all you're being attacked by a supervillain's eight-limbed drone-bots in your aunt's house, before swinging across town to confront said supervillain in his underwater lair, then having a crisis on conscience about your marriage, only for your new wife to talk some sense back into you. Happens to us all, right?  Of course you'd invite your school, and your work bullies to your wedding. Dave So, back to the final part of ‘Parallel Lives,’ and it starts with a cracking splash page of Pete and MJ’s wedding with, of course, Spidey hovering over them (a metaphor for Spidey always overshadowing their relationship) and all the guests, including a smiling J.Jonah Jameson (was surprised by that one) looking up at the couple. It has great artwork and colours. Kev Yeh, that's a cracking splash page, once again, by Saviuk, Mushynsky and Sharen. The symbolism of Spidey looming over Peter and Mary Jane's wedding didn't occur to me until you pointed it out there but, you are correct, Sir. Dave Plus, the consistent internal dialogue of how Pete and MJ are feeling on this event is a good touch to the story. And we get Ock Drones before drones were popular. I like that aerial view of Ock’s drone hovering over them. That’s a nice little panel with some good detail in it. I also like the contrast of the yellow against a more white/cream backdrop. That works so well too. Kev The whole wedding scene looks great, actually. Yeh, we have this fantastic mirroring device, between Pete and MJ’s internal monologues. Both in terms of the artwork and the script, and it’s very effective. Yeh, I like that Doc Ock is spying on them with his little tentacled drone. Way ahead of his time was ol’ Otto, and always on-brand too. You’ve got to admire that in a costumed supervillain. Dave All their fears and anxieties that they have, and yet they’re trying to hold it together as well on such an important day for the two of them. Yeah, the writing really excels as a character study. Kev Peter’s guilt is never far from the surface, is it? “After all, I’d hurt so many people, starting with Uncle Ben……and I’d been responsible for so much pain…” He must be Catholic. We can smell our own. That panel, atop page 48 is superb. Saviuk couldn’t half draw some attractive people. The entire wedding recreation is fantastic. God, I miss them being married. I feel it was kind-of all downhill for Spidey as a character, once they started monkeying around with the continuity too much. Particularly when the powers that be undid their marriage.  It's perfectly natural to experience performance anxiety in the lead-up to your big night, Pete. Dave It really doesn't waste any time in jumping straight into the thick of the action. After the wedding scene, we get a bit of blissful interaction with Pete, MJ and Aunt May, then bang, Ock enters the frame like a force of nature. This is a more action packed issue. I felt, as a last chapter, somehow the build up was too quick, but it could just be the usual time constraints on these stories. Kev I agree. Maybe this story could've done with having a fourth part. Just to even out the pacing of the story a bit. This is something that rears its head for me a bit later on, but we'll cover that when we get there. We’re building up to the Doc Ock reveal, and what I thought was my only real gripe with this book, until this re-read and the pacing felt a bit off. Dave Also, Pete just blatantly shoves Aunt May into what looks like a metallic object. I get he was trying to get her out of harm's way, but jeez, doesn’t he know his own strength? He could have killed her with that shove. And all throughout him tackling a drone, as well as surviving an explosion, that spider quiff is still in perfect place. Kev It looks like her head might have hit the corner as well. That could've been fatal. Especially considering how frail her old body is. Pete could've turned her skeleton to dust with that move. Dave It looks like there is a microwave on top of that cooker as well. Great, she crashes into a cooker, then the microwave lands on top of her head. She's a goner for sure. Kev Which reminds me; did Mike not used to say that Aunt May sometimes looked like The Crypt Keeper? Dave I think Mike did say that she looked like The Crypt Keeper, yeah. Kev Ha, ha! That panel at the bottom of page 49 is so dynamic, and really cool though. Despite a beloved pensioner almost dying in it. Saviuk, Mushynski and Sharen are great at capturing the kinetic energy in an action scene panel. That panel at the top of page 50 isn’t half bad either.  You're going to feel even more guilty about your aunt's death than you do your uncle's, Pete. Dave "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can. Kills his Aunt......” Kev Ha, ha! Dave I do like the little bit of characterization thrown in on page 51, as MJ is studying Pete's face during this situation. Normally he would be wearing his mask, so she can actually get to see his expressions and reactions this time, during what is technically a Spidey bout. But that panel on page 52, as Pete is taking off his clothes to reveal the Spidey outfit with MJ at the back of him, he does know they have neighbours who would likely be looking out of the window after hearing a loud explosion, right? Kev Ha, ha! Yeh, MJ is a smart cookie, alright. She knows Peter is being manipulated into a trap, and makes it perfectly clear that she doesn’t want him to, or is willing to let him, go. The art on the whole of page 60 is outstanding as well. Dave The artwork is classic. Bright and colourful. It really captures the reader’s imagination. Kev “Well, aren’t we the natty new dresser.” Ha, ha! What do you make of this Doc Ock redesign, I mean, I get it, they were trying to redesign, update, and modernise a lot of Spidey’s rogues gallery at this point (it was the edgy 90’s after all), but that outfit, it’s hella ugly. In my opinion anyway. What do you make of it? Dave Yeah, I wasn't keen on the new look either, or even the maniacal personality he had. He just seemed like a very one dimensional character in this story. I would have preferred his character to be more fleshed out. After all this is a story about characterization and self study. Why not give Ock the same treatment? Kev That's a good point about Doc Ock's characterisation. He does feel like he's there purely for antagonist purposes, and to give Pete someone to have a fight with in the climax. Maybe this was a result of the lack of real estate. Or maybe he was kept a bit more simplified, purely to give Pete and MJ more of the spotlight. Dave However, upon looking at the first couple of pages of their battle, I kind-of like the colour contrast between Ock’s dark blue outfit and Spidey’s bright red and blue outfit. Again, very eyecatching in this way. Plus, Spidey gives him a good, hefty kick during the battle (good job Aunt May never got one of them to move her out of the way earlier). How did you find the battle between Pete and Doc Ock? I kind-of thought it went on a bit too long, and took up too much of this issue. And something about the battle going underwater did not get me invested either.  Clearly Pete is not a fashion expert. Kev That's a good point about it going on for a bit too long. I sort of get why it did though. We needed a "fight in tights" scene to justify Spidey's name being above the door, so to speak, but yeh, for a story that felt a little rushed in its third act, devoting almost half the issue to this scrap was a bit of an odd choice. Maybe it was just to allow Saviuk to cut loose a bit. As for a lot of it taking place under water, again, I get that it increases the drama, and the tension, in that there is a ticking clock due to the lack of oxygen for our hero, and the implication that he might die a horrible death by drowning, but it also takes away so much of Spidey's dynamism. Having him swim through the water is nowhere near as kinetic as having him leap through the air. Dave Some of the Spidey poses by Saviuk, and the colouring by Bob Sharen, are great throughout the fight scene though, so I will take my hat off to that for sure. Kev Yeh, this is one hell of a beautiful looking book. Dave Also the fight scene ends very abruptly on page 60, with Ock slamming his fists into the water like a child having a tantrum in a bath, then boom, the explosion on page 61. Kev Yep. The book ended too abruptly on the whole, if you ask me. “...You denied me a normal life.” Does Otto really just want a regular life? I'm not convinced that he does. I think he might be fibbing to himself here, is ol’ Otto. There's no way he was ever going to give up his life of crime and supervillainry, just to settle down with Peter's Aunt May and eat cookies and drink milk in Forest Hills. Dave Ha, ha! It’s the rantings of a madman really. Ock was certainly written like one in this story. Like you said, maybe just as a filler villain to not detract anything away from the Pete/MJ focus. I like the last panel on page 61, as Ock has disappeared, with Spidey looking out at the buildings in the distance, shrouded in shadows. It’s a small, but really effective panel.  Glug, glug, glug! Kev Yeh, that is yet another cracking panel. Bob Sharen’s colours on that one are stellar. The contrast between the sky and the river is outstanding. Dave The next panel, with Spidey shown from an aerial perspective, is also good, as he returns home to MJ sitting on the stairs. Kev Yeh, Saviuk doesn't half draw a fantastic, swinging Spidey. Is it just me, and this is perhaps my other quibble with this book, but is there not much of a climax, or an ending? It feels like, after a long fight with Otto, that doesn't have the greatest blow-off, Pete just returns to MJ, and like a madman, tries to end their marriage, only to be rebuffed by his wife. Dave It’s an inspiring pep talk by MJ to Pete (a bit reminiscent of the Rocky and Adrienne talks, where he is always beating himself up, and she gives him a good perspective on it), they are starting to come full circle with the whole “parallel lives” perspective on the last couple of pages. Kev It's well constructed again by Conway and Saviuk, in that Pete gets a page to state his case, then MJ gets a page to offer her rebuttal, and I like the sentiment, the characterisation, and the message behind it, but it feels a bit rushed and therefore surface level. Almost like there was more depth to it that Conway just ran out of pages to mine. But then again, maybe I had enjoyed the rest of the book so much that I didn't really want it to end, and just wanted more from, and of, it. What do you think? Dave Yeah, I found this chapter to be a bit of a let down. It doesn't actually take anything away from the first two chapters, which are excellent but, as you said earlier, this could have easily been fleshed out into four chapters to match the tone of the first two. It probably was the limitation of the amount of pages that led to it feeling a bit rushed and ending too quickly. I’m sure we had this gripe when we read it originally, but it's still an amazing story. The artwork is at such a high level, as is the writing. I can see why this is still so highly regarded, and it’s a great character study of Pete and MJ. Kev Yeh, I still think it's fantastic. As you've pointed out, these are relatively minor gripes when taken into the context of the whole story, which has, overall, been excellent. Both the writing, in terms of just how good it is as a character study of our two, count 'em, two protagonists, and the artwork, for how classically, handsomely mounted it is, have been outstanding. I had forgotten about our gripes with it when we read it originally, all those years ago, so I am surprised (pleasantly so) that they are lining-up with the ones we have now. That's really interesting. We must've been more insightful as youngsters than I gave us credit for. Dave There was some wisdom in us as kids, Grasshopper. Kev Ha, ha! What happened then? ‘Cause I’m not convinced I’ve gotten any wiser with age. In fact, there’s an argument that I’ve gone backwards, if anything, in those regards. Despite our, admittedly fairly minor reservations, I think this would have served as a fantastic introduction to/jumping on point for Spider-Man in 1989. It gave us an exquisitely constructed, potted history of the character, from his 1962 debut up to the point in time it was released, and made a big deal of his, still relatively new marriage to Mary Jane, which had redefined, and set a new status quo for, the character at the time. Dave This was 1989 too wasn't it? That was a pivotal year for us in comic books. Plus. of course, it had the summer of the Bat, and the mania. Kev It must've been "peak," (as the kids have probably already stopped saying) for us. It may very well have been THEE most formative of our formative years. We just can't escape it, Man. And part of me is perfectly alright with that. (D) & (K) The end. 
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