And back to the Evolutionary War.
Considering Spider-Man has faced the High Evolutionary's forces three times now, this crossover is starting to feel like a Spider-Man story, rather than one that spans the Marvel Universe. But the stories are still only very loosely connected. Spidey himself admits he really has no idea what's going on. I think this is really what sets the crossover apart from others, and it's something I mentioned right at the very beginning of this story - unlike most crossovers, the heroes really have no idea what's going on. No one's discovered a secret cache of plans, no enemies have defected to the good guys' side because they disagree with the High Evolutionary's plan. From this point of view, the crossover is not playing into many of the tropes that we see in contemporary crossovers. Indeed, given the utter lack of awareness and information that the heroes have, I can't see how they'll end up stopping the Evolutionary's manipulations.
I guess we'll find out in tomorrow's Avengers annual, which will lead us nicely back into the last few issues of Walt Simonson's run. I should note that I didn't manage to find one part of this crossover, the West Coast Avengers annual, but I'll keep an eye out for it and fill in the gap when I can.
Today's issue had a couple of interesting points. First, Gwen Stacy is back. When will poor Peter be free of this burden? Well, as it turns out, at the end of this issue. The "clone" turns out to not be a clone, but rather a genetically altered woman, and that alteration is undone and she goes back to whatever life she has out there. Second, we have the Young Gods. This is a super team created way back in 1972 - ostensibly they're people chosen by various gods of Earth to become the next generation of deities. There are, however, some problems. First, though hailing from numerous different nations around the world, most of the characters are coloured Caucasian. A young Polynesian girl and an Indian man are probably the most egregious examples of this whitewashing, and I can only hope that it's a colouring problem from a technical standpoint, rather than a deliberate act. Another problem leapt out at me because I've been teaching Indigenous Literature and culture this week. One of the characters is a young white woman from 19th century Ottawa (misspelled in the comic) who is chosen by a member of the Algonquin pantheon to be a deity. This seems problematic to me, though we might be able to side-step the problem by claiming that the woman was simply the best choice for deification. However, given the horrendous under-representation of Indigenous Peoples in comics, having a settle chosen by an Indigenous god is just not okay.
But enough for now. We'll finish the war tomorrow.
To be continued.
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