In The Grip Of The Psycho-Man!

Let's just recap how bleak things are looking recently, shall we?

• The Silver Surfer, fed up with his treatment by the hostile human race, refuses to turn the other cheek any longer and vows to meet force with force and violence with violence, "battl[ing] them on their own savage terms!" (That means we're in for it with interest, folks.)
• Reaching New York City, the Surfer unhesitatingly begins blasting large areas of the city to rubble, unmindful of the innocent lives he puts in danger!
• Spider-Man, the only hero in the vicinity (or, put another way, the only hero in the entire city who notices the continual devastation taking place--which one sounds more unbelievable?), responds to the emergency and fights bravely to stop the Surfer's rampage, but in the end falls beneath the onslaught of the Surfer's power!
• With Spider-Man at his mercy, the Surfer prepares to end his life--while in the wings, the true cause of the Surfer's emotion-charged violence is revealed to be the sub-atomic alien known as Psycho-Man!

By the way, the Surfer currently has no mercy to offer his fallen foe--so does this mean it's finally curtains for Spider-Man? It probably would be--if members of the very race the Surfer loathes didn't rush in to save the web-spinner's life without a second thought, even at the cost of their own.

Yet one remains on the scene who actually appreciates the chaos and destruction that's taken place--and continues to torment the alleged perpetrator.

What plan drives Psycho-Man's behavior on our world? And before he's through, will he succeed in dooming the Silver Surfer?



As for Spider-Man, he's seen enough to at least help him begin to put together the pieces of this puzzle, still clinging to the suspicion that the Surfer was manipulated into acting as he has. And grasping at straws, he isn't discounting the possibility of an unlikely connection with a separate mystery he's come across of a group of seniors who disappeared without a trace.

In this second part of Eric Stephenson's three-part tale, we see some minor shifting of the art reins which penciller Keith Giffen and inker Adam Smith held in Part One, though it's accomplished so seamlessly as to be almost imperceptible. In Part Two, Giffen continues on pencils, while Smith is joined by Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Elmer, and Rodney Ramos; while in Part Three, Smith comes back roaring by handling both pencils and inks. (It's only in Part Three where I notice something different in the absence of Giffen--whose unique style, which can no doubt be spotted on sight by many of you, has graced a number of posts in the PPC.)

But what of the Silver Surfer? Soaring above in vocal anguish, he's forced to confront the guilt he feels at having forsaken his core beliefs and turned as violent and unreasoning as the humans he's pitied during his imprisonment on Earth. Yet he has not escaped his unknown tormentor, Psycho-Man, who prepares to take further steps to secure the power of his pawn.

The mystery of Psycho-Man's presence on Earth is complicated by unexpected attacks on his person by deadly Insectivorids, mindless drones who have no emotions for him to manipulate and must be driven off by force. They will become integral to his plans for the Surfer, but it is their master who drives Psycho-Man's agenda on Earth.

The Surfer, however, has problems of his own--specifically, the launch of the missile known as the Sonic Shark, which nearly destroyed the Surfer when he previously lashed out against the human race (albeit for different reasons). Fortunately, having experienced its capabilities to his detriment, the Surfer is prepared to deal with the missile when it targets him again--though the attack spurs him to attempt to bring this situation under control.

We can assume the bygones ship has sailed as far as the Surfer having any hope of smoothing over his earlier attacks with those whose growing mistrust of him since his arrival on Earth has been more than justified this day. Yet that doesn't appear to hold true for Spider-Man, whose search for answers results in an attack by the Insectivorids--as well as Psycho-Man, who uses the incident to toy with the emotions of both Spider-Man and the Surfer and facilitate achieving his goal with the sky-rider.

As we can see, Psycho-Man's actions are being monitored by his enemy, the hidden foe who set the Insectivorids against him. We're only presented with a partial shot of him for now; but as Psycho-Man moves to transport both Spider-Man and the Surfer back to his world of Sub-Atomica, his distinctive profile will likely be enough for longtime readers to identify him.

In Part Three, it becomes clear that Psycho-Man has been busy indeed--stealing innocents (our unfortunate seniors) from Earth so that he could siphon their emotional energy in order to stockpile it for use against his enemy, while capturing both Spider-Man and the gullible Silver Surfer to do the same, with the Surfer providing the raw power he needs to drive back the invaders of his subatomic world.

Again, however, Spider-Man demonstrates that while he doesn't have the sheer power of others such as the Surfer, what he brings to the table--in combination with his determination and a time-tested ability to think outside of the box--is often sufficient to turn the tables on a villain who isn't prepared to cope with his brand of assault. Yet once he frees the Surfer, it's perhaps his humanity that wins the day, as he reaches the Surfer on a level that has the sky-rider considering the human foibles he's held in such disdain from a more personal perspective.

At that moment, the Insectivorids attack Psycho-Man's ship in force--but when Psycho-Man uses the distraction to attempt to regain control of the Surfer and Spider-Man, he finds that their ghoulish master has finally decided to join the fray.

With both Psycho-Man and Annihilus occupied, the Surfer and Spider-Man act in tandem to free the seniors of their captivity and distract the Insectivorids in order to initiate an escape plan--along with a fashioning a craft that will act as a shuttle for the former prisoners of Psycho-Man's lab. From there, it's just a matter of the Surfer using his power to return them all to normal size and arrive at the lab of Reed Richards, just as he did for himself during the second coming of Galactus--and afterward, Spider-Man reinforces his earlier words with the Surfer by reminding the Surfer of the nature of humanity.

It's a splendid moment by Stephenson that satisfactorily wraps up a plot put in motion almost three decades earlier in the final pages of the Surfer's first solo title by Stan Lee. I can't imagine Mr. Lee being displeased with the result.

Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #s 5-6 Script: Eric Stephenson Pencils: Keith Giffen (#5), Andy Smith (#6) Inks: Andy Smith (with Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Elmer, Rodney Ramos, #5) Letterer: Benchmark Productions