The end of Scarlet Spider will soon be upon us, and apparently writer Christopher Yost wants to go out with a bang – literally. No, seriously, there’s a big explosion at the end. In fact, this whole penultimate issue is like a big explosion. The writing of cancellation has been on the wall for some time, so Yost has had plenty of time to prepare for these last two issues. The action and drama get pushed up to 11 as Yost seems to throw everything he can into the issue, including the kitchen sink. Storylines that he probably planned for future arcs get crammed into this one issue. Yost seems determined to blow our minds with this finale. If only the art was willing to do the same.

Scarlet Spider #24

Scarlet Spider #24 may be the beginning of the end, but writer Christopher Yost is not yet ready to say goodbye – and we are all the better for it.

Comic Rating: 7/10 – Good.

From the very start, we all knew this was coming. The editors even acknowledge as much on the last page, saying their goodbyes now so that Yost can say his goodbyes in the last issue. The comic book industry these days just doesn’t support this kind of comic. Reaching the 20s in a solo series about a D-list character (at best) is a rare feat, and something to be proud of. Fearless Defenders, a comic launched under the promise of Marvel’s first all-female team, was cancelled this week with issue #12. That’s as far as they made it. But Scarlet Spider, a comic starring Kaine from the much-hated Clone Saga, made it to issue #25. That’s impressive.

I think what did the series in was the fact that it was still just a generic superhero story. Sure, Kaine is kind of an asshole, but this was still a comic about a guy with powers and a costume, who sets up shop to fight crime and super-villains, with a wacky band of supporting characters to play with. New solo comics like Hawkeye succeed because they’re doing something new and interesting with the superhero angle. Scarlet Spider was too much like the norm, starring a character that general audiences didn’t care about. So while it’s sad to see the series, go, there’s no denying it never had much of a chance.

Fortunately, like I said, this penultimate issue is pretty entertaining. Yost has nothing more to lose, so join me after the jump to dig into this exciting, action-packed issue!

Kaine still feels like crap for what happened to his friend Donald Meland, so he goes to visit that priest from a few issues ago for a confessional. The priest tries his best to offer Kaine some comfort, and you can see right away that artist David Baldeon really phoned in this final performance. I really liked his stuff when he joined the series, but man, he had to have rushed this issue out the door.

Probably for the Christ imagery, like Superman

At the Park Plaza Hospital, Kaine and Annabelle visit with Donald, who’s doing better, but is still in a medically induced coma as he heals from his injuries. The doctors say he’ll probably never fully recover, and Kaine still feels worse and worse. Not even Annabelle can cheer him up. I’m still not sold on Annabelle fitting into the group of friends that Kaine made. I think I wrote about this previously, but there’s definitely a feeling of the artificial in Kaine’s supporting cast, as if none of these characters had lives before meeting him, and now they’re all friends with each other because of him. For example, Annabelle is worried about Wally. While it’s not unheard of for Kaine’s friends to become friends with each other, there still seems to be a distinct lack of their own lives.

So Kaine and Annabelle go their separate ways, and depressed Kaine gets in a taxi to head back to his hotel – only now someone is following him!

In an alley across the street from the hotel, Kaine tries burning his Scarlet Spider costume in a trash barrel. Aracely is there to help.

What is it with spider-people ditching their costumes in trash cans?

They watch the fire burn for awhile before Aracely helpfully points out that the costume isn’t burning. Kaine gets super pissed and kicks the trash can over, cursing out the costume’s fireproof unstable molecules. Then he storms off back to the hotel, leaving Aracely to clean up.

Poor little fella

She grabs the costume and runs after him, following Kaine up to their penthouse suite. She tells Kaine that he is her champion, and the costume is his armor, but the grumpy Kaine isn’t hearing any of it. When they arrive at the suite, Aracely suddenly feels a painful buzzing in her head, but Kaine just tells her to get something to eat. He heads to his bedroom, where he finds…

Helloooooooooo nurse!

Va va voom! Annabelle quickly drops the blanket, kisses Kaine, and the two of them hop into bed together. She tells him that she knows how he feels, and that he should be allowed to feel better, not worse.

Meanwhile, Aracely has a vision about snakes and birds and the ‘Mctlan rising’ thing that’s so important to her story. One assumes Yost will follow up on this in the pages of New Warriors, where Kaine and Aracely are heading next, but who knows? He clearly never got the chance to tell that story in the pages of Scarlet Spider. More’s the shame.

A short time later, Kaine is standing on his balcony, looking out over the city of Houston. Annabelle, dressed in just his shirt, tells him that she can go back to making him feel better if that’s what he wants. They kiss and hug, and she tells Kaine that her children are going to love him. Kaine doesn’t have time to question Annabelle only now mentioning her children when Aracely calls him into the other room.

They have a visitor.

It’s Leon from Resident Evil!

See what I mean about all of the crap hitting the fan? Well we’re not done yet.

Downstairs in the lobby, Annabelle arrives! The receptionist points out that she already saw Annabelle head upstairs, and that she’s in the suite right now, but Annabelle has no idea what she’s talking about. She gets in the elevator, and is soon joined by a dark-haired woman carrying a mysterious case. She’s all friendly smiles, and tells Annabelle that she’s also going to the suite to visit Kaine, whom she calls her ‘lover’. If you can’t guess, it’s Zoe Roxxon! The woman Kaine slept with after saving her from falling! She’s back!

Again, crap is hitting the fan at a very quick pace, and it’s only going to get more intense from here.

Upstairs, Wally tells everyone that Kaine is a murderer, and Kaine admits to it, telling everyone about how he used to be a super-villain who killed people.

Nobody likes being confronted with the wardrobe choices they made in the 90s

And he’s no longer running from everything he’s done. Kaine can’t deny that Donald wouldn’t be in the hospital if Kaine had simply never gotten involved in their lives. So Kaine falls to his knees and puts his hands behind his head; he’s surrendering to Officer Wally. But Wally hesitates for a moment, and Aracely tries to use her empathy powers to get him to calm down. He sees through her attempt and snaps out of it, demanding that Kaine come with him.

Which is when Annabelle and Zoe arrive at the suite. And then all hell breaks loose.

Annabelle demands to know who Zoe is and why she and Kaine are ‘lovers’. Everybody wants to know why there are two Annabelles. Then the one that slept with Kaine reveals herself to be a giant female bug monster.

He slept with that!

I do believe that is Shathra, a newer Spider-Man villain created a few years ago. She represents the totem of the spider-wasp, a creature that lays her eggs in a spider, so that her young can eat the host once they are hatched. I can only assume Yost planned to use her in a later storyline, but quickly threw her into the end here just for kicks and giggles. It’s a neat reveal! Personally, I was convinced that was really Annabelle in the bed, and Yost was just rushing through the relationship he wouldn’t get to write out. This twist is much cooler.

But nobody has time to dwell on that because Zoe pulls a rocket launcher out of her mysterious case. She tells Kaine that she thinks she loves him, but he did put her father into a coma, so he’s got to die.

They’re insured

Yep, that’s definitely an explosion.

This issue was a blast to read! There’s no way for me to know if this is how Yost planned issue #24 to go, but the fact that cancellation is right around the corner seems to have brought out the manic insanity in him. Plots and twists that could have taken months to play out are suddenly crashing into one another, so much so that the appearance of Shathra is pretty much an after thought. Zoe returns! Wally tries to arrest Kaine! Aracely has another vision! The presidential suite has become a madhouse, and the issue is the better for it. This is how you end a comic book series facing premature cancellation. You cut everything loose and go all out with excitement!

Seriously, this was a fun issue. Kaine’s grumpiness and his eventual surrender are all handled well. He remains as strong a character as he’s been all along in this series. And fortunately, his depression does not rub off on the reader. This isn’t a sad goodbye. Aracely is also just as adorable as ever, though her visions about this “Mctlan” thing are getting old. Yost needs to hurry up and get on with that story already – though I don’t think I’m going to be all that interested. I simply don’t care all that much about Mexican folklore. But I want to see Aracely’s story fully play out.

I was a little annoyed at how quickly Yost threw Kaine and Annabelle in bed, but that feeling went away when she was revealed to be Shathra. Yost definitely got me there. And I didn’t see either Wally’s actions or Zoe’s return coming either, so both were quite welcome for moving the story along.

The only real problem in this issue was the art. Burnham did an acceptable job, but you could tell on every page that he was just rushing to get it over with. I realize this is the end of the comic, but can’t you try a little harder to keep it all together? Still, it was serviceable. And the story more than made up for the lackluster art.

Bring on the final issue!