Warning! Spoilers for The Amazing Spider-Man #75 ahead!
Long-time Marvel superhero Misty Knight took a chance in Damage Control.
The main story in The Amazing Spider-Man #75 is the first chapter of Spider-Man: Beyond, by Zeb Wells and Patrick Gleason. The issue sees Peter Parker dealing with the fallout of Harry Osborn’s death in the end of the “Kindred” storyline and learning that his clone brother Ben has been hired by the Beyond Corporation to be the official trademarked Spider-Man. To compound the issue, shortly afterwards Ben and Peter get in a fight with some villains and the story ends with Peter getting blasted with radioactive gas, making him sick enough to out. It’s a rough time for basically everyone involved.
However, as a reprieve to that nightmare, the scene with Misty and Colleen takes place in a bonus prequel story titled “Love and Monsters.” It is written by Kelly Thompson and drawn by Travel Foreman, and opens up with the two women talking about their dating lives while fighting crime. When Ben comes over to talk Beyond Corp. business, Misty, a hero familiar with some pretty nasty situations, says that Ben has to help them out with the clean-up process, “literally the worst part of the job, which nobody talks about.”
Misty brings up a good point, especially in a meta sense. It’s not that superhero stories never mention cleaning up after a battle, but it is usually glossed over, likely because it’s ittedly pretty boring. The image of a hero swooping in, saving the day, tying up the bad guys for the police, and leaving, is a classic scenario. But it doesn’t reflect the responsibilities that publicly sanctioned vigilantism would realistically entail. In a fight with a bunch of sea monsters in the middle of New York City, there’d probably be at least an hour of standing around, watching a crime scene get set up, giving testimonials to the police, and restraining the criminals. The Marvel universe does have Damage Control, a construction company that cleans up and rebuilds following major superhero fights, but it makes sense to reason that they probably don’t take care of every tiny instance of heroes fighting villains. The heroes would inevitably have to take care of some of the messes they make, and that would probably be maddening!
It’s amusing to think that heroes like Misty Knight and Colleen Wing have to take time out of their busy nights to clean up every time they fight weird monsters and thugs and acknowledging it is a good way to flesh out the fictional universe. Ben Reilly is probably more than used to doing it too, in his career both as the Scarlet Spider and as Spider-Man. And perhaps with the official sponsorship of the Beyond Corporation, the three’s clean-up jobs will be handed over to Damage Control, so they can focus on stopping more crimes instead. Readers will have to follow The Amazing Spider-Man to find out.
