Issue(s): Spider-Woman #31, Spider-Woman #32
Cover Date: Oct-Nov 80
Title: "The sting of the Hornet!" / "The fangs of Werewolf by Night / The showdown"
Credits:
Michael Fleisher - Writer
Stephen Leialoha - Penciler
Jim Mooney - Inker

Review/plot:
We saw last issue that Scotty McDowell was cured of the Enforcer's poison by Dr. Karl Malus, scientist to the (evil) stars. At the beginning of this issue, he sprouts hornet wings (definitely hornet - not bee. He says so. I bet you couldn't tell the difference between bee and hornet wings, especially when they're 500 times bigger than an actual bee or hornet.) (Scotty also shouts "Holy Christmas!" when he discovers he can fly, so people need to stop making fun of Luke Cage. "Christmas!" is clearly a common epitaph in the Marvel Universe. Maybe because they have so many of them (little sliding timescale joke there...)).

Before he realizes that, though, there's a really weird scene where someone delivers a package to him. First, the delivery guy says that someone offered him some "primo Jamaican" to deliver it. And then, when he sees Scotty, he says, "He didn't warn me I was gonna end up deliverin' it to the white rock girl". Then he says "So long, angel boy. Don't forget to practice your harp lessons!". And then Scotty thinks to himself "White rock girl? Why that wise-mouthed little punk!".

Now, i had absolutely no idea what that meant. But i found this:

So i guess it's not completely nonsensical, as i first thought.

The package contained a hornet costume, and it's only a matter of time before he and Spider-Woman run into each other (and it's odd that Spider-Woman gets her logo planted above her on a panel in her own comic).

Having been wheelchair-bound until getting his hornet powers, it's expected that Scotty would be a bit exhilarated and therefore overenthusiastic and possibly careless or out to prove something. But he also exhibits extremely chauvinistic traits. Helping Spider-Woman to catch a runaway plane, he shouts, "After all, it'll take more than a skin tight costume to fix this mess! It'll take a man!" It's poorly written even if the idea is that he's mentally unstable.

And he does continue to deteriorate, and eventually he and Spider-Woman come to blows.

Dr. Malus, in prison after last issue...

...offers to help fight the Hornet (he doesn't let on that he created him), but in fact when the police take him out of his cell, he shoots Spider-Woman instead and then disappears.

Then Werewolf By Night gets involved. It turns out that the Werewolf is a patient of Malus as well, but instead of a treatment, Malus attaches a controlling device to him and sends him after Spider-Woman.

This was a nice - and mercifully dialogue free - fight sequence.

A three-way battle ensues...

...and Spider-Woman eventually knocks out Werewolf By Night...

...and when he recovers he goes after Malus, while Spider-Woman knocks some sense into Scotty. In the end, Scotty seems to be 100% cured and on friendly terms with Spider-Woman again, despite all the pent-up hostility he expressed while he was the Hornet. It's all a little too pat.

The letters published in these issues continue to be extremely negative on the current direction for the book. And while Leialoha's art is generally good...

... sometimes it gets a little weird.

Not sure if that's meant to be cheesecake or what.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Scotty was poisoned by the Enforcer in an arc that ran in Spider-Woman #27-29.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

This was Michael Fleisher's last Spider-Woman, and at the time editor Denny O'Neil was quoted "His talents could be better utilized elsewhere".