At the end of issue #35, Peter got a call from May’s boyfriend Ric. May had a stroke and was in the hospital.
This issue starts with Peter racing to get to the hospital. He’s understandably upset. When he gets there, Aunt May’s newfound son Cormac Crane is there holding May’s hand. Cormac explains he asked Aunt May to go to Martha’s Vineyard but she declined because she had a F.E.A.S.T. event. About 20 minutes later, Ric called Cormac to report that May seemed confused and her words were jumbling.
Peter sits by her bed, holding her hand, trying to coax a smile out of her asking for her to give some classic “Maybell Parker sass.” But when May wakes up, she pulls her hand away. She looks at Peter and asks, “I’m sorry, who are you?“
Peter tries to stay calm, telling her it’s Peter, her nephew, the boy she raised. May just looks confused and asks if he is Richard and Mary’s son, wondering why he is there. She turns to Cormac and asks Peter to talk to her “son.”
There is something to consider here. At the end of the last issue, Ric was calling Peter and he did not take the call initially. Spider-Man was in the middle of saving the people from the damage Gwen was causing. While he successfully stopped Griffyn from arresting Gwen, he saw the call was coming from May’s phone and he did not answer. We now have an idea how long Peter denied Ric’s calls. Long enough for Ric to call Cormac and get May to the hospital. By saying Ric probably called Peter first, he was making a dig that Peter wasn’t there when May needed him.
Cormac’s True Nature is Revealed
Cormac suggests he and Peter step outside into the hospital chapel to talk. Sitting in the empty room, Cormac explains that if May suffered a full-blown stroke, her memory could be permanently affected. He shared that the woman he thought was his mother lost her memory too and did not get it back.
Peter breaks down in tears, terrified that he might lose the woman who raised him after Uncle Ben’s death. He tells Cormac that he couldn’t possibly understand what he’s going through because he’s only known May for a few weeks. Keep in mind, Cormac would know what it is like having gone through this with the woman he thought was his mother.
That’s when a heavy, mechanical-looking hand lands on Peter’s shoulder.
“Like I said, I get that,” Cormac says.
Before Peter can react, Cormac grabs him by the head and lifts him completely off the ground.
Cormac Plays Mind Games
Cormac reveals that he is Ravage. Using his psionic powers, Cormac starts digging into Peter’s brain, rifling through his thoughts and memories like files. He watches Peter get bitten by the radioactive spider in high school, but brushes it off because he’s looking for something else. He flips through memories of young Peter learning to crawl, Uncle Ben working overtime for two months to buy Peter a microscope, and May holding Peter after Uncle Ben’s funeral.
Cormac’s goal is simple and terrifying: he wants to steal the childhood May and Ben gave Peter. He explains that he “fixed” May by erasing Peter from her mind, stripping away her history with him to claim those feelings for himself.
As the fight breaks out right there in the hospital, Cormac manifests his primary weapon. Rather than relying on physical gear or a tech suit, he uses his mind to form a psionic maul constructed directly from Aunt May’s stored emotions and her deep love for Peter. Peter tears off his civilian clothes to reveal his Spider-Man suit, driven by pure rage. He has dealt with mind-readers before, but this feels personal, like a hand scraping the boundaries of his soul.
Because Cormac started this fight with Peter in the hospital, where May is, he revealed he doesn’t give a damn about May.
Cormac Learns Spider-Man Biggest Secret
The battle spills out of the hospital and onto the streets, eventually taking them onto a moving cable car high in the air. As they swing and brawl, Cormac keeps sifting through Peter’s past. He sees the night Peter won money in the wrestling ring and selfishly lets a thief run right past him. Then he sees the moment Peter tracked down his uncle’s killer in an abandoned warehouse, only to discover it was the exact same thief.
Cormac snaps. He realizes that Ben, his father, died because Peter failed to act. And he’s been lying to May, his mother, about it for years. Furious, Cormac screams at Spider-Man, calling him a liar and a murderer who dragged May through years of worry and danger.
During the chaos on the cable car, Cormac stumbles across another memory of May. He sees her reminiscing about Peter bringing her “apology-strami” from Coney Island when she was mad, and how she worried every time he came home with cuts and bruises. But despite all the lies and danger, May’s final thoughts in that memory were crystal clear: she believed Peter was the finest man around, a true hero who always put others first, just like his father. Her son.
What Will Spider-Man Do Now?
Enraged by her unconditional love for Peter, Cormac vows to break him for good.
The cable snaps, sending the cable car plummeting. Spider-Man acts fast, using his webbing to safely ground the car and protect all the passengers inside. Cormac vanishes into the commotion.
Left alone on the pavement, Spider-Man pops his dislocated shoulder back into place. Wounded and shaken to his core, he readies his web-shooters to go after Cormac and save Aunt May’s mind.
To be continued…
Unanswered Questions
- Did Cormac cause Gwen’s violent episode? Gwen couldn’t remember why she was acting so violently last issue. The episode happened after Peter and May had their talk about Cormac, with May saying Peter will always be a son to her. Now that we know Cormac is Ravage, it’s very possible he knew about the conversation and it pushed him over the edge.
- Did Cormac kill his parents? As Ravage he can see current feelings and past memories. Did he find out his rich parents bought Cormac to replace the child they lost?
- Did Cormac leave to go back to the hospital to put in May’s mind the secrets Peter has been hiding from her?
- How did Cormac become Ravage? When did he get his power?
To be the 1000th issue of Amazing Spider-Man, I think the Ravage arc was kind of light. Instead of choosing a story that acknowledges why Spider-Man is so popular and celebrating him, Marvel went with this storyline. This could’ve been featured in any other issue. There’s nothing noteworthy about Cormac and the reveal that he’s a villain that justifies making him a central character here. There are other stories in the issue but I personally would have preferred this story to be longer and delve deeper.
