Amazing Spider-Man Sets up the Final Fight of Gang War

New York’s super-underworld has been waging all-out war since November’s Amazing Spider-Man: Gang War First Strike #1, but Gang War has been brewing since August’s Amazing Spider-Man #31. And now, after spilling over into the pages of Miles Morales: Spider-Man, Daredevil, Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, and Jackpot, the city-wide gang war reaches its boiling point in this week’s Amazing Spider-Man #42. The issue ends with a supervillain showdown setting up the final fight of the event (in February’s Amazing Spider-Man #43) and the Gang War conclusion (in Amazing Spider-Man #44).

It was at the wedding of Randy Robertson and Janice Lincoln — a.k.a. the Beetle, the daughter of Harlem crime boss Tombstone — where the assassin Shotgun gunned down Tombstone, and Hammerhead took out Madame Masque. But Masque survived the hit, took her revenge on Hammerhead, and then ousted her father, Count Nefaria, and the cyborg gangster Silvermane to take control of the Maggia. Meanwhile, the city’s crime bosses and super-criminals have been making their own plays for territory:

Rabble and Hobgoblin have been outfitting high-tech henchmen with the Enforcers in Brooklyn; Diamondback partnered with Hydra to take control of the Financial District; Mayor Luke Cage and his stealth team of defenders united against Alistair Smythe’s army of giant Spider-Slayers in Manhattan; Shang-Chi’s Five Weapons Society fought off Lady Yulan’s vampires and Mister Negative’s Inner Demons in Chinatown; Daredevil (Elektra) has been stamping out The Heat on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen; and Beetle’s Syndicate took down Black Mariah’s gang to seize Spanish Harlem.

But the biggest shocker was the return of Wilson Fisk, former Kingpin of Crime, who appeared just as his son Richard Fisk, a.k.a. the Rose, plotted his revenge against the Beetle with his gamma-powered enforcer Digger. After recovering from his coma, Tombstone teamed with Spider-Man to stop the war before his daughter gets hurt… even if it means relinquishing his territory. But with Madame Masque next planning to move the Maggia against the Rose, Fisk has his Hellfire soldiers neutralize Digger and take the Rose off the board in Amazing Spider-Man #42.

“I have a new life now. A wife. Sons. These wars… you have to be willing to give up everything,” Fisk tells Team Spidey. “I no longer am. The Fisks are sitting this out.” Fisk then tells Tombstone that he’s always respected him and offers his advice: “This was not an attack on New York City. It was an attack on the Maggia. Madame Masque has claimed their power. All of it. Be careful.”

With that, the Kingpin returns to his retirement. Elsewhere, Beetle and her Syndicate — White Rabbit, Lady Octopus, Scorpia, and the Francine Frye Electro — welcome their newest member: the discarded Digger. But Janice isn’t satisfied with Fisk’s forced ceasefire. She has the territory, she has the troops, and Masque is after it all. In the end, the family feud at the heart of Gang War isn’t Lincoln versus Fisk… it’s Beetle versus Madame Masque. And the lines have been drawn. 

Downtown, Shotgun informs Masque that the Beetle has consolidated everything above 110th. Masque, who has “walked through the worlds of technology and magic,” has Shotgun under her mystical control. “The only enemies I leave breathing,” she tells her hired gun, “are those who serve my purpose.” Along with the Maggia, Masque has her own army: the A.I.M. agents who were working with Crime Master before Team Spidey broke up his fight with Ringmaster for control of the Upper East Side (back in Amazing Spider-Man #39).

Masque meets with the Beetle to tell her that Harlem — and the rest of the city — is hers. “What you have gained here, I will take,” Masque says, revealing she learned of the Maggia’s attempt on her life when she took control of the would-be C.I.A. assassin Shotgun. “So now I’m taking everything,” Masque says. “Everything they built. Everything my father hoped to gain. There is no way you want Harlem more than I.” But Janice, who has her own issues with her absent criminal father, has similar motivations — and she’s willing to prove herself by any means necessary. That means taking this gang war all the way. It’s agreed that the last two factions of Gang War — Madame Masque and the Beetle — will meet in Central Park at dawn to see this war through to its bloody finish.

Spider-Man, She-Hulk, and Tombstone need their own army, so the two superheroes “call in the reserves”: Team Spidey. As dawn breaks over the war-torn city, both sides go to war. Madame Masque’s A.I.M. army, wielding high-tech upgrades provided by Rabble, has a mind-controlled Count Nefaria, Silvermane, and Shotgun on their side; the Beetle has her gang, the Syndicate, and Digger. The showdown begins in 30 days. 

Amazing Spider-Man #43 is on sale February 14.