Spider-Man #16

Issue Date: 
November 1991
Story Title: 
Sabotage : Part 1
Staff: 

Todd McFarlane (plot, penciler, inker), Chris Eliopoulos (letters), Greg Wright (color art), Danny Fingeroth (editor), Tom DeFalco (editor in chief)
special assist by Rob Liefeld

Brief Description: 

Spider-Man heads down to the ground to investigate the explosion ant the World Trade Center. Warpath and Juggernaut are jawing away at each other. Shatterstar and Feral show up and join the fight. In comes Cannonball in his rocket form to take on Juggy. He pulls a bonehead stunt and luckily Spider-Man is there to save him. Inside the World Trade Center everyone has survived. Only Black Tom is missing. Gideon challenges Cable’s leadership. They share a few words and it ends with Cable going off in search of Black Tom. Back at the battle, Spider-Man joins in and embarrasses Juggernaut. Boom-Boom flies by to get into the action. At one point Shatterstar wounds Juggernaut. He becomes irate and knocks over a building on top of himself and the rest of the gang. Spider-Man decides it’s his turn to lead this rag tag group against Juggernaut.

Full Summary: 

Spider-Man is trying to avoid the flying debris of the World Trade Center, which was blown up at the end of X-Force #3. He swings down to the ground to check on the situation with Juggernaut. Juggernaut wants to leave the area now that the World Trade Center was blown up. Warpath isn’t going to let that happen. Juggs says he doesn’t have time to fight, but Warpath still won’t let him leave. It is now shown that only the top floors of the World Trade Center were destroyed.
Nearby, Shatterstar and Feral emerge from the bottom of the building and join Warpath in his fight against Juggernaut. Warpath wants to know the condition of the others, but neither Feral nor Shatterstar know. Spider-Man is hurrying to get there. He knows that X-Force needs his help. He’s fought Juggernaut before.
Warpath yells “Attack!” and the trio lunge forward. Out of nowhere comes Cannonball. He rockets straight towards Juggernaut in hope that he can do some damage. Instead, he bounces off of Juggy’s chest at 137 mph! Before he collides into a brick wall, Spider-Man snags him. Cannonball is all messed up from the ricochet.
Back in the World Trade Center, just below the destroyed floors, our heroes are freeing themselves from the debris. The only person missing is Black Tom. Cable tells Domino and Siryn to check on Warpath and Juggernaut and help him end the battle as soon as possible. He will look for Black Tom.
Back below, the trio of X-Forcers are holding their own against Juggernaut. Spider-Man tells Sam to rest until he feels better. He’s going to help out with Juggernaut. He walks over and tries talking sense into Juggs, but it doesn’t work.
In the World Trade Center, Gideon is assaulting Cable’s leadership qualities. He tries to convince Siryn and Domino that Cable is bad news. He thinks Cable is actually enjoying himself with the fiasco. Cable is more concerned about the situation at hand and tells Gideon to calm down and be responsible. This makes Gideon even madder and Domino has to come over and break things up. Cable leaves to search for Black Tom.
Below, Spider-Man is still talking to Juggs about giving up. Juggernaut laughs at him because he knows (as well as Spider-Man) that he can’t be stopped. So Spidey webs up his eyes and yells for Warpath to push him over. Juggy hits the ground hard and isn’t too happy. Just then, Boom-Boom pilots the scout ship over to see what’s going on. This distracts everyone and Juggernaut gets the upper hand.
Boom-Boom gets out of the ship and fires some time bombs at Juggernaut. This only succeeds in annoying him. Spider-Man keeps trying to tell everyone that Juggernaut can’t be stopped but nobody will listen. Next up, Shatterstar. He shoves his sword in Juggernaut’s eye. Thanks to his mystical powers he heals quickly, but becomes very angry. He puts a personal death sentence on Shatterstar. Then he rams into a building and knocks it over on top of himself and the rest of the gang battling him. Everyone makes his or her way out of the rubble ok. Spider-Man tells them that he is going to take over. He’ll show X-Force how to take down the Juggernaut.

Characters Involved: 

Spider-Man

Boom-Boom, Cable, Cannonball, Copycat, Feral, Shatterstar, Warpath (all X-Force)

Siryn

Sunspot (former New Mutant)

Gideon

Juggernaut

Story Notes: 

This storyline started in X-Force #3 and concludes in X-Force #4.
This is Todd McFarlane’s last issue after 3-4 years with Spider-Man. The entire issue is done vertically.

Issue Information: 
Written By: