WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Sinister War #4, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
Spider-Man's rogue's gallery is one of the most famous in modern superhero comics, a veritable who's who of ruthless killers, monstrous foes, and average schmucks just trying to carve out a place in the world for themselves. That latter idea has been at the heart of multiple stories over the years, recently (and perhaps most impressively) in The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, the cult classic series about Boomerang's team of villains.
Sinister War #4 (by Ed Brisson, Nick Spencer, Mark Bagley, Dio Neves, Marcelo Ferreira, Andrew Hennessy, Andy Owens, Brian Reber, Andrew Crossley, & VC's Joe Caramagna) sees the final member of the Superior Foes of Spider-Man to resist a team-up (Beetle) finally partner up with her former teammates -- all in the name of fighting on after the death of Boomerang.
The Superior Foes of Spider-Man by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber spun out of the events of Superior Spider-Man. The series focused on a new, largely comical incarnation of the Sinister Six. Consisting of Boomerang, Shocker, Beetle, Speed Demon, and Overdrive, the group found themselves engulfed in a massive criminal conflict over an extremely valuable painting of Victor Von Doom. The team was often beset with in-fighting and back-stabbing, but the group nevertheless developed a genuine sense of comradery -- at least in the eyes of their duplicitous leader, Boomerang. Boomerang has been leaning toward becoming more noble in recent years though, unknowingly living with Spider-Man and becoming a better person thanks to his association with the web-slinger.
Although he betrayed the wall-crawler to the Kingpin and was readmitted into a villainous community, a majority of the Superior Foes were unaware of his more recent developments. Alongside Hydro-Man -- who had a brief appearance in Superior Foes and has worked with them before -- the Superior Foes came back together during the events of the Sinister War. As with other factions of Spider-Man villains, they were warned by Kindred that they would die by his hand if they failed to kill the web-head. The only holdout from the Superior Foes era was Beetle, who has instead been leading her own team of female villains known as the Sinister Syndicate.
In the ensuing chaos of the Sinister War, however, Boomerang was repeatedly shown with a surprising amount of restraint, at one point even giving Spider-Man an opportunity to escape during the conflict. Later, as the chaos escalates and Morlun comes close to finally killing Spider-Man, Boomerang intervenes and tackles the villain -- getting himself killed instead. The rest of Boomerang's allies gather around his body, including Beetle, who notes that he got to die on his feet and on his own terms, although still unaware of the fact that Boomerang genuinely wanted to save Spider-Man. In respect for their fallen former teammate, the Superior Foes (including Beetle) turn on the other villains, giving the web-slinging hero enough of an opening to survive until Doctor Octopus is able to enact his own plan and destroy the Kindred centipedes embedded in the brains of all the villains.
In death, Boomerang was able to do what he'd failed repeatedly in life to do -- reunite the team he'd grown to consider his friends. He even did so under a mistaken assumption by his teammates, which could be seen as a reference to the number of schemes and lies he used to manipulate them all in The Superior Foes of Spider-Man. In the end, the cult classic's legacy came to a quietly fitting end during the final moments of the Sinister War.