Amazing Spider-Man Ends With Issue #700

[Vausch]

"This is our answer to the age old question as to how we're going to make something worse than One More Day" said Dan Slott, the writer on Amazing Spider-Man.

This is something I've never understood, what is wrong with One More Day? I know I hated the changes that it brought, but at the same time, I read the whole thing thinking "Wow, this is incredibly well-written." Like the rest of the Staczynski run I found the dialogue and pacing to be incredible and by the end I was genuinely sad for the characters. Couldn't we all just agree to hate Brand New Day more?

OT: The new Doc-Ock Spider-Man should be boycotted until Marvel tells the magical story of how at the last moment Peter Parker switched bodies back right before the death of Otto Octavius and spent the next few weeks in a "Surprisingly Octavius-like state of mind".

No offence meant at all by this, but no. One More Day is not well written.

1. Why have the shooter shoot May? Peter giving up his marriage to save her, a woman who would most likely be dead within 5 years or so of old age, is dumb. It's especially dumb since she spoke to Peter in an ethereal plane and said "I've had a good life, you should let me go". Simple solution: Have the shooter shoot MJ. Mafisto shows up and says "I'll save her but you can never see her again or she will die". Boom, much more trauma and it causes much more pain for Peter since he'd KNOW he made the deal rather than this BS explanation of "a small part of you will remember subconsciously and it'll torture you".

2. NOBODY on the planet can help May? REALLY? Peter talks to Reed Richards, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, Dr. Octopus, Beast, even Dr. Doom of all people and NONE of them can help her? BULL. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

3. They wasted half an issue having Peter re-live the shooting. Pointless.

4. I know it may have not been intentional, but when Peter talks to his alternate universe self that designs software, he outright insulted everybody that gets into escapist fantasy. Hypocritical coming from a superhero comic.

5. How'd Peter lose his organic web shooters? Not even OMIT explained that.

Those are some of the worst plot holes in the book, on top of the mischaracterisation as a whole of Peter even making the deal. I know this isn't all Straczynski's fault, the book was re-written a lot and JMS fought to not have them break up but ultimately he couldn't dissuade Quesada. Not to say though that he doesn't deserve a bit of the blame, even a great writer can make bad stuff now and again (see Superman #701).

1. That actually happened in Civil War/Back In Black

2. I only recall him going to Tony Stark and Dr. Strange. And Doctor Strange has that whole "Preserve the natural order" speech.

3. The shooting happened in a different book, so maybe it was a recap/dramatic effect? I see no way to really defend that one.

4. The alternate version who was a software designer is entitled to think of escapists as wasting time, because his character wasted his life as one himself.

5. That's actually a problem with Brand New Day, One More Day didn't mention the web-shooters at all.

The way that I prefer to see it isn't "Straczynski broke up MJ and Peter." but instead that the storyline was going to be written anyways, it could have been a lot worse. Quesada already decided that somehow the two were going to be separated, and I'm honestly not sure how much of this plot line was created by Staczynski and how much was forced into the book. Also OMIT felt like a 4-Chapter kick in the balls. Marvel basically told us that they acknowledged that nobody liked the changes of One More Day, but that everyone was going to have to suck it up.

1. Yes, but it was made as a setup FOR One More Day. It still doesn't really excuse that May said Peter should let her go and it being MJ that got shot would have had a much more powerful effect.

2. Dr. Strange let him go on this magical plane that let him visit all the aforementioned people at once and probably a lot more people judging by the panel layout. And Dr. Strange really didn't give any "natural order" lines as far as I remember, I seem to remember him saying he simply didn't have the power to heal her.

4. Ok fair enough, I was willing to chock that one up to a character speaking rather than the writer.

5. Final issue of One More Day, we see Peter raise a glass at Harry's birthday party and you can see the mechanical webshooters under his sleeve.

also, one I didn't mention: How can Mafisto do this? Has he always had the power to bend space and time, and if so why hasn't he done it before? Further, time travel/altering in the Marvel universe creates a parallel timeline and universe, so in that process we're not even supposed to be following universe 616 any more, but this was brushed under the rug.

 

[ShadowDude112]

Honestly, I love Spidey and the fact that this is what Amazing ended with is really sad for me. Sure, I know for a fact that this will go back to normal in 6 months, but it still sucks. I read and $8 comic and was at least hoping for it to be good. But it wasn't. I swear, it feels like Marvel just hates Peter Parker.

 

[Atmos Duality]

OK, I'll bite..

Keep Peter Parker (the actual Peter Parker, the persona) dead, and I'll respect that.

If Spider-Man is supposed to be part morality-play (or other such parallel of lessons in real life), then you have room to work with without hitting a massive Retcon Button (like OMD, which everyone else has brought up).

The important part is to not bring the actual Peter Parker back in any way. No clones. No magical personality hacks from his latent memory that lets him take over. No time travel. None of that. Just don't do it.

Not because he's a bad character, but because he's a good character*, his loss will actually have meaning going forward. Death and loss is something we have to cope with in real life, and if part of the point of the Spider-Man experience is to convey real-life meanings, this is a good way to introduce that because WE CARE ABOUT THE CHARACTER.

Death has little meaning when you off random people for shock value.
But it has even less meaning when you bring characters back from the dead for the sake of sales or popularity.

And this isn't a new problem; even Cervantes had to put up with that when writing Don Quixote, and I find his response to still be the most appropriate and poignant of all.

*(even if I don't personally like the character of Peter Parker, I do respect what they try to do with him)

 

[Yeager942]

ITT: People who have never bought a Spider-Man comic before making fun of a storyline they've never read.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

This doesn't sound like anything shocking, or even unusual to be honest. For anyone who doesn't know how ridiculous comics are look at the plot premise of "All Star Superman" (Which is adored by fans) and compare it to the premise of "Superior Spider-man". Then attempt to explain to me why one is gold and the other is ridiculous contrived shit.






All Star Superman plot summary = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Star_Superman

Short Answer, Grant Morisson. Longer Answer, 80% of the people bitching out the idea don't read comics the remaining 20% are diehard fans who didn't like the idea of the story, because they haven't read any issues of Superior they have no idea if it's good or not.

OT: I'm actually surprised how much of this backlash is followed by "I don't read comics". It just feels odd to me; it's like bitching about Mass Effect's ending for being shit with the addition "I don't play video games". It might be valid but how do you know? I'm gonna wait and see, with the complete knowledge it's gonna be 'resolved' reasonably quickly.

 

[OrokuSaki]

[/quote] Further, time travel/altering in the Marvel universe creates a parallel timeline and universe, so in that process we're not even supposed to be following universe 616 any more, but this was brushed under the rug.[/quote]

On this point, I think we left 616 a long time ago. In Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes Earth 616 was shown as being conquered by extra-dimensional mutants. And in X-Man (Which most people don't really care about) A higher-dimensional being destroyed Earth 614, which moves 616 up to 615.

Regarding the rest, I guess I'm just more willing to blame Marvel for the plot holes than Straczynski. Which could be wrong, but it kinda seemed from the interviews in the back of the book that Marvel was imposing on his stories.

 

[Bleidd Whitefalcon]

Hey guys, you reeeeally need to see this!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=431255200280908&set=a.205731712833259.51084.205024222904008&type=1&theater

Well, Stan Lee seems to be less then thrilled with this particular issue. Out of curiosity, does anyone know what his reaction to One More Day and the ensuing shitstorm that caused was?

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Uh huh, because that will last...

 

[Virgilthepagan]

I guess they finally ran out of angles for Spider Man and opted for "invasion of the body snatcher?" Seems like a weird(er) way of ending things. Even by comics standards.

Still, I think this is probably better than All Star Batman and Robin...

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

This is what's going to happen:

Doc Spider will go through a sort of 'puberty'.
-5 issues

It will be revealed that Peter Spider is actually still INSIDE HIS OWN MIND. Think 'Stargate Gu'old' type of deal.
-10 issues

Over time Peter Spider will start retaking his own body/mind back from Doc Spider.
-10 issues

Doc Spider, having lived with a consensus for the first time in his life, will allow Peter Spider to take control.
-5 issues

After a few issues, and some emo bullshit, Peter Spider will get the help of some random hero/villain to clone Doc Spider into a new (cancer free) body.
-10 issues

The new Doc Oc will now be more like 'The Punisher' in that he's a good guy, with a dark edge.
-10 issues

i'm book marking this, and in a years time when that prediction could quite likely come true, i'm posting a link this

 

[lithiumvocals]

Jesus, Super hero comic continuity is bloody ridiculous, isn't it? I stand by my decision of not really getting involved too much.

 

[annoyinglizardvoice]

It's kinda silly, but at least it renders One Day More irrelevant.
I won't be reading it, but I haven't read Spiderman in ages anyway.

 

[Zeke63]

I doubt this is gonna last. Worst case scenario is that Doctor Octopus will have the mantle for a year at most but then Peter Parker is gonna be back in the costume and trading Yo Mamma slurs with Deadpool as he used to.

What is this whole Marvel NOW! thing anyway? The title sounds really stupid.

Marvel Now is marvel swapping all of its authors and artists onto new and different titles along with a renumbering/new books all together in an effort to make their line more compelling. Since the renumbering isn't really a reboot but a move meant to speed things along in new directions, the books, along for other reasons, have been really good so far.
I'd recommend Uncanny Avengers, All New X-Men, Thor (thought I'd never recommend a thor book lol), and Avengers

Dude, are you kidding? Marvel NOW has been a piss poor collection of books devoid of content. If one is going to have a creative relaunch you kind of expect it to contain two things: Some sort of Relaunch & some level of Creativity. Marvel NOW is nothing more then a rehash of the worst aspects of Marvel comics, a remix of the last decades shittyness, concentrated into a single PR stunt.

Other then the fact that not a single one of these books has any sort of story pitch, they are all completely insipid. There isn't a single new concept, or even a concept that wasn't being used right before the relaunch in the entire line-up.

Heck i could pitch a better book line up then Marvel NOW has. Heck, you want to know what a real comic book relaunch looks like, take a look at what DC did in 2006 with "1 year later." It actually progressed the story, with some decent artwork... The exact opposite of what Marvel NOW is.

Most of the marvel now books meet your two criterion for a so called "creative relaunch." Admittedly a lot of them have fallen short, but I don't think you should just outright dimiss marvel now as a whole. Uncanny Avengers is no rehash really, it's pretty progressive in terms of moving the plot forward. And Hickman's avengers just seems like it's gonna be great. And dude Bendis on X-men is great in terms of creativity and new ideas, not to mention further developing characters like cyclops, emma frost, and magneto in new ways.

just gonna go out on a limb, but from the nature of your attack being on marvel as a whole and your promotion of one year later, might your distaste be somewhat influenced by a preference for DC? No offense intended btw, it's just i'd prefer criticism of marvel now to be more nuanced than utter dismissal

 

[Zeke63]

The story sounds ridiculous, like a soap opera that's taken some bad acid,

This is pretty dead accurate.

I think the main problem here is the permanency. Peter Parker is DEAD now. I know comics love to pull insane resurrections, but HOW DO YOU back out of this one?

Are you kidding me? The seeds for Peter returning are all right there, with the whole latent memory thing. If not for the whole "number reboot" nonsense, which they've also done multiple times, this would not have raised any eyebrows and it would be seen as the usual 6 issues-long storyline. Doc Ock will be Spidey for a while, he'll realize that with great power comes great responsibility, he will gradually revert back to Peter, both personalities will have some form of metaphisical fight and depending on how well readers have been reacting to the whole Ock as Spidey thing they'll make the resulting character either fully Peter Parker or some edgier, "it's a mix of both" kind of deal.

This is why I no longer bother with monthlies, after a few decades of this nonsense you see the stunt twists coming a mile away...

It might still be fun, even knowing Pete will return, to see how Ok goes about things though with other characters and besides even when peter returns Oks going to have changed his position in the Marvel U a lot I figure. I mean they've already teased him being fired from the avengers. But ya I stopped with monthlies too just get tpbs or other collections.