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[A²]

Spoilers for ASM700 follow.

[spoiler]Peter-In-Ock escapes. Ock-In-Peter starts trying to get some Mary Jane action when an alarm he set up to watch Peter-In-Ock goes off, telling him Peteock has escaped. Blah blah, last day alive, could do anything, GO STOP HIM PETER.

Peteock busts out using three other supercriminals. He goes to one of Peteock's labs and assembles "Something with neutral transmitters". One of the villians assumes he's going to brainswitch him, he covers him in glue guns (And leaves "FROM YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD DOC-OC" on the pile when the police storm in seconds after the escape") Peter then goes to a police department to get a gold brain-switching device, throughout all of this telling the villians to not harm the cops. He gets the device after having a confrontation with someone he tries to convince that he's really peter. They don't buy it.


Ock-Peter gathers all friends and family of peter in the avengers tower, correctly guessing the final destination of Peter-As-Ock, who continues to get shat on by Oc-Peter every step of the way. The avengers are all gone, the two supervillians he hired are taken out, and then Peter-Ock grabs Ock-Peter and flings him out the window of the tower after Ock-Peter starts spamming high-impact webbing on the normal folk.

Ock-Peter makes a web cushion so they don't die, and then Peter-Ock tries to stab with a brainbot, but Ock-Peter reveals he put armor on to prevent this. And then starts shit-stomping Peter-Ock, who is minutes from his body just giving up at this point.

Peter-Ock and Ock-Peter realizes that Ock-Peter, having all of Peter's memories, means there's still a link between Peter (real) and Peter-Ock. So Peter-Ock essentially rewrites Ock-Peter's memories, placing Ock in Peter's past. It was Ock who got bitten by a spider. Ock who's Uncle ben was killed. Ock who fights with JJJ. Just a complete life and memory rewrite. Peter-as-Ock gives Ock the Great Power line, before dying, and then Ock swears that he will not tarnish the name of spiderman, that he will carry on Peter's legacy as...A SUPERIOR SPIDER MAN[/spoiler]

[Thad]

Right, I read #698, I just hadn't read after that.

Sounds like a pretty rote, by-the-numbers [spoiler]death scene[/spoiler]; I can see how that's disappointing.  But I still see some potential in the Ock-as-Spidey premise, for reasons I got into in all that black-bar text a few posts up.

Again, not planning on buying it -- because I have to REALLY LIKE A BOOK to pay $4 a month for it -- but I'm at least interested in seeing where he goes with it.

[Bal]

Stan Lee, immortal burn

[Kayma]

That is fantastic.

[Thad]

Also good:

Makes me grateful we threw Gwen off that bridge before Twitter[.]

[Mongrel]

Stan Lee, immortal burn

[Mongrel]

IT CONTINUES

[Royal☭]

Spectacular Spider-Memes as read by Josh Keaton Vol. 1 (Not for Kids)

Josh Keaton, the voice of the Spectacular Spider-man, reads Spider-man memes.

[Büge]

Huh.

[spoiler]I didn't think Dan Slott could find a way to kill Spider-Man twice, but then he did.[/spoiler]

[Thad]

It's always so weird to me that people get so upset about shit like this.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I understand people being upset that, say, Wally West and Stephanie Brown have been indefinitely benched, or that DC's gone on a streak of killing off or deemphasizing minority characters to bring back their white predecessors.  Or, along those lines, was recently rumored to be considering killing off John Stewart -- even then, even with the strong likelihood he'd only stay dead about as long as Hal's likely to, I can understand why THAT pisses people off.  (Is Hal still dead?  The last Green Lantern-related comic I bought was Blackest Night.  The last comic I bought that actually had "Green Lantern" in the title was around the time they introduced the Red Lanterns.)  I don't for a minute begrudge people having a strong attachment to these characters and objecting to their mistreatment by creators.  Hell, if you want to get me started on everything any writer or artist has done to Spider-Man that I absolutely hate, we'll be here all night.

So I can understand if people are pissed that Slott's dragging out this story that much longer.  That's a perfectly reasonable creative complaint.

But there are people who seem to be legitimately angry at Slott for getting rid of the escape switch to bring back Peter -- as if that doesn't just mean he's going to use ANOTHER escape switch later.  They are at least behaving as if they genuinely believe Peter Parker is gone forever.

I am wondering what percentage of them really are that gullible and what percentage are just playing their role in the game -- Slott's the Bad Guy and you're supposed to boo him; he's playing their role and they're playing theirs.

There's probably a point to be made about the overlap between comics fans and pro wrestling fans in here somewhere.

[Mothra]

Hasn't Spider-Man been like, X-Men-caliber godawful for years and years now? Why does anyone even keep track of what goes on in that series these days?

[MarsDragon]

Because Spider-Man is probably the most generally recognizable hero Marvel has, and comic fans have been trained over long years to just keep buying through thick and thin.

[Büge]

Also, I believe Joe Quesada said words to the effect of they'd rather have angry fans than happy ones.

[Mothra]

But why does anyone keep track of what goes on in that series here though?

[Thad]

Hasn't Spider-Man been like, X-Men-caliber godawful for years and years now?

I have often said "The only thing worse than '90's X-Men is '90's Spider-Man."

Why does anyone even keep track of what goes on in that series these days?

On the one hand, I haven't been keeping up with it.

On the other, I've picked up a few issues here and there and I've enjoyed them.  I've been a fan of current writer Dan Slott since I was a kid and he was writing Ren and Stimpy.

I thought issue #600 was fucking wonderful, from the opening pages of flashbacks to Doc Ock getting punched in the face followed by a doctor telling him he had terminal head trauma, up through the fun Spidey/Torch teamup at the core of the story, to the ultimate and tragic confrontation with a Doc Ock who really WAS doing his best to do the right thing and just couldn't.

And then I didn't pick up another issue until...what, was #698 the one that precipitated the current status quo?

And I liked that one too.  I think "Doc Ock kills Peter Parker and then takes his place" is a perfectly decent premise for a story.  Thunderbolts remains one of my all-time favorite comic series, and I think "Villain pretends to be hero but then starts WANTING to be more heroic" is an excellent premise for a story.

As for the execution?  I don't know.  The setup was solid and all but the $4 price tag put me off keeping up with the book.  Maybe it's great, maybe it's lousy -- I haven't been paying attention except when the major plot beats make enough waves that comics news sites (or people here) talk about them.

I WILL say that I think Dan Slott is a tremendously talented writer (and, on the art side, while Stegman and Ramos aren't my cup of tea, I can see their appeal), and while I'm generally all for the "Well if you hate it so much, why are you still plunking down four dollars a month for it?" reality check, I don't think that's what's going on in this thread.  (I, for one, neither hate it nor am plunking down four dollars a month for it; not sure about Buge.)

[Büge]

>implying I pay money for comics
>implying I don't just read them on 4chan when I'm bored

[Thad]

Slott spoke to the Daily News about the return of Peter Parker, and how difficult it was to keep the character’s return a secret from fans for the past 13 months, a move that meant lying to fans of all ages: “To do that for a solid year of my life, that’s the hardest thing I’ve had to do — to look small children in the eye at a convention and lie to them. One of them with an honest-to-God Little League uniform and a quivering lip. Inside, part of me was dying.”

Well, Jesus Christ, fucking WHY?  WHY couldn't you just tell the kid "Of course he's coming back"?

Because that would be a spoiler?  To WHOM, exactly?  Who the fuck, besides traumatized eight-year-olds who've never read a comic before, did not already know Peter Parker was eventually going to come back?

I've got nothing against this particular arc.  Haven't been reading it, suspect it's been running a little long, but I think it's a perfectly decent premise* and haven't understood the hate Slott's been getting for it, for aforementioned of-course-it's-temporary-and-everybody-knows-it reasons.

But this business of acting like something's a big secret when it's actually, you know, a total cliche that we've all seen dozens if not hundreds of times by now, is just downright goddamn insulting.

It was ALREADY insulting twenty years ago with Superman, and it sure as hell hasn't gotten any LESS insulting.




* oh hey look I used that exact same phrasing last year, two posts up.

MEANWHILE:
Spectacular Spider-Memes as read by Josh Keaton Vol. 2 (Not for Kids)

[Büge]

Oh please. Dan Slott is a consummate troll. He relished seeing every child's hopes shatter like he was eating a sweet juicy orange.

[Thad]

Of course, we're both assuming there ever actually was a child.

[Mothra]

Tough break, Miles Morales