Amazing Spider-Man #698
Writer: Dan Slott
Art: Richard Elson and Antonio Fabela [Color Art]
WARNING: THIS REVIEW HAS MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS FOR AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #698 AND BEYOND. DO NOT READ IT IF YOU PLAN ON READING THE ISSUE.
Dan Slott, you broke my heart.
Ever since your run on Amazing Spider-Man began last year, I’ve been one of its biggest supporters, going so far as to compare it to the Michelinie and Stern runs. And then you did it. You drove that spike in my heart that was like a thousand One More Days.
Actually, that’s a terrible analogy. I actually liked One More Day. Comparing that spike to 1,000 Clone Sagas or Ben-Reilly-replacing-Peter-Parker scenarios or JMS runs is far more accurate.
But the point is, you shook my faith in my favorite series. You weren’t the first, though.
When I was nine years old, I quit reading new issues for five years because of the ridiculousness of the aforementioned Clone Saga and (temporary/retconned) replacement of Peter by his clone, Ben Reilly. What you have done here, though, may be impossible for me to recover from.
Amazing Spider-Man #698 begins with a reminder that Doc Ock is on his death bed, with only hours left to live. He’s struggling to say something, and it turns out what he’s trying to say is, “Peter Parker.” For the rest of the issue, longtime readers will notice that the way Slott has written Peter’s dialogue and inner monologue is strange, and we eventually find out why when Spider-Man is summoned by the Avengers to the Raft (the ultra high security prison for supervillains) because Ock’s about to die and he keeps saying the name of Spidey’s secret identity.
And then, once the two are in the room, we get the big reveal. We now know why Peter’s words sound so strange in this issue.
It’s because one of the most ridiculous and asinine predictions for what would happen in the “Dying Wish”/Amazing Spider-Man #700 arc ended up being true–Doc Ock somehow switched his consciousness into Peter Parker’s body and vice versa, and Ock’s body dies with Peter’s mind trapped inside.
I’ll probably still buy #699 and #700 just to have a complete run up through the “final” issues of Amazing Spider-Man–and I’ll probably still buy Superior Spider-Man #1, because, well, eBay–but for the first time in about five years, I’m not all that excited about the next issue of Spider-Man.
On the bright side, I can’t imagine this being something that sticks in the long term. For the foreseeable future, however, it might be time to move on to something else.
RATING: It’s gonna harsh your mellow, man…but at least the art is good.
