Amazing Spider-Man #700 Review: Why It Matters Beyond the Comic Universe
SPOILER WARNING, NOT AT ALL KIDDING, TURN AROUND AND WALK AWAY IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW
Spoiler warning over.
I'll admit up front I didn't buy this issue. I found out what was going to happen and waited for one of my friends to buy it so I could read it. I am not going to support this decision with my wallet, and if Spider-Man means anything to you, you won't either. This is going to be long by necessity: I'm first going to summarize the issue and then tell you what it means to me personally.
In the last couple of issues of Amazing Spider-Man, we've learned that Doctor Octopus has managed to switch minds with Peter Parker, leaving Peter on the brink of death in Doc Ock's decaying body and Ock merrily swinging about New York City. Well, you'd think, of course someone would notice that Spidey isn't acting like himself. Ock'll be found out.
Yeah, no. Apparently the gizmo Ock used to pull the switcheroo involved a full-on memory transfer. Doc retains his own memories, but also remembers every single thing in Peter's life. This works both ways - Peter also remembers Otto's memories, but it's not dwelt upon much and OH COME ON EVEN FOR COMIC BOOKS THIS IS JUST BULLSHIT LOGIC.
Look, I watched the entirety of Dollhouse. If you're gonna stick somebody's memories in another person's brain, that person isn't going to just have viewed a life as if it was a biopic. Memories are attached to emotional response. Always. I'm sure someone smarter than I could go off on a tangent about "what makes a person, where is the soul, do your memories make you you," etc. (And this was in fact done a lot by people smarter than I re: Dollhouse, but I'm digressing.) Even by comic book logic - even the logic used in this very issue - Otto Octavius would not have been running around with Peter Parker's memories and his own. If you SWITCH BRAINS, you SWITCH BRAINS. There's no dual-layer personality, there's no "Peter Parker, This Was Your Life" running around in Ock's head. It's presented as "Ha! Got your memories!" like he just tricked a two-year-old into thinking he stole her nose.
So Peter, dying horribly while Otto is gathering up Peter's loved ones at Avengers Tower for "safekeeping," has escaped his cell/deathbed with the help of Hydro-Man and the Scorpion and is trying desperately to get to "Spider-Man" for "revenge." In reality, Peter has the brain-switching MacGuffin on him, and wants to use it on Otto to get his brain back in his own body before Otto's dies, which we're told is going to be a matter of minutes. Peter even has a near-death experience as he's taken from Otto's life support for a moment, seeing a vision of a heavenly Forest Hills where Gwen Stacy and her dad are there, telling him everything will be okay in the end and they can all be together. Of course Uncle Ben shows up for a pep talk, telling Peter how proud of him he is, and that no matter what, he can't let a maniac like Doctor Octopus swing around as Spider-Man, so he can't die just now, he has to get up and fight one last time.
"I won't let you down, Uncle Ben," says Peter just before he regains consciousness.
At Avengers Tower, "Spider-Man" and "Doc Ock" are fighting, while the Scorpion takes advantage of the distraction to go after J. Jonah Jameson. Otto's attitude is "Welp, guess I'm honor-bound to save them while the tower's defenses kills you or whatever." As Otto beats the holy living hell out of the Scorpion, knocking his jaw clean off, JJJ cheers him on while Otto suddenly has a flashback of one of Peter's memories - Aunt May saying how much she loves him.
As Peter jumps out of a window holding onto Doc Ock, fully intent on killing them both, Otto creates a web-cushion to save himself, while Peter crashes to the ground and Otto strikes a deathblow. Peter makes his last-ditch effort to put his brain back into his own body, but Otto had the foresight to wear cranial plates under the mask. There is no hope now. Peter's life begins flashing before his eyes, but...okay, I've read this five times and it's still fucking absurd...apparently Peter starts BEAMING HIS LIFE'S MEMORIES INTO OTTO'S HEAD AS HE LAY THERE DYING AND EXPERIENCING THEM.
No, really. No, really. The actual frickin' caption reads Of course! The Octobot BEAMED my thought patterns into this body. (No it didn't. It physically stung you. There was a flashback and everything!) I may need a DIRECT link for a full transfer, but a link STILL exists...and I know JUST how to use it!
Look, I can't. I just can't. Yes, Peter's memories have been in Otto's head this whole time, we know. THROWING THEM AT OTTO AGAIN, WHICH MAKES NO SENSE BECAUSE THEY ARE ALREADY THERE ANYWAY, WILL NOT MAKE A BIT OF DIFFERENCE ALL OF A SUDDEN BECAUSE YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE HIM FEEL THE EMOTIONAL WEIGHT OF YOUR LIFE. IF HE HAD THOSE THERE ALREADY AND DIDN'T GIVE A FLYING OCTOPUS, IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN NOW BECAUSE YOU HAVE WRITTEN YOURSELF INTO A FUCKING CORNER. YOU HAVE COMPLETELY CHANGED THE RULES MID-NARRATIVE AND I AM CALLING BULLSHIT.
So Otto feels "the preciousness of life" and realizes that with great power, et cetera, and Peter Parker dies. For real. No shit. Otto Octavius is now Spider-Man. And not two seconds after he had some nooooo, I can't be a super-villain now because I care about everyone magical moment, he thinks over Peter's (well, his own, but you get the point) corpse "With my unparalleled genius and my boundless ambition, I'll be a better Spider-Man than you EVER were. From this day forth, I shall become...THE SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN!"
And that's the end. They've cancelled AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and will be publishing SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN in its place. AND THAT'S BULLSHIT. Not only was the story that got us here weak and full of logistical plotholes by its own standards, it does two things that are inexcusable as far as I'm concerned: one, it unceremoniously kills the most moral and noble character in the entire Marvel Universe and replaces him with one of his enemies. Do you know what that means? It says "Evil wins." Bad enough Marvel already had Peter Parker making a deal with the devil, but now it's going to be publishing the adventures of a man who stole the identity of a hero and then murdered him. This is the man people are supposed to suddenly accept as Spider-Man, a hero. Someone whose entire life has revolved around doing the right thing, being responsible, making the right moral choices despite how detrimental it would be to his own life. Around sacrifice, and nobility, and protecting his loved ones. Peter Parker has been a symbol of that and more since 1963, and generations have grown up reading his adventures and learning those core moral values, myself included. I may very well point to, say, Supergirl as my favorite super-hero, but when you get right down to it, I grew up learning how to read on Spider-Man comics, and Peter Parker impressed me with a very basic sense of right and wrong.
Telling us now "Well, Doctor Octopus is Spider-Man now and he believes all that stuff too because Peter Parker's brain is in his head" is FUCKING BULLSHIT. It doesn't matter. He didn't earn it. He didn't grow up with that sense of responsibility. He got to be Spider-Man through lying, deceit, treachery and finally outright murder. I refuse to accept it and so should everyone who has ever given even a passing fancy to Spider-Man.
There is a massive trend towards what are called "grimdark" superheroes, and it's been getting steadily worse at both major comic publishers. Spider-Man was one of the few left who pushed back against that, who had the strongest moral core and sense of responsibility out of everybody in the Marvel Universe. Now he's dead, without even the benefit of his loved ones being able to mourn him.
That brings me to my second point: what this does to Mary Jane. While they're in Avengers Tower, she shows up to talk to "Peter." Otto lambasts her, calls her "woman," and tells her she's just "the plucky best friend with the motivational speeches" and questions why she even hangs around. MJ, sweetie, you are not an idiot, does that sound like Peter fucking Parker to you? Even a little? Did Otto suck out your brain too? It totally minimizes Mary Jane as a character by making her both oblivious and stupid. Even during the last bit of One More Day, Mephisto realizes that their love is so strong that their souls would always be crying out for one another, mourning what was lost, and he would feed off of that pain. MARY JANE WOULD KNOW. Otto could fool Peter's own frickin' aunt, but not Mary Jane Watson. It's inconceivable.
But what does MJ do? Confesses that she still loves Peter. How does Otto react? He kisses her passionately.
No, stop, what are you doing.
I got into a major argument with a friend about this before the issue came out, explaining that if Otto and MJ hook back up and MJ is stupid enough to not realize it's not Peter, then there is a very strong possibility that Doctor Octopus will be regularly raping Mary Jane Watson. AND THIS IS OKAY, ACCORDING TO MARVEL.
The friend said I shouldn't get worked up over a storyline that hasn't even happened yet. Well guess what, Peter hadn't even died yet at that point and already they're tonsil-deep in one another. They're already going there.
I don't really have to go on a long tangent about why this is bad, do I? No? Thank you.
"Well, it's just comics," I've heard. "They'll undo it sooner or later." It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because it happened. It's going to affect the entire direction of SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN and will have a huge effect on the supporting cast, who now unwittingly get to be friends and relatives with Peter Parker's murderer, yippee.
As for "it's just comics," I'm sure I covered that above re: why Peter Parker matters as a symbol. It's not about Spider-Man. It's about Peter's moral core and with all the crazy shit happening in the world, both children and adults needed Peter Parker as a role model. He's gone now, and no one is even able to mourn.
As a final aside, writer Dan Slott has been receiving death threats over AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #700. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about when I opine that the world has gotten a lot more bugshit, and its fictional characters are beginning to reflect that. You don't fucking threaten to kill someone over something like this. Yes, Spider-Man mattered. Which is why these people should know better. If they cared about Spider-Man that much, they'd quit buying Marvel Comics, they'd boycott SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN, they'd write tl;dr blogs on LiveJournal about why the whole thing is stupid. You don't threaten another human being, not now, not ever.
It's not what Peter Parker would want.
Spoiler warning over.
I'll admit up front I didn't buy this issue. I found out what was going to happen and waited for one of my friends to buy it so I could read it. I am not going to support this decision with my wallet, and if Spider-Man means anything to you, you won't either. This is going to be long by necessity: I'm first going to summarize the issue and then tell you what it means to me personally.
In the last couple of issues of Amazing Spider-Man, we've learned that Doctor Octopus has managed to switch minds with Peter Parker, leaving Peter on the brink of death in Doc Ock's decaying body and Ock merrily swinging about New York City. Well, you'd think, of course someone would notice that Spidey isn't acting like himself. Ock'll be found out.
Yeah, no. Apparently the gizmo Ock used to pull the switcheroo involved a full-on memory transfer. Doc retains his own memories, but also remembers every single thing in Peter's life. This works both ways - Peter also remembers Otto's memories, but it's not dwelt upon much and OH COME ON EVEN FOR COMIC BOOKS THIS IS JUST BULLSHIT LOGIC.
Look, I watched the entirety of Dollhouse. If you're gonna stick somebody's memories in another person's brain, that person isn't going to just have viewed a life as if it was a biopic. Memories are attached to emotional response. Always. I'm sure someone smarter than I could go off on a tangent about "what makes a person, where is the soul, do your memories make you you," etc. (And this was in fact done a lot by people smarter than I re: Dollhouse, but I'm digressing.) Even by comic book logic - even the logic used in this very issue - Otto Octavius would not have been running around with Peter Parker's memories and his own. If you SWITCH BRAINS, you SWITCH BRAINS. There's no dual-layer personality, there's no "Peter Parker, This Was Your Life" running around in Ock's head. It's presented as "Ha! Got your memories!" like he just tricked a two-year-old into thinking he stole her nose.
So Peter, dying horribly while Otto is gathering up Peter's loved ones at Avengers Tower for "safekeeping," has escaped his cell/deathbed with the help of Hydro-Man and the Scorpion and is trying desperately to get to "Spider-Man" for "revenge." In reality, Peter has the brain-switching MacGuffin on him, and wants to use it on Otto to get his brain back in his own body before Otto's dies, which we're told is going to be a matter of minutes. Peter even has a near-death experience as he's taken from Otto's life support for a moment, seeing a vision of a heavenly Forest Hills where Gwen Stacy and her dad are there, telling him everything will be okay in the end and they can all be together. Of course Uncle Ben shows up for a pep talk, telling Peter how proud of him he is, and that no matter what, he can't let a maniac like Doctor Octopus swing around as Spider-Man, so he can't die just now, he has to get up and fight one last time.
"I won't let you down, Uncle Ben," says Peter just before he regains consciousness.
At Avengers Tower, "Spider-Man" and "Doc Ock" are fighting, while the Scorpion takes advantage of the distraction to go after J. Jonah Jameson. Otto's attitude is "Welp, guess I'm honor-bound to save them while the tower's defenses kills you or whatever." As Otto beats the holy living hell out of the Scorpion, knocking his jaw clean off, JJJ cheers him on while Otto suddenly has a flashback of one of Peter's memories - Aunt May saying how much she loves him.
As Peter jumps out of a window holding onto Doc Ock, fully intent on killing them both, Otto creates a web-cushion to save himself, while Peter crashes to the ground and Otto strikes a deathblow. Peter makes his last-ditch effort to put his brain back into his own body, but Otto had the foresight to wear cranial plates under the mask. There is no hope now. Peter's life begins flashing before his eyes, but...okay, I've read this five times and it's still fucking absurd...apparently Peter starts BEAMING HIS LIFE'S MEMORIES INTO OTTO'S HEAD AS HE LAY THERE DYING AND EXPERIENCING THEM.
No, really. No, really. The actual frickin' caption reads Of course! The Octobot BEAMED my thought patterns into this body. (No it didn't. It physically stung you. There was a flashback and everything!) I may need a DIRECT link for a full transfer, but a link STILL exists...and I know JUST how to use it!
Look, I can't. I just can't. Yes, Peter's memories have been in Otto's head this whole time, we know. THROWING THEM AT OTTO AGAIN, WHICH MAKES NO SENSE BECAUSE THEY ARE ALREADY THERE ANYWAY, WILL NOT MAKE A BIT OF DIFFERENCE ALL OF A SUDDEN BECAUSE YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE HIM FEEL THE EMOTIONAL WEIGHT OF YOUR LIFE. IF HE HAD THOSE THERE ALREADY AND DIDN'T GIVE A FLYING OCTOPUS, IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN NOW BECAUSE YOU HAVE WRITTEN YOURSELF INTO A FUCKING CORNER. YOU HAVE COMPLETELY CHANGED THE RULES MID-NARRATIVE AND I AM CALLING BULLSHIT.
So Otto feels "the preciousness of life" and realizes that with great power, et cetera, and Peter Parker dies. For real. No shit. Otto Octavius is now Spider-Man. And not two seconds after he had some nooooo, I can't be a super-villain now because I care about everyone magical moment, he thinks over Peter's (well, his own, but you get the point) corpse "With my unparalleled genius and my boundless ambition, I'll be a better Spider-Man than you EVER were. From this day forth, I shall become...THE SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN!"
And that's the end. They've cancelled AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and will be publishing SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN in its place. AND THAT'S BULLSHIT. Not only was the story that got us here weak and full of logistical plotholes by its own standards, it does two things that are inexcusable as far as I'm concerned: one, it unceremoniously kills the most moral and noble character in the entire Marvel Universe and replaces him with one of his enemies. Do you know what that means? It says "Evil wins." Bad enough Marvel already had Peter Parker making a deal with the devil, but now it's going to be publishing the adventures of a man who stole the identity of a hero and then murdered him. This is the man people are supposed to suddenly accept as Spider-Man, a hero. Someone whose entire life has revolved around doing the right thing, being responsible, making the right moral choices despite how detrimental it would be to his own life. Around sacrifice, and nobility, and protecting his loved ones. Peter Parker has been a symbol of that and more since 1963, and generations have grown up reading his adventures and learning those core moral values, myself included. I may very well point to, say, Supergirl as my favorite super-hero, but when you get right down to it, I grew up learning how to read on Spider-Man comics, and Peter Parker impressed me with a very basic sense of right and wrong.
Telling us now "Well, Doctor Octopus is Spider-Man now and he believes all that stuff too because Peter Parker's brain is in his head" is FUCKING BULLSHIT. It doesn't matter. He didn't earn it. He didn't grow up with that sense of responsibility. He got to be Spider-Man through lying, deceit, treachery and finally outright murder. I refuse to accept it and so should everyone who has ever given even a passing fancy to Spider-Man.
There is a massive trend towards what are called "grimdark" superheroes, and it's been getting steadily worse at both major comic publishers. Spider-Man was one of the few left who pushed back against that, who had the strongest moral core and sense of responsibility out of everybody in the Marvel Universe. Now he's dead, without even the benefit of his loved ones being able to mourn him.
That brings me to my second point: what this does to Mary Jane. While they're in Avengers Tower, she shows up to talk to "Peter." Otto lambasts her, calls her "woman," and tells her she's just "the plucky best friend with the motivational speeches" and questions why she even hangs around. MJ, sweetie, you are not an idiot, does that sound like Peter fucking Parker to you? Even a little? Did Otto suck out your brain too? It totally minimizes Mary Jane as a character by making her both oblivious and stupid. Even during the last bit of One More Day, Mephisto realizes that their love is so strong that their souls would always be crying out for one another, mourning what was lost, and he would feed off of that pain. MARY JANE WOULD KNOW. Otto could fool Peter's own frickin' aunt, but not Mary Jane Watson. It's inconceivable.
But what does MJ do? Confesses that she still loves Peter. How does Otto react? He kisses her passionately.
No, stop, what are you doing.
I got into a major argument with a friend about this before the issue came out, explaining that if Otto and MJ hook back up and MJ is stupid enough to not realize it's not Peter, then there is a very strong possibility that Doctor Octopus will be regularly raping Mary Jane Watson. AND THIS IS OKAY, ACCORDING TO MARVEL.
The friend said I shouldn't get worked up over a storyline that hasn't even happened yet. Well guess what, Peter hadn't even died yet at that point and already they're tonsil-deep in one another. They're already going there.
I don't really have to go on a long tangent about why this is bad, do I? No? Thank you.
"Well, it's just comics," I've heard. "They'll undo it sooner or later." It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because it happened. It's going to affect the entire direction of SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN and will have a huge effect on the supporting cast, who now unwittingly get to be friends and relatives with Peter Parker's murderer, yippee.
As for "it's just comics," I'm sure I covered that above re: why Peter Parker matters as a symbol. It's not about Spider-Man. It's about Peter's moral core and with all the crazy shit happening in the world, both children and adults needed Peter Parker as a role model. He's gone now, and no one is even able to mourn.
As a final aside, writer Dan Slott has been receiving death threats over AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #700. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about when I opine that the world has gotten a lot more bugshit, and its fictional characters are beginning to reflect that. You don't fucking threaten to kill someone over something like this. Yes, Spider-Man mattered. Which is why these people should know better. If they cared about Spider-Man that much, they'd quit buying Marvel Comics, they'd boycott SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN, they'd write tl;dr blogs on LiveJournal about why the whole thing is stupid. You don't threaten another human being, not now, not ever.
It's not what Peter Parker would want.