Amazing Spiderman #700

Amazing Spiderman #700

There was a time when I would have said that I'm glad I don't remember much of the Clone Saga. Hell, even the Maximum Carnage story line was terrible enough to forget. Then in the past few years we had some seriously stupid stuff come out. The Other, for example, taught us that Spider-man has bone claw spikes of some sort. Then we have One More Day. A story line that had Spider-man make a deal with the devil to keep his aunt alive, but he lost his marriage with Mary Jane as part of the package deal. The point of this move was to get Peter Parker back into that teenager troubles he got when the current editor at Marvel first read Spidey.

You know, the days when he would book a date on the same night with both Mary Jane and Gwen, have to do a favor for Aunt May and here comes trouble for Spider-man... all while trying to avoid Aunt May finding out his secret! Boy howdy, how is Peter going to get out of this pickle?!

And so they had their fun with that sort of story for a while and with today's release of Amazing Spider-man #700, things take a drastic turn for the far far worse. First off, there will be spoilers here. So hey, be warned. Anyhow, I don't know about you, but after 700 issues of the adventures of Spider-man, you would think that they'd want to celebrate such a milestone in a better fashion then what they did.

First off, they killed Peter Parker. Specifically Doc Ock, a long time villain of his. Even worse is they did it in what has to be the dumbest way possible. Apparently Doc and Spidey have switched brains ala trading places. Peter now being in the body of an old man about to die... well, in a shocking turn, he dies. Leaving Doc Octopus to remain in Spider-man's body. Yeah, not the birthday celebration that after 700 issues you would expect. 

The ending leaves it that Spock, if we will call him that, beats the hell out of Peter Parker in Doc's body and then after he's dead proclaims that he'll be a far better spiderman than Peter ever was. He'll be a SUPERIOR SPIDERMAN!  Which is what the comic book is turning into. After 700 issues, Amazing spider-man is no more. The book is starting Superior Spider-man with Spock as the character.

This in itself is fucking disturbing. How much hate do you have to hold for a character to do this to one of the biggest franchise characters of the company? How much hate do you have to have for its fans? You know what would have been a better ending? Doc Ock voluntarily switching bodies back after realizing what an incredible person Peter Park was. A reflection of the past 699 issues and realizing how great this character was. That would have made this supposed heel-face turn far more believable. But nope, all we get is "I'm TOTALLY gonna be a better Spider-man than that fucking nerd!"

I don't know how much more insulting it can be than to have it end like that - Peter Parker dead in a gutter with his loved ones celebrating his death while Doc Ock declares that he will be better than Peter. How exactly is your average reader suppose to feel okay with purchasing this book at $8?!

As a writer it just seems like a fucking mess. We're now going to have to endure 12 issues of Spock as a complete asshole Spider-man before they ham-fistedly push Peter Parker back into his body. It's even more amazing because Doc Ock as Superior Spider-man acts absolutely nothing like Peter. He acts like Doctor Octopus. It's like the other characters realize there has been a change but they do nothing in any way to address this. You would assume that she would notice something, especially since the Chameleon's tried this before. She was married to him for years and Spock seems incapable of even making a joke.

Even worse is that in the book Mary Jane is asking for a second chance at their relationship and all Spock does is call her a glorified sidekick. How in the fuck is she not picking up on that? Even worse is that after he does that, she begs him and he kisses her.


I can't wait till the feminist groups rip into the writer because he paints the picture of Mary Jane as a completely useless and welcome mat female. It's truly awful and the notion that Mary Jane gets back with "Peter Parker" now is just all levels of creepy as fuck. To the point of if Doc Ock does anything with her, it should be considered rape. So what exactly is the driving force behind all this?

The answer to all this is Dan Slott. He's found his excuse to keep writing Spider-man the way he wanted to write it for another year or two as this story drags out and sales drop. It's a big finger to the fans, but hey, his stance is if you don't like it then it's your problem and not the person making their loved characters act completely different... or, you know, having their favorite characters get murdered by their villains and take their place in their body.

Visually it's still Peter Parker with the rest of the same cast. Hell Spock knows all of Peter's memories somehow with the mind swap. It's just we're going to get a lot of arrogant attitude out of the character because Dan Slott wants it to be that way. While I know this could all be avoided if you just don't buy the book and don't listen to Dan Slott's interview or twitter feed, but then again, the dude is crazy.

Don Slott will actually go out and search for his name, the words Amazing Spider-man and even Spider-man through social media, as has been documented in many situations, and fire off at you if you disagree with him. He's just that passionate about twitter that he delves into the realm of e-stalker behavior. He's built this reputation off of it. He wants to nag at people on message boards, twitter and anywhere he can. He gets off on this shit of breaking the internet. It's rather stupid. I guess the answer is simple with this though, don't buy Spider-man books and just vote with your wallet.