This is the last issue of this book, the infamous book where Dr. Octopus took over Peter Parker's mind. It lasted thirty-one issues in a little over a year. I can't say that I loathed the book, especially since I read every issue, but the potential for a superior series was there and it sadly ended up being a good not great book. The major problem was that I thought it would be a typical evil-takes-over cliche, like an evil twin tale. Doc Ock as Parker would be villanious, sleep around, create mayhem, entertain the fuck out of us. No. Doc Ock as Peter went back to college, started a company, dated a girl, fought some villains. Eh. It wasn't
that different, which is why it was ultimately not as great a book as it could have been. It was the same-old-thing with a slight twist when what we all wanted was a major twist. In this issue, the finale of "Goblin War," the Green Goblin gets unmasked, Parker, now back as his old self, saves the day. Even the girl lives. Yawn. Giuseppe Camuncoli does wondrous work on art but even Dan Slott took a vacation day and only wrote the plot (Christos Gage wrote the script). As much as I like Slott, I wonder what some other Marvel writers would do with Spider-Man. Namely...Jason Aaron. It's sad that Marvel only really has one Spider-Man book (they used to have
Web of and
Spider-Man and
Spectacular). DC has a ton of Batman books. If you don't like, say,
Detective, then go read one of the others. If you don't like what Slott and co. are doing then you're screwed. And with the end of this experiment comes a new
The Amazing Spider-Man #1 in two weeks with the same creative team. It'll be more of the same. And that's not a bad thing. After all, I'd be happy if Parker was still taking pictures at the
Bugle and with MJ. ** (out of ****)
