Amazing Spider-Man in the 2010s (Part 1)

Sep 5

Sep 5 Amazing Spider-Man in the 2010s (Part 1)

As we entered the 2010s, the Brand New Day era marched on. Fans were getting over the fact that Peter and Mary Jane were no longer together (well, most of them anyway. If you can believe it there is a contingent of angry fans on message boards that are still upset about this and will probably never know joy in their lives, but I digress) Issue #610 wrapped up Guggenheim’s story that brought back elements of the Clone Saga. It serves as a means of bringing Kaine back into the life of Spider-Man which will have repercussions later. Otherwise, the story itself is all right. This was also the era when everyone had a boner for Deadpool (this was before the movies came out and encouraged fans of the character to become utterly insufferable at conventions) So the following issue was a light Deadpool team-up with your usual amount of fourth-wall breaking and fart jokes. It’s forgettable.

Which is fine because the Brand New Day Spider-Team was about to drop their most ambitious story-line yet, TheGauntlet. This story arc was a rotating cast of creative teams giving non-stop action as Spider-Man was forced to fight a never-ending stream of enemies, both old and new. The story presented characters in a new light, upgraded their powers, mind you none of these upgrades really last longer than this story arc. Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta kicked it off with a three-part story called Power to the People where Electro tries to reinvent himself as a champion of the people by going after the electrical company that is gouging people. Fred Van Lente and Javier Pulido then followed this up with the two-parter Keemia’s Castle which reveals the Sandman has a daughter and follows his journey to try and make her fairy tale princess fantasy come true. This was followed up with one-off stories featuring the Rhino (by Joe Kelly and Max Fiumara), before Dan Slott and Marcos Martin gave us Mysterioso a three-part story that saw Mysterio return to basics. It kind of left a lot of explaining to do since, you know, Mysterio was dead before this. What was going on with Mysterio became a convoluted mess after this — with Brain Michael Bendis adding his own layer of confusion to the situation — leaving it for Nick Spencer to clean up almost a decade later, but I digress.

Issues #621 and 622 were more one-off stories featuring Mister Negative (by Slott and Michael Lark) and Morbius (by Van Lente and Joe Weisman. This was followed by a Waid and Azaceta story two-parter featuring the the new Vulture in issues #623-624. Joe Kelly came back to wrap up his Rhino story in the next issue having the original Rhino battle his successor to the death. The usual thing to do in a situation like this was kill off the old character and replace him with a new one, but in this case Joe Kelly decides to kill off the new Rhino, which is just as well because there wasn’t really a need for a new Rhino when the old one will do. After a Van Lente story about the female Scorpion going bad, Roger Stern was brought back to do what he does best — tell a story about Spider-Man fighting the motherfucking Juggernaut in issues #527-529. Instead of doing the usual story where “Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut” and ending with Spider-Man temporarily trapping him this story actually puts Juggy up against a foe that could overpower him — Captain Universe. The last time they showed a full-powered Juggernaut get his ass handed to him was back during the Onslaught storyline so it’s interesting to see this match-up.

The Gauntlet wrapped up with Shed a four-part story about the Lizard coming back and attempting to turn everyone into savages by making the reptile part of the brain take control. It was written by Zeb Wells with art by Chris Bachalo. Wells absence up to this point, to me, seems like a bit of a waste since he has done a great job deconstructing villains (as he did in Doctor Octopus: Year One and Venom: Dark Origin) However, Shed does not disappoint giving us a new and more deadly version of the Lizard. Chris Bochalo gives the Lizard a new look that is downright menacing. Hi’s more like a dinosaur than your garden variety lizard. The look has a lot of weight to it, like you could almost feel him bit people in half with those massive jaws.

The Gauntlet was all a lead up to the next storyline The Grim Hunt (Amazing Spider-Man #634-637) which saw the Kravinoff family hunting spider-characters in order to get the totemistic energies needed to bring Kraven the Hunter back from the dead. It was written by Joe Kelly with art by Michael Lark. It is a complete change of tone when it comes to Spider-Man stories during this run. It’s dark. The stakes are higher. Madame Web and Mattie Franklin get murdered and Kaine is completely transformed. While most people can look at this as simply an excuse to bring a long-dead character back from the dead, it actually started setting things up for future Spider-Man stories setting the stage for later major story arcs including Spider-Island and Spider-Verse.

This was followed up by One Moment in Time in Amazing Spider-Man #638-641, written by Joe Quesada with art by Paolo Rivera. It also recycles aspects of Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 and Amazing Spider-Man #545. Since the initial upset caused by One More Day had quieted down a bit, Quesada decided it was time to tell the story of what exactly happened when Mephisto altered reality at the end of One More Day. Ultimately, I’d have to say that the way the marriage gets undone is kind of lame but brilliant at the same time. What’s more interesting is finally getting an explanation as to how everyone forgot Peter Parker was Spider-Man following Civil War and got his life back on track. The ultimate irony in this story being Peter praying to God to save Aunt May when it was actually the devil that saved her.

The Brand New Day era then came to a close with one final story arc, Origin of the Species that ran from issues #642 to 645 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta. This story focuses on the birth of Harry Osborn and Lily Hollister’s baby and the super-villains trying to capture the baby and Spider-Man’s hunt to rescue it. Issue #647 was a send off issue to the era with various stories from the Brand New Day team. Thus ended an era. Amazing Spider-Man went from being published 3 times a month to twice a month.

From here, Dan Slott took over as the primary writer for Amazing Spider-Man and he would continue to write the character until the end of the decade. Joining him through most of this journey Humberto Ramos. His first major story arc was called Big Time, which ran from Amazing Spider-Man #648 until 654. It saw Peter Parker getting a job working as an inventor for Horizon Labs, allowing him to create new equipment for Spider-Man which he could then reverse engineer into other inventions and make a decent living. The first part of the arc also saw the return of Phil Urich and his transformation into the new Hobgoblin. The art by Ramos is a lot less cartoony than he earlier work on Spider-Man in the previous decade. I appreciate that his usual exaggerated proportions are somewhat reigned in on this run of Amazing Spider-Man. The return of Phil Urich and switching him over to a villain, to me, was a good idea because holy shit was Phil really annoying when he was a heroic Green Goblin.

Big Time ended on a down note in issues #652-654 with a story plotted by Slot but written by Ven Lent with art by Stafano Caselli. It featured the return of Alystaire Smythe as the Spider-Slayer which results in the murder of J. Jonah Jameson’s wife, Marla Madison. This was followed up by a two part story No One Dies by Slott and Marcos Martin, it follows everyone coping with the death of Marla Madison. Peter Parker is — as you’d expect — pretty heavy hit by this because this is yet another person who died on his watch. It also introduces a new villain called Massacre. You wouldn’t know it from reading it at the time, but this story sets up later plots that were covered in Superior Spider-Man and in the Clone Conspiracy story arcs later in the decade. The thing I like the most about Dan Slott’s work on Amazing Spider-Man is the fact that he was allowed to build plots over time, which was something of a lost art in the decade before it when the editorial mandate was to keep stories as mosty self-contained story arcs.

The next big arc came about the time of the Fantastic Four’s 50th Anniversary. Over in Fantastic Four, writer Jonathan Hickman had just “killed off” the Human Torch (he’s not really dead, but it’s a long story) paving the way for Spider-Man becoming a member of the Fantastic Four, which reinvented itself as the Future Foundation. Issue #657 comes at the wake of Johnny Storm’s “death” with the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man meeting up and sharing some “Untold Tales”, while issue #658 sees Spider-Man joining the team full force. The next bunch of issues sees Spider-Man going on a field trip with the children of the Future Foundation (issues #659-560) and then later acting as a substitute teacher at the Avengers Academy (issues #651-652) Followed by a three issue arc (#663-665) which saw the return of Anti-Venom and the introduction of a new Wraith. These stories also featured back-up stories about the Jackal which led up to the next big story arc, Spider-Island.

Running from issue #666 to 673, it saw everyone in Mahattan suddenly gain spider-powers thanks to the Jackal. This is all a scheme to turn the island in one of literal giant spiders to allow the Queen (last seen back in the second volume of Spectacular Spider-Man during Avengers: Disassembled) can take over the world. It’s a fun story, but it also was a means to an end by allowing Dan Slott to take Spider-Man having his secret identity being untouchable off the table. By this point, Peter had been dating Carlie Cooper and when she uncovers the fact that he’s actually Spider-Man, she doesn’t take it very well.

By this point the series was taking on some lighter fare, but a lot of the stories were setting the seeds for future Spider-Man stories. This was also the point when Marvel started publishing .1 stories. In Amazing Spider-Man these .1 stories were used as backdoor pilots for upcoming Spider-Man spin-off titles. For example issue #654.1 was a teaser for the new Venom series which starred Flash Thompson as the new Venom while issue #679.1 and 699.1 set things up for the Morbius series. Issues #676 and 678-679 set the stage for later story arcs, namely the Ends of the Earth story arc and the latter planting seeds for the return of Spider-Man 2099 as well as Spider-Verse.

Ends of the Earth a six part story that featured Doctor Octopus — who is still dying due to brain damage since issue #600 — and the Sinister Six launching one last attempt at world domination. Spider-Man, the Black Widow, and Silver Sable then team-up to take him down. The story ends with Sable seemingly dying and Doctor Octopus going to jail to presumably die, however this is just setting things up for one of Dan Slott’s most shocking twists in modern Spider-Man lore. This is followed by a four part Lizard/Morbius story in issues #588-591.

It was about this time that Marvel was celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Amazing Spider-Man. To celebrate, Dan Slott devoted issues #592-594 to create a new hero named Alpha. I would have to say that the Alpha story arc is one of the weakest ones that Slott had to offer. It’s your typical “let’s create a new character by piggy backing their origin in a Spider-Man book” that has been done countless time and introduced us to a plethora of characters who were touted to be the next generation of superhero only for them to be forgotten (Annex, and the Metahumes, the Jury, Poison and so many others) It’s very rare that a writer will throw a character like this to the wall and have it stick. The only character I can really think of that proved to survive being cooked up in a Spider-Man comic was Speedball, and even that’s a stretch. At any rate, Alpha was pretty much like every other young superhero created in this era. An overpowered, obnoxious Gen Zers that someone my age cannot relate to in the slightest. Apparently the target demographic didn’t like Alpha either because after a limited series and appearance in Young Avengers, Alpha has not been seen since, and good riddance because what an annoying fucking character.

Getting back to form, Slott followed this awful Alpha story with a three part story that saw Phil Urich go up against the original Hobgoblin, Roderick Kingsley and seemingly kills him, setting up yet another future Spider-Man arc, which we’ll get into later.

Amazing Spider-Man then wrapped up it’s run with issues #698 to 700 with the Dying Wish story arc. It features Doctor Octopus swapping bodies with Peter Parker. Although Peter tries to get his body back he actually fails but not before compelling Doc Ock to continue his legacy. Otto, true to form, vows to become a superior version of Spider-Man.

Like One More Day before it, Dying Wish caused fans to lose their shit. It never ceases to amaze me how fucking stupid fans can be when a writer kills off a character like this, they always always always create a back door to bring that a character back from the dead. They have been pulling bait-and-switch deaths like this since the killed off Superman in the 90s and yet fans fall for it every time. This change didn’t even last an entire year before the status quo was reset and in my mind any fan who got upset over this change is a god damn crybaby who doesn’t get comics.

Killing Peter Parker and putting Doctor Octopus in his shoes was one of the most brilliant ideas that Dan Slott pulled during his run on the Spider-Man books. I’ll get into it more in my primer for Superior Spider-Man, but even as it was happening I knew that Slott was onto something genius and all the criticism he got for it was from limp dick fan boys who don’t know what the fuck they are talking about, but I digress.

This wasn’t really the absolute end to Amazing Spider-Man. As I stated above, it was the 50th anniversary of Spider-Man and as such, Marvel revived previous Spider-Man titles were brought back (such as Web of Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man and so on) for a few new issues that used the decimal numbering system. Amazing Spider-Man was no different with Marvel putting out issues #700.1 through 700.5, which featured stories about Peter Parker while he was still alive to appease cry baby fans who can’t handle the death of a fictional character. These stories aren’t bad, but I don’t recall them being particularly memorable either.

At any rate, other than these decimal issues, Amazing Spider-Man was cancelled and replaced with Superior Spider-Man which ran for 31 issues and various spin-off titles before the status quo was restored and Amazing Spider-Man returned with a brand new volume which would run until Marvel relaunched everything following 2015’s Secret Wars, but we’ll get into all of that later.