Amazing Spider-Man in the 2010s (Part 2)

For the past year, Marvel had made the bold move of killing off Peter Parker and replacing him with Doctor Octopus as the Superior Spider-Man. Fans, as fans tend to do, were pissed off by this. Instead of enjoying a unique twist on a now 50-year-old-story, they fell for the oldest trick in the book: Killing off a character to make a triumphant return later on. This has been a gimmick that had been pulled since the 1990s, yet Spider-Man acted as this had never been done before. At any rate, the eventual happened: Peter Parker was back.

Amazing Spider-Man was rebooted with a third volume and it ran for about 30 issues (which included an annual, a special, and a ton of .1 issues) The first issue showed Peter Parker returning to the role of Spider-Man and discovering all of the changes that Otto Octavius made to his life while he was gone. Some were good, such as Peter had his own company, Parker Industries. Some were bad, like Spider-Man having soured relationships with everyone he considered allies. There was also an awkward development as well, Otto had been romancing Anna Maria Marconi, and was about to propose to her. Peter is left with having to deal with.

While this could have been an interesting exploration, it was mostly sidelined for Dan Slott’s most ambitious storyline yet: Spider-Verse. If you’ve been living in a cave, it was a landmark storyline that saw Spider-Men from across the multiverse uniting to stop the Inheritors, a family of hunters who exist to consume the life forces of spider-totems. It was such a smash hit, there have been a number of follow-ups, spin-offs, and of course a film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It was a fun look into the multitude of alternate Spider-Men that have been created over the years as well as introducing new fan-favorites such as Spider-Gwen, from a reality where Gwen Stacy becomes Spider-Woman instead of doing a nose-dive off the George Washington Bridge.

The rest of the stories in this run seemed like filler because Marvel was building up to 2015’s Secret Wars, so I think that this run of Amazing Spider-Man was holding off on moving forward with Slott’s plans for Spider-Man for after the fact. Other than Spider-Verse another interesting addition to the title was the various .1 issues that came out.

At the time, Marvel was going through a phase of reboots of their flagship books as part of the Marvel Now! initiative. This meant a lot of comics being published as "point one” issues. These were either one-off stories or a short arc that featured a story and/or creative team that deviated from the main story arc that was going on in the main book.

In the case of Amazing Spider-Man, there was two runs of .1 stories that ran concurrently with the main series. Issue #1.1 to 1.5 featured a story called Learning to Crawl. This story took place between the events of the first few issues of the original run of Amazing Spider-Man. By 2014, the “early days” of Spider-Man had been mined for story potential so often, I couldn’t think it was possible to find any more water in the well, yet here we are. Slott does what other writers hadn’t done before, and that really delved into how Peter Parker was handling the death of his Uncle Ben.

Most writers went with having Peter Parker lament about how he could have prevented Ben’s murder if he only stopped the burglar a few days earlier. Slott actually put some thought into how a normal teenager would handle the death of a family member. Someone could put Learning to Crawl on par with Kurt Busiek’s run on Untold Tales of Spider-Man, but I’d say that Slott surpasses it. Peter Parker is depressed, he’s having trouble at school, he’s having conflicts with Aunt May. It also realistically looks at the conflicts between Peter’s responsibilities as a high school student and being Spider-Man. Another masterstroke was Slott was able to tell a story of Peter Parker’s youth frame in a more contemporary setting without rebooting, overhauling, or retconning what has already been established. It is a modernized take on teenager Peter Parker, yet maintains the simplicity of the early Stan Lee/Steve Ditko era of Spider-Man. Modern writers should really take some notes on how to properly do a flashback story.

Issues #16.1 through 20.1 was a five-issue arc titled the Spiral, which featured Spider-Man and the Wraith trying to contain a gang war. What’s notable about this arc is that it was written by the legendary Gerry Conway. Conway last wrote Spider-Man back in 1992. Conway, a consummate professional could not only slip back into writing a character he hadn’t written about in 20 years but was also able to work with characters that were introduced during Brand New Day and Dan Slott’s subsequent Spider-Man run and make then really dance.

The last three issues of the third volume, issues #16-18 were kind of a down note. The story featured one plot about the Ghost attacking Parker Industries while the other half of the book was devoted to a plot about the Black Cat stealing back all her possessions that were auctioned off after she was arrested.

This was at the time when Marvel was wrapping up most of their books under the Last Days event which proceeded 2015’s Secret Wars. It allowed writers to wrap up their storylines before Marvel hit the reset button. While writers were allowed to opt-out on the tie in, giving them the creative freedom to wrap things up in their own way, Amazing Spider-Man was kind of rudderless. Obviously, Slott was going to continue from where he left off once Secret Wars was over. However, there wasn’t much he could do without revealing what he had in store for when things started up again. If anything, there is a briefest of hints about how Doctor Octopus was going to return to terrorize Peter Parker anew, but it wasn’t obvious until things started revealing themselves.

As a result, these were tame no consequence stories that paled in comparison after such an epic crossover like Spider-Verse. As such, the third volume of Amazing Spider-Man ends with the only memorable moment being the belabored plot of transitioning the Black Cat into a full super-villain again.

As I said, the series was cut short because of Secret Wars, which saw all of Marvel’s books get canned for a line-wide event. Following Secret Wars the Amazing Spider-Man would start up again with a fourth volume, but that’s a story for another time.

Note: Although the .1 issues were printed concurrently with the regular run of Amazing Spider-Man, I have kept these issues together for keeping the narrative together. As such, issues #1.1-1.5 and 16.1-20.1 are grouped together.