Amazing Spider-Man #700

[cyberghostface]

Dying in Dr. Octopus' body, Spidey confronts Ock (in his body) one last time. Peter is unable to transfer his consciousness back, but as his life flashes before his eyes Ock receives them as well via their mental link, with himself in place of Peter in them.



Ock (still in Spidey's body) tells Spidey he doesn't want this, and asks how he can do what Spidey does. Spidey (in Ock's body) tells him that he has to, because with great power...



But "Ock" is dead.





While this will probably last as long as Captain America's death did, I actually like the idea of a (reformed?) Ock as Spider-Man. I think there's a lot of potential with this idea and I'm definitely on board for Superior Spider-Man.

So I'm surprised to say this, but kudos to Slott. I'm looking forward to see where Ock!Spidey goes from here.

EDIT: There's an interesting write-up here.

Comments

[silverhammerman]

I think this is awful on multiple levels, including the thematic, somewhat nonsensical in the Marvel U (Surely Spidey's friends and allies would catch on eventually, in which case them not doing anything would be pretty damned immoral) as well as creepy and off-putting, and it genuinely makes me kind of angry, but I can get over it. I wasn't reading Spider-Man before this, and this certainly isn't going to have me rushing out to buy it, so I'm not that disappointed that this is a direction that I won't be onboard for and we all know that even if sales don't plummet and give Marvel a swift kick in the ass (which is my personal hope given that I'm sick of Marvel being so weirdly antagonistic and dismissive of what its fans want) things will still probably be back to normal in a year or so, and even if Dan Slott is genuinely dedicated to making this the status quo, which I somewhat doubt for the above reasons of it making no damn sense, it'll still end eventually. Because at some point a writer is going to get on the book and say "Hey, I want to write that actual fucking Spider-Man, not this weak shit." and change it back.
No, what really gets me about this is just who is it supposed to be for? Pretty much all the reaction I've seen online has been resoundingly negative, so clearly fans are not pleased with this. I don't think it'll appeal to the casual fan eithe someone familiar with Spidey from the movies and such, would probably pick this up and dismiss it as the kind of the stupid shit that makes comics inaccessible.
So who is this supposed to appeal to? It pisses off the hardcore fans, and the casual fans probably won't be interested, so I just don't see any point to this move. Is this just Dan Slott's vanity story or something?
Anyway, I might elaborate later, but right now I'm pretty tired so this is all I have to say:
This is dumb, offends me as a fan, and I'm not going to buy it.

[arbre_rieur]

Never assume Internet reaction is reflective of actual real world reception. If it was, BLUE BEETLE, UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN, THOR THE MIGHTY AVENGER, and various other "fan favorites" would have been best sellers instead of cancelled.

[silverhammerman]

I don't know, I wasn't really around for OMD/BND, but I know a lot of people where pissed off and I was always under the impression that Marvel did actually lose a decent chunk of sales over it.
You're right though, the only one I can really speak for is myself, we'll just have to wait and see how it sells to see what fans actually think. But then first issue sales tend to be inflated, so we'll probably need to wait a couple months to get a really accurate picture of what's happened sales-wise and whether the fans are actually angry enough to leave. Which is kind of boring and will take a while.

[cyberghostface]

They made more sales overall but to less readers iirc because of "ASM 3x a month" as opposed to ASM plus the two tertiary titles. Which is probably what they were anticipating.

[silverhammerman]

That sounds about right, maybe not a great decision, since losing one reader would mean losing three comic sales instead one, but that definitely sounds like the sort of troll logic that one of the Big Two publishers would use.
Also, I can't be the only one who thinks it's weird that we only have one proper Spidey solo right now. Scarlet Spider and Venom are sort of close, but not the same, and Avenging is more focused on the superheroics than the personal drama that is Spidey's trademark. It's just odd to me that Slott's been monopolizing solo Spidey for a while now.

[arbre_rieur]

Ah, but it'd also mean gaining three sales instead of one each time they get a new reader. Personally, in the current marketplace of umpteen Wolverine books and gazillion Batman titles, I kind of like the idea of a publisher, for once, stepping in the other direction. Which brings me to my next point...

"Also, I can't be the only one who thinks it's weird that we only have one proper Spidey solo right now. Scarlet Spider and Venom are sort of close, but not the same, and Avenging is more focused on the superheroics than the personal drama that is Spidey's trademark."

I don't see how this is at all a bad thing. In my opinion, it'd be even better if those other three books were about characters without ties to Spider-Man at all, creations that stood on their own. I'm disappointed every time I find out that DC's newest exciting title is yet another Batbook. A diversity of titles is a good thing. Lord knows, the Big Two is poor enough as it is in that department.

[silverhammerman]

True, true. Really though, I would think that it'd be best to have the most possible readers, rather than just balancing things out by try to sell more to fewer. They're a business though, so I suppose I should probably bow to Marvel's superior knowledge in this field.

I agree that it's good to have diversity in books, and I wouldn't sacrifice Scarlet Spider or Venom, for another Spider-book, but it'd still be nice to have a second Spidey solo. If only because it's good to have a couple of different takes on a character available to readers so that if a reader likes the character but doesn't like Writer A they can just read Writer B's take on them. Also, publishing two or three different books once a month instead of one book three times a month would allow for more consistent art and a clear visual identity, instead of a rotating team like ASM has had.