In which Peter Parker's brain makes good.

[thanekos]

This week in ASM 663, old ghosts rose again.

But to the good, so did Pete's star at Horizon Labs.



His boss sort-of understands his brand of apparent eccentricity, he gets on well enough with his co-workers (worked out a patent conflict with little acrimony, at least), and his performance isn't hampered by his super-hero career.

In fact, it's helping his day job as super-scientist, as he's fully aware (and intending to supplement with actual work):



(His co-workers really are just set dressing, aren't they?)

It's time for Pete to justify his employment with a new invention; his boss asks him, a little firmly, if he's got something today. His response?

" You bet, Max.. "



Yup, he's re-purposed the sense-loss compensation suit as cheap headshot-proof headgear.

Peter Parker is NOT Useless, evidently.

(And yes, his boss thinks he's Spidey's gadget-boy, basically because no one could be that smart and fight crime as well!)

But that's not all:



(I'm oddly liking Slott's idea that Pete's been at the heroing business for so long, his best ideas only come when he's reacting to threats; makes me imagine him combing through recorded superhuman tussles and going " Now how would I solve that.. AHA! "

And man, he's got a real knack for miniaturization, hasn't he?

Shame only insane people tend to recognize it.)

And THAT'S not all, hat-trick-maker though it is.

Flush with his success, Pete webs up, quipping a line from " Spider-Man, Spider-Man, radioactive Spider-Man.. " (Just guess which one).

He swings by a newsstand, which in a nice bit has all the recent New York superhero goings-on on its covers (Paolo Rivera, magazine artist. Who knew?), and thwips up a scientific journal for the proof that he's truly made it:



(Well-played on the cover article, isn't it?

Subtle, at least.. not unintentional, that's for certain, especially now that a Jackal's in town..)

"Peter Parker", "project leader", "impact-resisting polymer".. eat it, 3M!

(Only way this could go bad is if this project catastrophically fails.. or if he proposes a tracer derivative off of Smythe's sense tech, and THAT blows up.)

Comments

[proteus_lives]

"Only way this could go bad is if this project catastrophically fails"

The Parker Luck.

It's a universal law in the MU. Like gravity and Logan's ability to be in multiple places at once.

The higher Peter goes, the harder the fall.

[baxter2814]

That last panel makes me smile so hard my face hurts. :)

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah--you can just TELL from his body language that he's grinning ear-to-ear. :D

[funbox]

Is it bad that all I can imagine with him hugging the magizine is "Peter Parker of Earth, welcome to the orange lantern corps"

[thanekos]

Alas, " You can keep 'em all! "

Emphasis " Keep ".

[stillanerd]

And get ready to say good-bye to Spidey's career as a research scientist. Because the fact that he's got a high-profile article about him published in "American Science Journal" makes it pretty apparent that Peter Parker's career at Horizon Labs is going to come crashing down in the near future. I mean, this issue and past issues were already hammering home that "everything is finally going Peter's way" that you just know the other shoe is going to drop at some point, and this just underscores it. Why? Because eventually, the "Parker Luck," which usually involves the maxim "if it's too good to be true, it probably is." Not to mention I believe Dan Slott himself stated in interviews during the promotion of "Big Time" that the "Parker Luck" was still alive and well.

So what could cause Peter's success at Horizon Labs to come crashing down? The reveal of who the mysterious scientist in Lab 6 is, of course, which many folks are already suspecting is going to be The Jackal (just in time for Spider-Island, too boot). Which would mean Max Modell hired a known super-villain, which means that, based on what the Jackal is doing by giving everybody spider powers, would make Modell an accessory even if he didn't know what the Jackal was up to and thus puts the entire company's future in jeopardy, including Peter's new job.

[thanekos]

I dunno, I kinda got the impression the Jackal was doing his work a bit more underground.. and considering they haven't set up "YOU?!" yet, it'd be a bit abrupt to play that card in the next few months, wouldn't it?

(Of course, they easily could..)

[stillanerd]

Well, it was established back in issue #649, that the person working in Lab 6, according to Max Modell, only agreed to work there so long as he had absolute privacy and could work in total anonymity from the rest of his/her co-workers. Which, considering how the Jackal is indeed working more "underground" with his giving people spider powers experiments would indeed fit.

Also, we technically have been set-up for a "YOU?!" moment. Remember this teaser image that appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #654.1 and this year's FCBD of Amazing Spider-Man? http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OmTS7soscpw/TW_ICf_b-wI/AAAAAAAAB4c/OddY_0Yx1rI/s1600/spidey.jpg

Of course, one of the reasons why some folks are thinking the scientist in Lab 6 is the Jackal is due to this promo image of what apparently might be issue #668, in which we see Peter wearing a similar hoodie as he does in the #654.1 back-up:

http://www.thefanboyseo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/1300888244.jpg?iact=hc&vpx=603&vpy=394&dur=534&hovh=276&hovw=183&tx=102&ty=185&ei=vCLoTYDsJYfMgQeijamZAQ&page=2&tbnh=136&tbnw=98&start=36&ndsp=38&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:36

Of course, it's just speculation at this point.

[thanekos]

I'd forgotten all that, thanks; it does make that theory that much more plausible.

But from what we've seen of Max, " he's clearly a smart guy, so I'll hire him on regardless of his personal history " doesn't quite seem like something he'd do (yes, Peter and his widely gapped work history, but he had the bit with "Wakandan calculus" and the impromptu pop-quiz too).

It's not hard to see how "No way!"/"You win."/"YOU?!" could all be part of Spider-Island, yeah, but considering the chaos it'd be.. "YOU?!" looks too calm a scene to be that confrontation.

But, yeah, it really is all speculation.. there's easily two, three ideas anyone could come up with to explain all those snapshots.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

And get ready to say good-bye to Spidey's career as a research scientist.

I suspect that was always planned as a short-term thing. If Peter's a photographer, he can constantly be at crime scenes. If he's a teacher, he always has a class to teacher. Those are jobs that can be shown for years, but this job seems to be "Peter does something brilliant." How long can that be shown in an interesting way? How many inventions can he come up with based on his powers?

[thanekos]

I imagine if he runs out of that, he'll resort to "things I've seen in my superhero career"; he figured out how to stabilize a vibranium derivative pretty quickly, after all.

(Of course, then he might just get patent trolled by some enterprising Z-lister..)

[an_idol_mind]

This looks pretty decent. On the other hand, I wonder how it meshes with Marvel's spoken desire to make Peter an everyman superhero. Right now he's closer to Tony Stark-lite.

But hey, one can't really complain as long as the writing on this book is apparently decent for a change.

[big_daddy_d]

Yup, he's re-purposed the sense-loss compensation suit as cheap headshot-proof headgear.

Nice to see that a brainy hero uses something he/she came up with for the benefit of others instead of just keeping it for thmeselves.

[fifthie]

Apparently the response to criticisms of the art for Carlie Cooper is to... start being just as ridiculously inconsistent with how they draw Pete!

[halloweenjack]

Yeah. The Spider-Man parts are nice, but no way is that beefy, square-jawed guy Peter Parker. It looks more like Flint Marko, Jr. or a nephew of Ben Grimm's.

[silverzeo]

I thought SPidey would say no to cloning after that one saga... though I do beg that the thought that Jackal had so many huge labs and machines at the time...

[mullon]

He still didn't need to be single for this to happen. But at the same time I know it's going to end, because bad writers think suffering is the only way to write a good story.

[janegray]

Motto.

I LOVE it when writers remember that Peter is supposed to be a brilliant scientist (it's why I love the web-shooters and got pissed off when he got organic web-shooters: the excuse was that "a teenager couldn't be smart and knowledgeable enough to make sophisticated inventions", but Peter is supposed to be a genius!). But there is absolutely no reason why he can't be a married brilliant scientist.

And yes, since or some reason Marvel insists that a happy Peter doesn't work, we already know that his happiness won't last.

[cyberghostface]

99.9% of the storylines in BND/OMD did not need to happen with Peter being single. Aside from Peter's one-night stand with Michelle/Chameleon rapefest and the current Carlphisto subplot, Peter being a bachelor has factored in very minimal.

If anything, Harry's resurrection has been more important than Peter being away from MJ and being a swinging single...that has actually impacted a number of significant storylines.

So this probably has more to do with Joe Q's midlife crisis than anything on improving the title.

[blackruzsa]

<3 Big ol' brain. You're probably one of the few things good Peter has going at this moment.

[sherkahn]

That last panel..... ah, nice to see Spidey getting having a nerd-gasm.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I do hope he paid for that.

And yes, the old "Parker luck." After, what, forty years? I'd probably take a hint...

Really, though, if everything crumbles back to status quo... retch. "Parker luck" just sounds like an excuse for "we can't think of anything else."

[blunderbuss]

Man, something awesome happens to a character that is a natural organic development of his powers and natural abilities, and everyone says 'oh it won't last'.

I thought we were supposed to ROOT for heroes, not wait for everything to go wrong because they can't have nice things.

[skalja]

Well, most of us used to root for good things to happen to this hero, until we went through several rounds of The Powers That Be telling us that he can't have nice things because a lack of nice things is intrinsic to his appeal. So now we just can't trust in nice things anymore. So we don't really care about the story. Well played, Marvel editorial.

[twigcollins]

Pretty much this.

I am done touching the electrified cupcake.

[stillanerd]

I thought we were supposed to ROOT for heroes, not wait for everything to go wrong because they can't have nice things.

Oh, of course we're supposed to root for the hero and hope things will go well. However, two things to consider:

1. This is Spider-Man we're talking about--Marvel's own resident hard-luck everyman and butt-monkey. One the main things about him is that, just because he has super-powers and is a genius, doesn't automatically mean that everything is going to go his way. In fact, him being a superhero is supposed to make his life a bigger mess than it normally would be.

2. Given the heavy-handed approach to how Peter is "finally getting his act together" with having a new career and a new relationship, it's being made blatantly obvious that it's only a matter of time before everything in Peter's life is going to come crashing down. It's already been established that he's spreading himself way too thin by being on three different superhero teams along with doing his solo Spider-Man thing, and that's going to come to a head apparently in issue #665. The "Spider-Island" event is very likely going to be the next nail in the coffin of Peter's "perfect life."

[eyz]

"(And yes, his boss thinks he's Spidey's gadget-boy, basically because no one could be that smart and fight crime as well!)"
I kinda like that angle.
Why would anyone assume superheroes are supposed to fight crime/have powers and create gadgets/come up with plans all by themselves?

[chocochuy]

This is going to end well.

Wake me up when Spiderm-Man returns to be a superhero.

[chocochuy]

Aye, I wrote "Spiderm" because I am not willing to accept that douchebag as the Spiderman we all love.