By Dan Slott, Christos Gage, Joe Caramagna, Humberto Ramos, Javier Rodriguez, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Chris Eliopoulos, Victor Olazaba & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-612-0
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a classic return and reinvention … 8/10
Outcast, geeky school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. Due to the teenager’s neglect his beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in dire need.
For years the brilliant young hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foe…
In 2013 Amazing Spider-Man #700 saw all that was Peter die when Otto Octavius took over his body. The hero’s mind was locked into the villain’s expiring body where, despite his every effort, at the last apparently Parker perished with and within that decrepit frame.
Installed in a strong and vital body, the coldly calculating Doctor Octopus began living his enemy’s life, albeit with some minor but most necessary alterations, upgrades and improvements: arguably becoming a wholly Superior Spider-Man…
Octavius’ monomania proved hard to suppress and the overwritten webspinner was driven to prove himself a better man: augmenting Parker’s paltry gadgets and methodology with millions of spying “Spiderbots†to patrol “his†city, adding advanced tech and new weaponry to his uniform and, most importantly, acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises as his predecessor had…
Arrogant Otto went back to college because he refused to live his stolen life without a doctorate and even briefly tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson. The ultra-efficient new Spider-Man became New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson embraced the hero – all but adopting the Astounding Arachnid as his deputy – but the situation could not last.
As Spider-Man ambitiously extended his campaign of 21st century crime-fighting “Parker†won a doctorate and opened his own tech company whilst entering into a romance with brilliant college Teaching Assistant Anna Maria Marconi.
The self-appointed guardian increasingly monitored his metropolis through the electronic eyes of millions of spiderbots from his citadel on the renamed Spider Island II, but when resurgent criminal mastermind Goblin King (former Green Goblin Norman Osborn) tried to take over the city with his Goblin Army Cult the resultant clash gave the dormant but indomitable personality of Peter Parker a chance to fight free.
Dramatically reclaiming his body and place in the world he ended the Goblin threat but not before the immense destruction trashed his good name and reputation with the people he had saved…
Moreover, now that he’s back Peter still he has to deal with all the incredible changes in his personal life created by his gone-but-not-forgotten foe…
Scripted by Dan Slott and illustrated by Humberto Ramos & Victor Olazaba, The Parker Luck collects issues #1-6 of Amazing Spider-Man volume 3 (cover-dated June-November 2014), delivering a bold fresh start that begins with a revised view of the hero’s origin in ‘Lucky to be Alive’.
It turns out that when that fateful radioactive spider attacked the nerdy science student thirteen years previously it didn’t die immediately. In fact it managed to sink its fangs into another youngster before expiring…
Back in the present the reinvigorated Spider-Man is back in the swing of things and having the most embarrassing day of his life. Attempting to capture The Menagerie (a gang of fauna-themed thieves comprising White Rabbit, Hippo, Pandamania and Skein) the hero barely manages to incapacitate them before the fabric-dissolving felon previously known as Gypsy Moth disintegrates his costume…
Although he is quick enough to rescue his identity-shielding mask he’s far too late to save his dignity, and the world – thanks to the magic of camera phones and the internet – gets to see far more of the hero than they might have wanted. Luckily he had presence of mind enough to use his webbing to whip up a pair of modesty preserving (sort of) silk pants…
Heading back to the apartment he doesn’t remember buying, Parker finds Anna Marie waiting. He’s been trying to find a way to end their engagement but although she’s already found his “dump the girlfriend†notes she has other things on her mind now.
Watching the battle against the Menagerie online she saw something only she might recognise and realised her boyfriend was Spider-Man.
She was still at this point utterly unaware that she had actually fallen for Otto Octavius in that distinctive if borrowed body, and the man currently in her life quite sensibly considered her to be a complete stranger.
Unable to dissuade her from her conclusions, Peter comes clean and gains a new – if now strictly platonic – ally.
Barely in time too, as the webbing he used to save the world’s blushes had been previously improved by Ock and just won’t dissolve like his old formulation used to…
Immediately prior to his cascade of crises, Peter had held his first press conference as the boss of a major tech company and officially severed the outfit’s previously-trumpeted association with Spider-Man, but couldn’t understand why all his employees were terrified of him.
It was already turning into that kind of day whilst elsewhere more trouble brewed…
Super-menace Electro is currently (get it?) on a rampage. Thanks to the Superior Spider-Man monkeying with his brain, high-voltage villain Max Dillon had lost control of his powers and become an uncontrollable danger to himself and everyone around him.
Elsewhere former Mayor Jameson reels in fury. Thanks to his association with the Superior Spider-Man and resultant destruction to the city he has had to resign and even his beloved Daily Bugle now wants nothing to do with him…
The first of a selection of sidebar shorts returns to Electro’s dilemma in ‘Recapturing That Old Spark’ (Slott with Christos Gage, illustrated by Javier Rodriguez & Ãlvaro López) as fugitive felon Max Dillon, stung by the taunts of a new generation of costumed criminals, attempts to reclaim his fearsome reputation by springing every super-villain held in an upstate maximum security prison.
Unfortunately, thanks to the illicit brain surgery of “Spider-Manâ€, he can no longer control his power and, in the resultant meltdown, fries the entire institution. In the horrific aftermath fully half the staff and inmates are dead and Electro swears to make the Wallcrawler pay…
The first consequence of his actions is seen in ‘Crossed Paths’ (Slott, Gage, Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell & Cam Smith) as the botched break allows inmate Felicia Hardy to escape incarceration. The Black Cat was a high end thief who had an on-again, off-again affair with the original Spider-Man, but the Octavius iteration betrayed her, outed her and jailed her.
With her identity exposed she lost everything, especially her anonymity and aura of infallibility so she too wants revenge…
Wrapping up all the extra features is humorous vignette ‘How My Stuff Works’ by Joe Caramagna & Chris Eliopoulos; providing a deceptively sharp, palate-cleansing glimpse at the webslinger’s powers and gimmicks before more fresh hells start unfolding…
The drama continues with a teasing prelude set in an opulent bunker where a young woman with all Spider-Man’s powers and more whiles away her days before segueing back to Peter’s apartment where he and Anna Maria have reached an unconventional, cards-on-the-table accommodation…
Elsewhere in the city Dillon visits his last friend with tragic repercussions and sometime later Spider-Man, still suffering the embarrassing after-effects of super-webbing underpants, finally has something go his way when The Avengers – after corroborating his incredible explanation – readmit him to the team…
Later however at Parker Industries, a new problem arises when unscrupulous colleague Sajani Jaffrey informs him that the company’s most promising line of research is going down the tubes. Peter’s problem is that robotic nanites were the speciality of Octavius and young Doctor Parker is completely out of his depth. Thankfully Anna Maria has a way of fixing the problem whilst saving the kid’s face.
Too soon, though, things get very dark when Electro goes on a Spider-hunting rampage. After a destructive but inconclusive clash with the bad guy and subsequent sobering pep talk with old frenemy Johnny Storm, Parker then announces that his company is shifting priorities and will put all its efforts into creating super-villain containment facilities and perhaps even cures…
Whilst in her secret bunker Cindy Moon once again fails to escape back to the real world, on the Upper West Side the Black Cat luxuriates in her return to criminality and, in a grimy building in Alphabet City, Electro fumes, flares and goes even more mad…
Parker’s old and new worlds collide when he takes a team of boffins to the site of Electro’s latest trauma and meets again fireman Pedro Olivera – the new boyfriend of his old flame Mary Jane Watson.
The situation in Alphabet City escalates and as buildings burns Spidey and Pedro become fast friends: a sight missed by Jonah Jameson who has been forced to swallow both pride and principles and start work as a presenter on infotainment network The Fact Channel.
As the Wallcrawler and Pedro clear a blazing warehouse, Black Cat ambushes her former lover using her “bad luck powers†and the heroes barely escape with their lives.
In her smug retreat however Felicia stumbles over the mentally unstable Dillon and recruits a dangerous but determined ally…
Days pass and as Parker increasingly creeps out his bewildered employees trying to be their friend, Sanjani realises she has to do something drastic. When he’s not harassing the peons, her formerly manically focused boss is frequently missing and she’s fed up with Marconi covering for him…
This fourth issue and the next one are part of the monumental Original Sin crossover event and finds our hero desperately trying to convince every costumed crusader he knows that all his recent behaviours were caused by Doc Ock when the world changes forever…
Spider-Man is at ground zero when rapidly mutating maniac The Orb detonates a bomb full of all humanity’s deepest secrets and thus suddenly knows everything about Cindy Moon…
Hurtling across town to the bunker she’s been pent in for thirteen years, Peter runs into a recorded message from deceased Spider-Shaman Ezekiel Sims (see Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home)…
He first met the frustratingly enigmatic old man with spider-powers whilst being stalked by an immortal, man-shaped beast named Morlun. The supernal horror fed on superheroes but far preferred the ancient and totemic animal spirits which forced or enabled the creation of so many champions and monsters throughout Earth’s long history. Exactly like the one which had actually given Parker his own iteration of the eternal Spider force, in fact…
Breaking into the bunker Peter is promptly attacked by the half-crazed Cindy, who was incarcerated unhappily but more or less willingly. When she first developed her own powers Ezekiel sought her out her and convinced her she could only be safe behind the cloaking defences of his technological hideaway.
When Peter explains that he’s already killed Morlun she calms down and exultantly creates a new identity for herself. Within moments Spider-Man and Silk are swinging joyously from the rooftops.
…And on the other side of the world, a patient monster smiles, having finally scented the “spider-bride†he’s been waiting so long for…
As they speed across town Peter realises that not only is his companion faster and stronger than he is with a far more effective Spider sense, but she can also generate webbing from within her body naturally…
His idle speculations end when they arrive at her parent’s place only to discover that the Moons are long gone. In trying to console Cindy Pete then lets slip that Morlun has died twice and she explodes in terror and anger. Furiously pointing out that it only proves that the beast can come back from the dead, she concludes correctly that the horror is probably already coming for them…
Their argument escalates into savage combat but at the height of the battle a different passion overwhelms them both…
Part five begins as vengeance-obsessed Felicia makes her next move by viciously ousting super thug The Eel and taking over his gang and rackets. As she carves out a place in New York’s criminal hierarchy, at the Fact Channel Jonah is ignominiously and incestuously arranging his first scoop by investigating on air the plans of his “brother-in-law†Peter Parker (Aunt May having recently married Jonah’s father, of course…).
Barely able to keep their sticky hands off each other, Cindy and Peter are fortuitously interrupted by Anna Maria who promptly drags him off to the studio in hopes that he can salvage the plummeting reputation of Parker Industries, but that possibility seems shot all to hell when Black Cat and Electro attack the set. Sadly for them they weren’t expecting two spectacular Spider people…
Driven away, the crazed outlaws regroup for one final attempt at revenge but their shattering ambush is turned against them in the blockbusting, battle-frenzied finale which sees Silk and Spider-Man triumph over impossible odds and start to take control of their fatefully intertwined lives…
This astoundingly absorbing chronicle tome includes a monolithic covers-&-variants gallery of 60 stunning images (including many preproduction sketches and pencil/ink art examples) by Ramos, Edgar Delgado, Alex Ross, Terry Dodson, Mike Perkins, John Romita Sr., Marcos Martin, Pop Mahn, Neal Adams, Jerome Ope̱a, John Cassaday, Kevin Maguire, J. Scott Campbell, Barry Bradfield, Adi Granov, Chris Samnee, Dale Keown, Kevin Nowlan, Mico Suayan, Greg Horn, Ed McGuinness, Simone Bianchi, Mike Deodato, Tim Sale, Frank Cho, Stephanie Hans, Skottie Young, Nick Bradshaw, Steve Epting, Luke Ross and John Tyler Christopher, and come with AR icon sections РMarvel Augmented Reality App pages providing access to story bonuses and content on your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
Sensational, spectacular and indeed amazing, The Parker Luck brilliantly mixes outrageous fun and bombastic action with irresistible soap opera tension to recharge the batteries of comics’ most misunderstood hero and lay the groundwork for further enticing and unmissable perils, tragedies and triumphs in the days to come.
To Be Continued…
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.