Category: Spider-Man

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 21^st 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 & Álvaro 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-Man”, 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.

By Cullen Bunn, Salvador Espin, Mike Henderson, Aaron Kim Jacinto & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-613-7

Stylish killers and mercenaries craving something more than money have long made popular fiction protagonists and light-hearted, exuberant bloodbath comics will always find an appreciative audience…

Deadpool is Wade Wilson (yes, a thinly disguised knockoff of Slade Wilson AKA Deathstroke the Terminator: get over it – DC did), a hired killer and survivor of genetics experiments that have left him a grotesque bundle of scabs, scars and physical abnormalities but practically immortal, invulnerable and capable of regenerating from any wound.

He is also a certifiable loon…

The wisecracking high-tech “Merc with a Mouth” was created by Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza, debuting in New Mutants #97, another product of the Canadian “Weapon X” project which created Wolverine and so many other mutant/cyborg super-doers. He got his first shot at solo stardom with a couple of miniseries in 1993 (Deadpool: the Circle Chase & Sins of the Past) but it wasn’t until 1997 that he finally won his own title, which blended 4th-wall-busting absurdist humour (a la Ambush Bug) into the mix and secured his place in Marvel history.

Since then he has become one of Marvel’s iconic, nigh-inescapable characters, perennially undergoing radical rethinks, identity changes, reboots and more before always, inevitably, reverting to irascible, irreverent, intoxicating type in the end…

Back in the anything goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s-early1990s, fad-fever and spin-off madness gripped the superhero genre in America as publishers hungrily exploited every trick to bolster flagging sales.

In the melee Spider-Man spawned an intractable archenemy called Venom: deranged, disgraced reporter Eddie Brock who bonded with Peter Parker’s Secret Wars costume (a semi-sentient alien parasite dubbed the Symbiote) to become a savage, shape-changing dark-side version of the Webspinner.

Eventually the arachnid adversaries reached a brooding détente and Venom became the “Lethal Protector”, dispensing his own highly individualistic brand of justice anywhere but New York City.

However, when the symbiote went into breeding mode it spawned a junior version which merged with serial psycho-killer Cletus Kasady. Utterly amoral, murderously twisted and addicted to both pain and excitement, they became the terrifying metamorphic Carnage: a death-crazed monster tearing a bloody swathe through the Big Apple before an army of superheroes caught him and his equally lethal “family” (as seen in the crossover epic Maximum Carnage).

One of the most dangerous beings on Earth, eventually Kasady was executed and his remains dumped safely into high-Earth orbit. Of course “safe” is an extremely relative term and eventually the crimson killer returned…

Following a clash between The Superior Spider-Man (Otto Octavius‘ mind in Peter Parker’s body) and the Wizard, Kasady was resurrected but separated from his increasingly self-aware symbiote…

Written throughout by Cullen Bunn, this sublimely continuity-light and baggage-free bloody kill spree collects Superior Carnage Annual (April 2014) and the subsequent 4-part miniseries Deadpool vs. Carnage (June-August 2014), gorily repositioning the scarlet slaughterer for his next assault on the cowering Marvel Universe.

The all-action abattoir-fest opens with Superior Carnage Annual (illustrated by Kim Jacinto, Mike Henderson and colourist Jay David Ramos) as the recently recaptured Kasady – lobotomised in a clash with the Scarlet Spider – awaits medical assessment in Kramer Penitentiary. Psychologist Dr. Jenner is interviewing the unrepentant but clearly cognitively recovered felon to see if he is mentally competent to be tried for his crimes, but the headshrinker also has a secret agenda…

In New York City, the symbiote is barely contained in an unbreakable tube on Spider Island (fortress base of the Superior Spider-Man), raging in destructive fury against imprisonment and terrifying the mercenaries guarding it.

When an inmate at far-distant Kramer tries to kill Kasady the captive creature goes instantly berserk before apparently expiring.

Meanwhile at Morse Laboratories in New Mexico, researcher Carla Unger is working late, examining a few scrapings taken from the symbiote. Despite the risks, it’s way better than cooking dinner for her abusive husband Will, but when the seemingly-dormant scarlet shreds suddenly possess her, she heads home for a final family meal…

The symbiote is going to find Cletus, and is soon hopping from body to body, gaining strength whilst leaving a trail of corpses across America, but it is all too late. Power-mad Dr. Jenner, hungry to be the symbiote’s permanent host and exasperated that his first attempt to kill Kasady failed, stifles the dying inmate in the prison infirmary, but when the thing from another world final arrives it rejects him before reanimating its preferred host’s corpse…

Reunited and resurgent, the component parts that comprise the revitalised Carnage then begin taking an awful vengeance on everybody at the institution…

Some time later Deadpool vs. Carnage opens with the scarlet slayer still enjoying an extended if motiveless murder spree throughout the Midwest.

In his apartment and own world, Wade Wilson is channel surfing TV stations and suddenly divines a personal message from the universe telling him to stop Carnage…

After a few false starts and more nudging from everyday objects like billboards, video games and comics, the Manic Merc finally stumbles across Kasady in an abandoned housing development in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the two unkillable kooks start fighting.

It seems to be pretty even until Cletus’ homicidal old squeeze Shriek turns up and ambushes Deadpool…

This really isn’t the kind of tale that depends on plot, but if you’re a fan of hyperkinetic Warner Brothers cartoons where two protagonists try increasingly outrageous and escalating methods of mass destruction to destroy each other then you’ll adore the frantic, blackly hilarious duel which only ends after Deadpool picks up a bunch of symbiotes of his own – and a cool shape-changing dog – from a secret military base where the government has been trying to weaponise the alien parasites for the army…

Sharp, fast-paced and excessively, addictively action-packed, this wry and sanguine rollercoaster romp also includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Rafa Garres, Glenn Fabry & Adam Brown and Leinil Francis Yu: offering a complication free riot of gratuitous gory fun and thrills that will delight the appetites for graphic destruction of Fights ‘n’ Tights fans everywhere.
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

By Mark Waid, Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente, Joe Kelly, Adam Kubert, Barry Kitson, Paul Azaceta, JM Ken Niimura, Javier Pulido & Stefano Gaudiano (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3871-6

Nerdy school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, whilst seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy.

His beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered, and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in need. For years the brilliant young champion 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…

During a particularly hellish period a multitude of disasters seemed to ride hard on his heels and a veritable army of old enemies simultaneously resurfaced to attack him (an overlapping series of stories comprising and defined as “The Gauntlet”), before Parker’s recent tidal wave of woes was revealed to be the culmination of a sinister, slow-building scheme by the surviving family of one of his most implacable foes – and one who had long been despatched to his final reward.

Spanning January and February 2010, the first skirmishes in that campaign of terror are collected here, having originated in Dark Reign: The List – Amazing Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man #612-616 and as pertinent extracts from Web of Spider-Man #2, as old foes returned to trouble a hero already reeling from the fact that his most despised and crazy enemy has just been made the second most powerful man in America…

Officially psychotic Norman Osborn has bedevilled both Spider-Man and Peter for years. His abused son Harry was the misunderstood hero’s greatest friend but the stress and strain, over time, turned the Osborn heir into a drug addict, a costumed carbon copy of his old man and, latterly, a certifiable basket case.

Callously oblivious, Norman – through various machinations – became America’s Security Czar: the “top-cop” in sole charge of the beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to the USA’s costumed community.

Capitalising on the Skrull Secret Invasion he rose to power on a tidal wave of public popularity but soon instituted an oppressive Dark Reign, driving the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes underground and forming his own team of deadly Dark Avengers, all in the grossly debased name of “national security”…

Not content with commanding all the covert and military resources of the USA, Osborn personally led the team, wearing a formidable suit of “requisitioned” Iron Man armour and calling himself the Iron Patriot, even whilst covertly conspiring with a coalition of major super-villains to divvy up the world between them.

From Dark Reign: The List – Amazing Spider-Man, ‘The Last Name’ by Dan Slott, Adam Kubert & Mark Morales finds the whiny media liberals of digital news-source Front Line (populated and staffed by all the ethical reporters from the former Daily Bugle) searching for ways to expose Osborn’s true nature and plans.

When Joe Robertson reminds Parker that no narcissist egomaniac ever destroyed anything he was in, the Astounding Arachnid invades the high tech Oscorp Tower and makes off with incriminating recordings of the former Green Goblin torturing prisoners and testing weapons on human subjects.

With his new position imperilled, Osborn dons the Iron Patriot Armour and gives chase, consequently devastating much of Midtown as he exultantly thrashes his greatest foe. However he’s too late to stop Parker from uploading the films to the world wide web and his brutal behaviour in front of the gathered witnesses is his first big mistake. Now the public are talking, wondering and starting to remember what he used to be…

‘Gauntlet Origins: Electro’ (written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Barry Kitson from Web of Spider-Man #2) then discloses just how blue collar electrical lineman Max Dillon came to grips with the power he developed after being hit by lightning. Stealing components from Stark Industries, being disdained and rejected by Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants all fostered his determination to be a big shot one day and make everybody pay…

Amazing Spider-Man #612-614 cumulatively bring ‘Power to the People’ (Mark Waid & Paul Azaceta) as, against a backdrop of rolling power outages and an economic downturn, Dillon makes his move after hiring the Mad Thinker to stabilise and augment his famously erratic electrical abilities.

Unfortunately that calls for more cash than he’s got and soon Electro is looking to make more – and quickly…

Rather than robbery, however, he cunningly opts for a very public crusade against skeevy and controversial publisher Dexter Bennett who has just been deemed too big to fail. Awarded a huge government bailout to keep his trashy newspaper The DB (nee Daily Bugle) open, the billionaire is clearly living large even as decent, hard working Americans are suffering the biggest recession in history…

The campaign leads to riots in the streets and Electro makes his move, offering Bennett the chance to buy off the electrical agitator with a quick cash injection.

…And that’s when Spider-Man tracks down the Thinker’s lair and spoils the perfect plan…

With his scheme in ruins, all that’s left for Dillon is revenge and destruction and death…

As the dust finally settles after a spectacular clash which demolishes a New York landmark, Dillon is visited in jail by an old ally who offers another chance for payback…

A backup in Amazing Spider-Man #612, ‘The Other Woman’ by Joe Kelly & JM Ken Niimura then cheekily examines the odd relationship of Spider-Man and amoral adventuress Black Cat, contrasting their commitment-free flings to Peter’s ongoing problems with old flames like Mary Jane Watson and intriguing new co-worker Norah Winters before ‘Keemia’s Castle’ (Amazing Spider-Man #615-616 by Van Lente & Javier Pulido) sees the start of another baffling mystery…

Carlie Cooper is a CI for the police and when robbery and murder evidence in her custody goes missing she turns to science whiz Peter Parker to clear her name. The trail leads the unlikely sleuth to the South Bronx and a missing girl named Keemia Alvarado.

Keemia’s mother was something of a prison groupie and her relationship with metamorphic felon Flint Marko – the Sandman – apparently resulted in a child. After fact – and suspicion – checking with journalist Betty Brant, Spider-Man puts a few together and heads out to closed-for-the-winter Governors Island where he finds his reformed former foe and the missing girl.

Marko denies all knowledge of the crimes. All he wants is to spend time with his little princess and he uses his new power to create autonomous sandy doppelgangers to emphatically press home his point.

It’s only after defeating the outnumbered arachnid that the stunned Sandman realises that some of his duplicates are more autonomous – and bloodthirstily evil – than others…

Fast, furious, and easily combining frantic action with moving character vignettes and ferociously addictive soap opera melodrama, these tales are offbeat even by Spider-Man’s standards – which is no bad thing – but sometimes suffer from a surfeit of unaddressed backstory… which rather is.

Nonetheless, the stories here are clever, compelling and beautifully illustrated throughout, so art lovers and established fans have plenty to enjoy. Moreover the explosive, if occasionally confusing, Fights ‘n’ Tights rollercoaster is graced with an expansive gallery of covers-&-variants by Adam Kubert, Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic, Marko Djurdjevic, Paolo Rivera, Frank Cho, Adi Granov, Ed McGuiness and Joe Quinones

All in all, this is that oddest and most disappointing of beasts: a great story but an unsatisfactory book…
© 2009, 2010, Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

By Dan Slott, Christos N. Gage, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Humberto Ramos, John Dell & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-602-1

Amazing Spider-Man #700 began one of the most impressive reboots of the wondrous Webslinger’s mythology and was certainly the most striking and compelling character shake-up of all the MarvelNOW! relaunches.

In that issue, all that was Peter Parker apparently died when Doctor Otto Octavius took over his body. The hero’s mind had been trapped in the super-villain’s expiring body where, despite his every effort, at the last Peter perished with and within that decrepit frame.

Permanently installed in a strong and vital body, the coldly calculating Octopus began living Peter’s life, albeit with some minor necessary alterations, upgrades and improvements: arguably becoming a wholly Superior Spider-Man…

At first the situation did not seem completely hopeless. At the moment of the monster’s greatest triumph Peter inflicted his full unvarnished memories on the psychic invader, forcing Octavius to experience every ghastly moment of tragedy and sacrifice which combined to make Spider-Man the compulsive do-gooder that he was.

From that enforced emotional turmoil came a bitter understanding. Otto had a change of heart and swore to live the rest of his stolen life in tribute to his greatest enemy; earnestly endeavouring to carry on Spider-Man’s self-imposed mission and inescapably guided by Peter’s abiding principle: “with great power comes great responsibility”…

However Octavius’ monomania proved hard to suppress and the overwritten webspinner constantly toiled to prove himself a better man: augmenting Parker’s paltry gadgets and methodology with millions of spying “Spiderbots” to patrol the entire city at once, always adding advanced tech and new weaponry to his uniform and, most importantly, acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises as the original had…

Otto went back to college because he refused to live life without a doctorate and even briefly tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

The new, ultra-efficient Spider-Man became New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson embraced the hero; all but adopting the Arachnid as his deputy – to the utter incredulity of an imperceptible psychic shard of Peter which still screamed in frustration within the deepest recesses of the hero’s overwritten consciousness…

The helpless ghost was an unwilling passenger, unsuspected by Octavius yet increasingly privy to the villain’s own barely-suppressed memories. Moreover, many of Parker’s oldest friends and allies began to suspect something amiss…

Police CSI and ex-girlfriend Carlie Cooper knew Peter’s secret identity and recalled the last time Spidey fought Doc Ock, when the killer broke her arm. He had claimed then that it was an accident: that he was Peter trapped in the villain’s body…

The public seemed happy with the changed Spider-Man. Not only was he more efficient, but far more brutal too: crippling bad guys like Boomerang, Vulture and Scorpion. This hard-line attitude actually increased the wallcrawler’s approval rating and, after a hostage siege, his status peaked when he executed the psychotic perpetrator Massacre…

Eventually Octavius realised there was a noble passenger in his head and eradicated the last vestiges of his insidious enemy’s presence – at the cost of many of Parker’s later memories. However, now utterly liberated, Otto ambitiously extended his campaign of modernised crime-fighting.

After helping Jameson when the Spider-Slayer and other super-felons broke loose on The Raft penitentiary, Spider-Man blackmailed the Mayor into giving him the now-empty island edifice for a base. The Superior Wallcrawler designed a new costume, built giant war-tanks and even hired henchmen to be his “Spiderlings”, helping him clean up the city for decent, law-abiding citizens.

“Parker’s” personal life was all but over. Finally achieving a doctorate, he opened his own tech start-up company and entered into a romance with brilliant college companion Anna Maria Marconi whilst his arachnid alter ego monitored the metropolis through the electronic eyes of the tiny but universal spiderbots from his transformed citadel on the now-renamed Spider Island II…

There’s still plenty that he doesn’t see though: resurgent criminal mastermind Goblin King (former Green Goblin Norman Osborn) had taken over the underworld through his Goblin Army Cult.

To that end he transformed young Phil Urich – latest iteration of The Hobgoblin – into his devilishly Strong Right Arm: a Goblin Knight to lead his armies to inevitable victory…

Carlie had shared her suspicions about Otto possessing Spider-Man with her friend Police Captain Yuri Watanabe (who secretly moonlights as costumed vigilante The Wraith). Together they gathered proof of their suspicions regarding the Ock and the Wallcrawler; but the mission went cold when Cooper suddenly vanished…

Elsewhere disgraced psychopathic genius Ty Stone joined Osborn’s daughter-in-law Liz Allen-Osborn as director at her new conglomerate Alchemax. He was cautiously building his own powerbase, unaware that his new assistant Michael O’Mara was in truth Miguel O’Hara, (Spider-Man 2099) trapped in our era following a chronal crisis…

Otto/Peter was trying to repair his relationship with Aunt May and her wealthy husband (J. Jonah’s dad Jay Jameson), helplessly re-experiencing the lad’s abiding affection for the gracious old lady. However after seeing Spider-Man at work torturing a captured foe, May wanted her family to have nothing to do with the Arachnid, even though Peter’s company was officially the creator of all the Superior Spider-Man’s gadgets and crime-fighting improvements…

As Yuri searched for Carlie, she came to the understandable but erroneous conclusion that Spider-Man was responsible for her abrupt disappearance, whilst Ock’s Spiderlings continually scanned the city for signs of the Goblin cult, neither side able to glean that deep in a subterranean lair Carlie was suffering at the hands of the Goblin King.

The villain was hungry to learn all she knew about Spider-Man (information the mentally unstable Osborn had himself forgotten), but only got what he was after once he’d dosed her with the madness-inducing mutagenic goblin formula which had originally transformed him from business mogul to costumed maniac…

The bid to transform her into one of his faithful acolytes worked perfectly, and artificially crazed new acolyte Monster seemed delighted to join his vile viridian family…

In the Mayor’s office Jonah Jameson, fed up with Spider-Man’s exploitative extortion, commissioned Stone and Alchemax to build a new generation of Spider-Slayer robots. The unscrupulous technologist was happy to turn the project over to his new protégé…

In other news: Green Goblin had declared war on his rival (and cheap knock-off) Roderick Kingsley who had been franchising super-villain gigs and poaching capers as the Hobgoblin, preparatory to making his big move on the city.

Parker’s Avenger ally Iron Man finally secured concrete proof that the Superior Spider-Man had been playing fast and loose with the truth from the very start…

Worst of all, after being briefly possessed by the Venom Symbiote Otto had awaked the aggravating ghost of the real Peter Parker in the recesses of their co-owned head…

To Be Concluded…

Scripted by Dan Slott with Christos N. Gage, Goblin Nation brings the saga of the brilliant bodysnatcher to a spectacular close, collecting issues #26-31 of the Superior Spider-Man as well as the second Annual (encompassing November 2013- April 2014), delivering a stunning conclusion to the story of Otto Octavius in advance of the Amazing return of the one true Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man…

‘Goblin Nation Prelude: Goblin Wars’ illustrated by Humberto Ramos, Javier Rodriguez, Marcos Martin, Victor Olazaba & Alvaro Lopez, opens as Goblin Nation soldiers and Hobgoblin’s crew clash one last time, whilst across town the Superior Spider-Man’s battle with AIM is interrupted by an indignant pack of Avengers demanding some honest answers…

Deep in Octavius’ mindscape, everything that remains of Peter Parker reviews again the 31 key memories left after Ock performed psychic surgery to excise his young foe’s thoughts and influence. They aren’t much, but they are the very quintessence of what made the boy a hero…

In the outer world Goblin King kills Hobgoblin, subsequently recruiting his victim’s men to the cause. Suspicious and fearful, his Goblin Knight Phil Urich wisely conceals from Osborn the fact that the corpse is not Kingsley but only a brainwashed proxy, whilst at Avengers Tower, the interview with the Webslinger goes badly and “Spider-Man” quits the World’s Mightiest Heroes…

‘Goblin Nation’ resumes 31 days later with New York City devastated and all but conquered by Osborn’s ghoulish forces. Spider-Man is reeling at his impossible fall from grace. The invaders have combined ruthless force with subversive computer programming to decimate the city’s defences and defenders…

As Otto questions how it could all have happened he accesses one of Parker’s remaining memories just as the ghost in his mindscape remembers the same event. Curiosity piqued, Peter finds a memory starring Octavius and enters Otto’s representation only to find himself trapped and reliving the villain’s life – every cruel, brutally sad moment of it…

In the physical world, crushed Otto-in-Peter labours to create a technical solution to the Goblin invasion, whilst his concerned girlfriend Anna Maria Marconi looks on helplessly. Suitably equipped he then invades Osborn’s underworld for a showdown but is appalled when the madman announces that he knows he’s talking to Doctor Octopus not Peter Parker…

Goblin King offers Otto a subordinate role in his new empire and, when the monomaniac Arachnid refuses and escapes, Osborn sends a battalion of his creepy minions to raze Spider Island and everything on it…

With Giuseppe Camuncoli & John Dell assuming the art chores the story continues with only Otto getting away: sneaking off like a whipped dog thanks to his robot slave “The Living Brain”, whilst deep in his head, the real hero struggles to retain his own identity whilst experiencing every frustration and defeat that made Octavius who he is.

On TV Mayor Jameson has denounced Spider-Man and announced his own solution to the crisis: a “Slayer Patrol” army of super-robots designed to take back the streets. Watching the broadcast, Mary Jane and boyfriend Pedro Olivera are suddenly attacked by a detachment of Goblins. Fighting them off, MJ realises that all Spider-Man’s friends and family must be targets and moves to warn and save them… if she can…

At Parker Industries, The Wraith attacks “Peter” believing he has kidnapped Carlie only to have the battle interrupted by Monster. Recognising the missing girl has been mutated by Goblin-serum, Parker and his colleague Sajani Jaffrey capture the raving acolyte and attempt to reverse the process…

Mary Jane has narrowly moved May and Jay before the Goblins could find them, but is not able to save Anna Maria from capture and as the next chapter opens the Goblin Underground is in control of New York. With Otto/Peter frantically working on curing Carlie Osborn celebrates his triumph by blowing up all the landmarks and repositories of Octavius’ past successes, prompting the Superior Spider-Man to rashly come after him. The final straw is the Goblin’s boast that he has all his friends. Unable to reach Anna Maria the Wallcrawler tackles Goblin King head-on and one of the Emerald sociopath’s hostages pays the final price…

Deep in the Mindscape Peter has been subsumed by Otto’s memories and is gone just as the memory lane reaches the point where Arachnid and Octopus began their lethal rivalry, whilst in the real world Spider-Man’s rage and torment are momentarily forgotten when Jameson’s Spider-Slayer robots attack him.

Luckily Spider-Man 2099 is there to disable them but even he is taken by surprise when Osborn hacks their programming, turning the mechanoids into another terror weapon to destroy the city and its heroes…

The epic takes a necessary detour as Superior Spider-Man Annual #2 offers a brace of tales scripted by Gage as intersecting sidebars to the unfolding calamity, beginning with ‘Blood Ties’.

Illustrated by Javier Rodriguez & Alvaro Lopez, the downbeat yarn chronicles Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich‘s desperate attempts to save his nephew Phil from the curse of the Green Goblin and his own weak nature whilst ‘Chasing Ghosts’ (art by Philipe Briones) reveals how Sajani and the Wraith begin administering their highly experimental cure on Carlie and discover the secret of how Osborn has been subverting the City and Spider-Man’s electronic security systems…

Back in Superior Spider-Man #30, Otto’s battle against Osborn has reached a critical stage, just as in the Mindscape helpless passenger Parker reaches the point where Ock took over his body. Galvanised by shock the hero returns to full mental control of himself but not, crucially, the body Otto still commands.

The usurper is in dire straits: frozen by indecision as Osborn threatens to kill another hostage. The occluded sight of the frail female form has paralysed the Superior Spider-Man, but not Parker who forces the faux hero to act…

The victim is not Anna Maria and in a final example of excoriating self-examination Otto realises he cannot save her. Thus he willingly surrenders his consciousness allowing Peter Parker to reclaim forever their body.

It might not be an act of kindness. Even though the Amazing Spider-Man is back Osborn has never been stronger or more likely to triumph or take the world to destruction with him…

This truly titanic terminal tome includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Ryan Stegman, Ramos, Camuncoli, Mark Brooks, Jennifer Parks, David Marquez, J. Scott Campbell, Jorge Molina, Kevin Maguire and Tim Sale and comes fully augmented with AR icon sections – Marvel Augmented Reality App pages which provide access to story bonuses and content on your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Spectacular, sensational and breathtakingly satisfying, the all-action conclusion offers a stunning climax to the catastrophic carnage with the original Wallcrawler utterly transcendent as he resumes his rightful position in the world, but even with the Superior Saga ended the aftermath has stacked up a huge number of changes, problems and perils for Parker to deal with 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.

By Joe Kelly, Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente, Max Fiumara, Marcos Martin, Javier Pulido, Michael Lark, Nick Dragotta, Barry Kitson& Stefano Gaudiano (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3872-3

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. 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…

During this continuous war for the ordinary underdog, Parker has loved and lost many more close friends and family…

During a particularly hellish period a multitude of disasters seemed to ride hard on his heels and a veritable army of old enemies simultaneously resurfaced to attack him (an overlapping series of stories comprising and defined as “The Gauntlet”), before Parker’s recent tidal wave of woes was revealed to be the culmination of a sinister, slow-building scheme by the surviving family of one of his most implacable foes – and one who had long been despatched to his final reward.

From that tirade of terror and collecting material in whole or in part from Amazing Spider-Man #617-621 and Web of Spider-Man #3-4, (November 2009-April 2010), this powerful and portentous tome opens with ‘Gauntlet Origins: Rhino, written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Nick Dragotta, which reveals how – decades ago – Russian hard man and mercenary Aleksei Sytsevich was bamboozled into becoming the test subject for an illegal procedure which made him immensely strong and fantastically durable.

Sadly it didn’t make him any smarter or less stubborn and over the years The Rhino was too often a tool for clever men and a punching bag for weaker heroes…

The parade of foes queuing up to take on the Amazing Spider-Man resumes as ‘Rage of the Rhino’ (by Joe Kelly & Max Fiumara) sees a worn out Peter Parker co-opted by agonisingly bright and breezy journalist Norah Winters as her personal “photo-monkey” even as, in a dark hole, a fully redesigned and more deadly Rhino listens to a pervasive voice suggesting who to kill if he wants to “ascend”…

Hot for fun and a possible scoop, Norah drags Peter to a casino where his spider-sense goes berserk as he sees hulking old enemy Aleksei Sytsevich working as a bouncer… Bracing himself for another blockbuster brawl the Webslinger is astounded to see the ponderous Russian attacked by a new and far more deadly Rhino, proudly intent on becoming the “one and only”…

The undercover hero is even more gobsmacked to see Sytsevich refusing to fight and even trying to convince his assailant to quit his pointless life of mayhem. Despite every pacific effort the scene soon descends into shattering chaos before the brand new heavy escapes and in the aftermath Spider-Man learns of Oksana, the simple waitress who turned his most intransigent and hard-headed foe into a reformed and law-abiding citizen…

However in a dark den the new Rhino, manipulated by the voices of hidden provocateurs, transfers his thwarted hatred to a new target…

This tale is ably augmented by a charming peek into the first meeting of Aleksei and Oksana where the freshly paroled super-thug decided not to take up the offer of criminal scientist and thorough bad influence Dr. Tramma and instead went on ‘The Walk’ (by Kelly & Javier Pulido).

Before the main event begins, ‘Gauntlet Origins: Mysterio (by Van Lente & Barry Kitson) discloses the supernatural close shave – complete with cameo by Doctor Strange – that finally turned conman and Hollywood SFX guru Quentin Beck into murderously malevolent menace Mysterio, after which ‘Un-Murder Incorporated’ (Dan Slott & Marcos Martin) offers a quick reprise of Maggia history to reveal that, with most of the family hierarchy recently rubbed out, hapless “Baby Bruno” Karnelli is rapidly losing the latest turf war with enigmatic Asiatic upstart Mister Negative.

Even the psychotically loyal Hammerhead has switched sides and joined the Chinatown gang…

A clash between the opposing mobs at a gambling den draws in Spider-Man, and in the aftermath crime photographer Peter has an argument with chum and CSI Carlie Cooper: another girl who has suffered romantically thanks to the lad’s big secret…

He disappoints her yet again by suddenly dashing off to meet Aunt May – who is just returning from her honeymoon trip with new husband Jay Jameson – but when the old new bride accidentally stumbles into an execution by her friend Martin Li, the fiend who is Mister Negative uses his dark powers to befuddle her mind and transform her into a cold, ruthless bullying martinet…

Back at the Karnelli ranch, none-too-bright Baby Bruno is astounded to find that all nine of the Dons recently killed had actually faked their deaths and resentfully resumes his position as low man on the totem pole when cyborg Capo Silvermane takes back control of the Maggia.

The neophyte mobster has no idea his own ambitious lieutenant Carmine has gone into partnership with robotics miracle-worker Mysterio. More importantly, Carmine has no idea what kind of man Quentin Beck really is…

Carlie’s day gets worse too. When she returns to the crime scene, her dead hero-cop dad is waiting for her…

‘Re-Appearing Act’ turns up the pressure as Ray Cooper explains to his daughter that he was in the Maggia’s pocket all along, whilst elsewhere the resurgent Silvermane leads his forces against Mister Negative’s undead Inner Demons causing Hammerhead to take himself out of the game and alerting Spider-Man to the latest outbreak of gang warfare.

Plunging into the fray, the hero is astonished to be welcomed by Police Captain Yuri Watanabe who is happy to get some metahuman muscle on the hard-pressed cops’ side.

However the Arachnid only falls into Mysterio’s latest snare when he seemingly kills a mobster with a single punch…

Overruling her outraged squad, Yuri allows the horrified Wallcrawler to go free and quietly assigns Carlie to prove the death was a set-up…

Meanwhile across town, the formerly benign, negatively charged May Parker-Jameson cruelly evicts the “freeloaders” she let use her house, making Harry Osborn and many of Peter’s friends homeless…

Beck finally overplays his hand when he resurrects one time villain The Big Man whom Spider-Man unmasks as deceased cop George Stacy. Finally getting a handle on what’s really happening, the Webslinger recruits Carlie and puts his own scheme into play just as Silvermane/Mysterio kills Carmine and takes full control…

‘Smoke & Mirrors’ explosively reveals that the trickster was always about the money: using the gang war to manipulate the Maggia into putting all their cash somewhere he could relieve them of it.

Everything else was just perks, but thanks to Spider-Man and Carlie the plan is spoiled, even though Mister Negative further muddies the waters by unleashing his DNA-specific poison gas Devil’s Breath (specifically encoded to kill Spider-Man thanks to a stolen sample of Peter’s blood), almost killing the Wallcrawler at the moment of his greatest triumph…

This sterling slice of action and suspense ends with ‘Out for Blood’ (by Slott, Michael Lark & Stefano Gaudiano) as Spidey asks unstable old paramour Black Cat to help him retrieve his blood sample from Mister Negative’s Chinatown fortress. Sadly the stealth mission soon turns into a painfully straightforward clash of arms…

And elsewhere, as penniless Harry goes looking for a place to crash at old girlfriend Mary Jane Watson‘s place, Carlie has a final agonising confrontation with the inveterate criminal who might or might not be her cherished and supposedly deceased dad…

Fast, furious, and easily combining frantic action with heartwarming character vignettes and ferociously addictive soap opera melodrama, these tales are offbeat even by Spider-Man’s standards – which is no bad thing – but sadly suffer from a surfeit of unaddressed backstory… which rather is.

Nonetheless, the stories here are clever, compelling and beautifully illustrated throughout so art lovers and established fans have plenty to enjoy. Moreover, the explosive, if occasionally confusing, Fights ‘n’ Tights rollercoaster is graced with cool extras such as information features culled from the pages of the Bugle and a gallery of covers -&-variants by Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic, Fiumara, Martin, Ed McGuiness, Dexter Vines. Morry Hollowell, Pasqual Ferry, Fabio D’Auria & Joe Quinones to delight the eyes if not soothe those tired brain cells.

All in all, this is that oddest and most disappointing of beasts; a great story but an unsatisfactory book…
© 2009, 2010, Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.