wrtitten by Dan Slott
penciled by Stuart Immonen
inked by Wade von Grawbadger
colored by Marte Gracia
The "Secret Empire" crossover makes its way into the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man as the newly-minted Superior Doctor Octopus--who's basically Otto Octavius in a cloned body of Peter Parker, complete with Octo arms--teams up with Hydra to take back the company he founded, namely Parker Industries. Peter, who naturally rebuffed Doc Ock's initial attempts to take over the company, is caught up at first in the battle against Hydra, led this time by Captain America, of all people, but when he realizes that Doc Ock is gunning for his last standing operation in Shanghai, he makes what he fears may be Parker Industries' final stand.
As a long-time reader of Spider-Man (30 years and counting), I get that "CEO Peter" is not the most relatable iteration of the character. I also get that Spider-Man is at his best when he's being put through the wringer, as Slott is clearly doing now, and the end goal is to basically strip him of his company, which seems to have been made clear by the writing and marketing of future issues. Sure, Peter's company may have been working on things like curing disease and renewable energy, but Marvel's already got one billionaire scientist superhero, so it's high time for Spidey to get "demoted" back to lovable loser, right?
Well, I have no problem with Slott taking the character back in that general direction, or at least away from a direction that has Peter looking too much like Tony Stark lite, but I confess I'm not at all crazy about how he's going about it.
I don't have any problem believing that Doc Ock could outwit Peter; I accepted that he was able to do it in the events leading to his tenure as the "Superior" Spider-Man, but the story conceit that Doc Ock could still pull surprises on Peter regarding his own tech and his own company is just bad writing. After all, Ock basically killed Peter, for all intents and purposes. One would imagine that Peter would exert utmost care when it came to dealing with anything that Ock might have had a hand in developing, including all the Parker Industries tech, especially after finding out, over in "The Clone Conspiracy," that Otto was still alive. Otto shouldn't have been able to pull the surprises on Peter that he has pulled so far. I'll grant that maybe Slott still has some surprises up his sleeve, but the fact that Otto's gotten this far with Peter without having been shut down is either Peter being incredibly crafty or incredibly stupid. Either way, the writing just feels unnecessarily contrived to justify a four-part arc to fill up yet another trade paperback.
It's a good thing for this story, however, that Stuart Immonen and his frequent collaborators Wade Von Grawbadger and Marte Gracia are around. I am a huge Immonen fan; I have all twelve issues of Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., the first eleven issues of All-New X-Men, and even the six issues of Ultimate Fantastic Four he drew for Warren Ellis. The guy is just supremely talented, both as a storyteller and an illustrator, and the remarkable thing about his work on this book so far, six issues into his tenure, is that he seems to have gotten even better than he already is, which is really saying something. He's just drawing on a whole other level here, and I want to be around for every issue of it. Had it been Giuseppe Camuncoli or even Humberto Ramos drawing these stories I'd already be gone because of how disagreeable I find Slott's scripting. Wade von Grawbadger inks him just about better than anyone else, and Marte Gracia make his already vivid images pop even more.
Thanks for saving this book for me, Stuart, Wade and Marte.
6/10
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