Amazing Spider-Man #31
Writer: Dan
Slott
Art Team:
Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger, Marte Gracia
Marvel
Comics
Release Date:
August 9, 2017
Cover Price:
$3.99
With Great Power Comes a Great Loss of
Income
The Amazing
Spider-Man wraps up his little dip into the ponds of Secret Empire this issue
by concluding his fight with the Superior Octopus, sponsored by Hydra. So does
Spidey have what it takes to save his company, fend of this new and improved
Doc Ock, all while avoiding any further Secret Empire messiness? Well you’re going
to have to read on to find that out plus my thoughts about what’s going down
here, or you know go buy the issue yourself … well what are you waiting for?!
The events
start here in issue #31 where they ended last month; Spider-Man is at the mercy
of Doc Ock with the Spider Mobiles, that Peter sent after Octavius, having turned
against him. Even the creator of these vehicles, Lian, is finding no way to
override Ock’s commands … so yeah things look bad for anyone associated with
our red and blue hero in Shanghai.
Eventually
Spider-Man uses his classic go to sarcastic charm on the ol’ Doctor erking him
enough to momentarily leave Spider-Man to perish without supervision. Doc heads
through the building on a quest for the server room looking to complete his
plans for domination. As chaos continues
to rain down around anyone associated with Parker Industries, a glimmer of hope
is finally found, as Lian, is able to hotwire her Spider Mobile. She gives
chase to Doc Ock against Spider-Man’s orders, and takes him out in the ‘nick of
time’, all before he’s able to secure any of the important sensitive
information he needs.
Spider-Man, now
free himself, transforms back into Peter, giving the orders via company comm's
to destroy all information and projects in their possession including all
information on the databases, to prevent it from falling in the wrong hands (Doc
Ock’s and Hydra’s specifically in this case).
All company information is now lost, we basically watched Parker
Industries get deleted from existence at the order of C.E.O. Peter Parker, to
the celebration of some and dismay of others (including Aunt May & Doctor Octavius).
Peter’s
gives a semi cliché speech about ‘Power & Responsibility’ reinforcing the
mantra he’s long stood for, which gets Aunt May to come back around by the
conclusion of the story, but he’s still left with Doc Ock to deal with, who he
has to battle it out with one final time. However Peter has one ace in the hole
left, despite being seemingly left with nothing, his old suit, all he’s ever
needed to beat Doc Ock.
The issue
concludes when the two long time enemies confront each other for the final time
trading blows that knock their ‘weapons & equipment’ offline. Spider-Man
gets the better of this exchange, discovering prior in the issue Doc keeps
using the same electronic signal, forcing the villain to retreat and regroup
without his goods, but still accomplishing the task Hydra set forth for him ...
the dismantling of Parker Industries. This pleases Hydra, but not Doc Ock, who wanted
Parker Industries back for his own personal gain.
Overall this
was a nice little reprieve and tie-in to the Secret Empire event allowing the
Spider-Man book to play a nice middle ground, progressing its overall narrative,
while still addressing the Marvel Universe’s problems at large. Parker Industries is no more, which makes me
personally a little sad because I liked this direction for Peter as a
character, and although the cheese factor for his reasons behind destroying it
himself were a little much, the character going back to familiar grounds again
is still intriguing to me going forward.
The art by
Immonen, von Grawbadger, and Gracia continues to be excellent and a pleasure to
look at each month. The first three quarters splash page is my favorite I’ve
seen in a Spider book in a long time and fighting in the night skies of China
is sure fun to take in.
Bits and Pieces
Spider-Man/Peter
Parker goes back to basics by the conclusion of this issue, which is a little sad
to me in the long run of this story as a whole. However Slott did a good job with
this action oriented tie-in story while also moved the Spider-Man narrative at
large forward in a big way for the Legacy initiative.
7.3/10
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