Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Stuart Immonen, Humberto Ramos, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Jim Cheung
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Release Date: May 30, 2018
Cover Price: $9.99
Review by: Dispatchdcu (read all of his awesome reviews!)
And that’s a wrap with Dan Slott. And let me tell you, it was an exciting ride and incorporated so many elements from his time on the book which made it truly amazing. It was a great issue 800 that any Spider-Fan or Slott fan would be pleased to read. Let’s swing on into this 80-page behemoth!
The issue opens with Spider-Man playing clean up after the last issue. If you remember, Red Goblin laid waste to all of the web-heads friends leaving Flash to heal them up with his Anti-Venom. Spider-Man checks on his friends and swings off to Alchem-x (the old Oscorp) to basically make anti-venom web shooters since it’s the only thing that appeared to work against Red Goblin.
Meanwhile, Jonah feels awful about letting Spider-Man’s identity out of the bag, so he tries to help the best he can. He digs through his old stuff and realizes that Eddie Brock is Venom, tracks him down, and tells Venom to go help Spider-Man or he’ll basically out Venom’s identity too. So, Venom goes to help Spider-Man but it doesn’t really work out too well. Eddie’s not the same as he was before.
Red Goblin attack’s MJ at Stark Industries, since she runs the show there now instead of Pepper, and she puts up her own fight with some hand repulsers and gets some help from Venom until Spidey shows up only to have all three of them get their butts kicked by Red Goblin. Red Goblin takes off leaving them to lick their wounds and heads for Aunt May. Brock tells Spider-Man to take his symbiote to help since Brock physically doesn’t have it in him anymore AND since the fight took a lot out of him. Spider-Man reluctantly accepts and heads after Red Goblin who took off after Aunt May.
But what Peter doesn’t know is that the Goblin Child (little Normie Osborn... grandson of Norman) was already trying to kill Aunt May. But while Normie was trying to kill her, Doc Ock stepped in and saved the day. I LOVED THIS PART! Turns out, he still has the mixed memories of Peter from when he was Superior Spider-Man ( great run for Slott... read it) and cares for Aunt May. So, he was watching out for her and saw this happening. He stepped in to help out. This part was even more shocking to me than the Venom part. Again, if you’re a Slott fan, you probably loved it like I loved it.
Jonah tries to continue to help out by opening up the old Spider-Slayer tech and using that to stop Red Goblin. So Jonah, operating the Spider-Slayer tech, tries to help Doc Ock protect Aunt May but everything swings sideways and the place blows up. The Red Goblin decides to leave his calling card by throwing his symbiote shards all over Aunt May in hopes to kill her. Spider-Man arrives on the scene to find that Doc Ock threw himself in front of Aunt May and protected her. It’s not stated if Doc Ock is dead or not but he’s very badly hurt. Peter even forgives him for the entire Superior Spider-Man switching brains fiasco.
Next, Norman and Normie go to Alchem-x to get the company signed back over to Norman and get Oscorp back. But Harry is there with a slew of robots ready to take down his Daddy and fight to get his son back. Norman turns back into Red Goblin and throws Normie’s Mom, Liz, out the window. Luckily, Spider-Man makes it on time to save Liz. Normie starts to see how bad his Grandpa (Red Goblin) is and doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore. Norman decides he’ll just kill his grandson too. But again, Spider-Man swings in to save the day.
Red Goblin and Spidey fight outside of Alchem-x and Red Goblin tells Spidey his real plan. Each time Red Goblin came across any of his friends and family, he made sure to hit them all with a little shard of the symbiote. This shard was made to gradually infect and kill each and every one of them. Spider-Man, truly appalled by this, gets interrupted by Flash Thompson who figured out Red Goblin’s plan. Turns out, while Flash was healing Spidey’s friends after the last encounter, he found the shards and removed them from everyone.
Figuring out what they were, he tracked down all of Peter’s family and friends and removed all the shards from them. But, he did so at the expense of his Anti-Venom Symbiote. So, he’s basically human again. Flash grabs Red Goblin and starts using the last of his Anti-Venom to try to weaken and stop him. It kind of works. But eventually, Red Goblin takes advantage of this and basically beats him to death sending Spider-Man into a rage making him resemble Venom. Flash calms Peter down and rejects Peter’s offer of rejoining with the Venom Symbiote knowing that others are in danger and knowing he will surely die. And truly, that’s it for Flash Thompson. The Bully. The friend. The hero. He’s gone...
Red Goblin flies into downtown Manhattan and kills a Spider-Man look alike and drives everyone into a panic. Realizing that all he had to do was kill anybody and not just Spider-Man’s family, Red Goblin goes on a killing spree. Spider-Man tries to save as many as he can. As soon as Red Goblin gets the upper hand, Spider-Man finally figures out a way to beat him. He plays on his pride, lust, and desire for taking down Spider-Man. Peter basically tricks him into separating from the symbiote because everyone will think Carnage is the one who killed Spider-Man and not the Goblin. So, both Spider-Man and Green Goblin go mono-a-mono and Peter kicks his butt!
Jonah even makes another appearance right at the end. Still feeling bad for giving out Peter’s secret, he marches to downtown Manhattan with a gun to find Goblin finished and tied up. He pulls out his gun to shoot him only to have a Spider-Man jump in front of the bullet and stop Jonah from killing him. He explains to Jonah that his job isn’t to kill and take lives. It’s only his job to protect and when someone has the ability it’s their responsibility to do what needs to be done.
The story ends with Norman in jail but thinking he’s Cleatus Cassidy (Carnage), a funeral for Flash Thompson, and Harry and Liz trying to get all of the symbiotes off little Normie. But we are lead to believe it didn’t completely work. But the best part of the ending is the connection between Jonah and Peter. Peter has always been searching for the father figure he’s never had since Uncle Ben. Slott did the unthinkable and let Jonah in on Peter’s dirty little secret. Their relationship has come a long way but to see how far Jonah and Peter have come was a great way to end Slott’s run. I hope the next writer keeps this great dynamic going onward.
Let me just say, thank you, Dan Slott. When you first signed on with Spider-Man, you had a mess of writers and a mess of directions to clean up. You fought your way through it and came to the other side with some truly amazing stories. The character of Spider-Man has come a long way and some epic changes have happened to the character that is fantastic. Peter is so much better because of you. Thank you for some really great stories about everyone’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I wish you only the best on your next ventures and I will definitely be following your career and other titles. Good luck and keep up the great work!
If you like what you heard, love talking all types of comics, and are interested in joining a comic chat group, hit me up at dispatchdcu@gmail.com or @dispatchdcu on twitter. Catch you all later! Peace
Bits and Pieces:
As for this issue, get it regardless. It’s issue 800! It ends Slott’s Run! You’d be a fool to not read this and own it.
9/10
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