Let's Get Comical! - Spider Island Edition

Welcome to this very semi-special edition of Let’s Get Comical! Today I’ll be reviewing issues 666-673 of The Amazing Spider-Man. These issues cover all six parts of the “Spider Island” storyline as well as the prologue and epilogue.

This storyline was just beginning as I started getting into comics and the DC New 52, and I’ve always enjoyed Spider-Man going back to the 90’s Animated Series. So it was only natural that I eventually started reading Spidey’s main comic.

This has been a column literally MONTHS in the making. Does this year’s biggest Spider-Man storyline bring it? Was this column worth the nearly three month wait? FIND OUT BY READING BELOW!

ASM #666 – Prologue

First, check out the awesome variant cover I got. Second, funny story about this one, on the day I bought this issue, number 666, I also deposited $666 into the bank and my car’s odometer reached 66,666.6 miles. HEATHEN SLASH SINNER. Anyway, life is pretty good for Peter Parker. He’s Spider-Man, he’s part of both the Avengers AND the Future Foundation, he has a great job inventing Spider-Man technology at Horizon Labs, and has a great girlfriend in Carlie Cooper. But something is up. After foiling a bank robbery, Carlie, a forensic scientist, discovers that everyone appears to be stronger. For example, one of the robbers breaks through Spider-Man’s webbing but is hiptossed by Carlie while she talks on the phone. Meanwhile, NYC Mayor J. Jonah Jameson is freaking out because his approval ratings are dropping thanks to his anti-spider funding. And Aunt May and her new husband, Jay Jameson, are moving to Boston but have a bedbug problem the night before they’re leaving. After meeting with the Avengers and playing poker, Spidey stops by for a karate lesson where we learn that Madame Web is preparing him for something big, where he will be forced to kill someone. Spidey returns home where Carlie wants to talk, but he’s tired and says it can wait for morning. Meanwhile, villain the Jackal and his army prepare with a mysterious woman for Manhattan to become an army of spiders. Not too much happening here, as the sole purpose of this issue is to set up the main Spider Island story.

ASM #667 – Part 1

Peter Parker is freaked out when he awakes to see his girlfriend Carlie sticking to the ceiling. He wonders if he gave her some sort of STD (“spidery transmitted disease” is a humorous line we’re given) but decides to try to figure things out as they go to see Aunt May and Jay off as they fly to Boston. In an alley, Madame Web and Spider-Man’s karate teacher Shang-Chi watch a bunch of criminals fight each other, as they slowly reveal that they all have Spider Powers. The Jackal reveals himself and announces that he invited them all there to cause mayhem in public places, and hands them all Spider-Man costumes to wear. The criminals make their way to a park where they start terrorizing innocent civilians with their powers. Mary Jane Watson is stuck in the middle of the chaos but is rescued by the Thing and Reed Richards, among other heroes. Peter and Carlie hear the news of the attack on the radio on the way home from the airport and Carlie decides to use her spider powers to help out. Peter chases after her, not wanting her to get hurt, but is attacked by the superheroes, who believe Peter is an imposter. This issue was pretty weird and confusing, to be honest.

ASM #668 – Part 2

The Avengers, FF and a whole bunch of other super heroes are in the midst of fighting off the criminals when Wolverine tracks down the real Spider-Man. He wants to help fight but they tell him he’d only get in the way. He takes off his suit and starts roaming the streets as Peter until he encounters Mary Jane Watson and Daily Bugle employee Norah Winters. Peter uses Norah’s camera to film a video of him urging all citizens of New York to help stop the criminals by using their new spider powers. And they do, in a confusing couple of pages. Long story short, the citizens win and J. Jonah Jameson declares a state of emergency and demands that the city be quarantined. Reed Richards and the rest of the heroes decide to search for a cure as Anti-Venom (Eddie Brock) makes an appearance and begins using his symbiote to cure people of their powers, much to their dismay. But he warns that he’s really saving them from something bad. Hrmm? We then see that Madame Web is watching from the shadows as she always does and predicts a large role in a war for both Anti-Venom and Venom, who is being called into action to stop one of the villains, Spider King, from escaping the city. Meanwhile Peter and Carlie obtain evidence that the Jackal is up to something, and go to one of his hideouts, and we end on a cliffhanger with some of the other villains watching them from an air duct. This issue wasn’t bad, per se, but it only added to the confusion of this storyline.

ASM #669 – Part 3

We start things where we left off, with the minor villains attacking Peter and Carlie, but Peter eventually fights them off by using his kung-fu moves. Carlie is curious as to how Peter knows how to do some of these things but asks him to get Spider-Man to help them stop the Jackal. Jackal is spying on them, however, and tells a mysterious figure that phase two is about to begin. Welp. The FF meets with J. Jonah Jameson and informs him that the source of the problem can be traced to the same bedbugs that Aunt May encountered in the Prologue. It’s becoming airborne, and while superheroes aren’t affected, Jameson is. They’ve also developed sensors to keep the quarantine in check, but people are trying to destroy them so they can escape New York, now known as “Spider Island.” Madame Web is shown still watching Anti-Venom cure people, and talks about the future and other junk, and how she can’t see clearly like she used to. Peter, now dressed as Spider-Man with the fake Spider-Men threat gone, meets up with Carlie and the two travel to the scene of a bank robbery by the Shocker. But Shocker suddenly transforms into a giant spider! Around the same time, hundreds of other citizens begin mutating into giant spiders, including Carlie. The main villain, the Queen, is then revealed to be watching everything with the Jackal, and she declares her new kingdom to be this new island of spiders. This storyline was still a mess at this point but it at least finally started to go somewhere.

ASM #670 – Part 4

We FINALLY get some backstory and information as to what is going on at the start of this one. The Queen is basically a BSC (bat shit crazy) cunt who is obsessed with killing Spider-Man after her last encounter with him, where he teamed with Steve Rodgers (Captain America) to take her down. It is revealed that one of her bodyguards slash associates, Spider King, is a mutated Steve Rodgers. Meanwhile, Anti-Venom is held up in that gothic church in NYC and acts as a healer, helping to cure civilians. Mayor Jameson, on the other hand, grows increasingly frustrated with being held up in quarantine and wants to do something to help his city, but his motorcade comes under attack from spiders. Spider-Man comes to make the save, but Jameson refuses to be helped, and becomes infected, meaning that the Queen can control him. He goes to a secret facility where Alistaire Smythe, the Spider Slayer, is being held. Smythe murdered Jameson’s wife, and he has a bone to pick and wants a way to cure the disease. But because he’s under the control of the Queen, Jameson transforms into a spider and begins eating Smythe as Spider-Man and company try to stop him. As this is happening, the FF finds out about Anti-Venom’s ability to cure civilians, but need his entire suit to develop a cure. And Mary Jane, seemingly the only person without spider powers, finally develops them. This was actually a good issue, dare I say the first really good one out of the entire storyline. Everything progressed nicely and we FINALLY got answers to a lot of questions.

ASM #671 – Part 5

Kicking things off, we have Mary Jane using her spider powers to rescue the group of people cured by Anti-Venom and bringing them to the Horizon Labs, where the FF is researching a cure for the disease. Spider-Man is able to pry Jameson off of Smythe and has Jameson sealed inside while medics deal with Smythe. The Queen hears telepathically that a cure is on the horizon, upsetting her. With Anti-Venom in hand, Reed Richards of the FF has a sample cure and is ready to test it on a female subject, but the Queen reaches her telepathically and she begins to transform into a spider. Reed is able to inject the serum into her veins and the subject is cured. The Queen, outraged that she has lost one of her subjects, orders another bodyguard Tarantula to destroy the serum. Waves of spiders flood the Horizon Labs, but the FF fights them all off. The Thing speculates that it’s simply a distraction (and it is, so Tarantula can sneak in). Meanwhile, Anti-Venom is informed that the cure will require the use of all of his suit’s antibodies and that he’ll never be able to become the Anti-Venom again. A mysterious Number Six is revealed to be Michael Morbius, who we only see for this one brief moment and then never again for the rest of the storyline. Still not sure what the point of that cameo was. Reed Richards discovers that the quarantine jammers are preventing Spider-Man from being able to use his Spider Sense and creates a code that amplifies it. This also gives Madame Web the ability to see the future again. Spider-Man ends up in a fight with Tarantula, who is revealed to be Kaine, a clone of Peter, and is eventually thrown into a vat containing the cure, curing Kaine and transforming him back into normal. The Queen, angry at what has happened, kills he Jackal with her Sonic Scream, and Madame Web realizes that her forcing Richards to amplify Spider Sense has led to the Queen becoming more powerful telepathically.

ASM #672 – Part 6

This is where things completely come apart. Steve Rodgers and Venom randomly team together and attack the Queen, who appears dead but then mutates into a 30 story tall spider and goes on a rampage through Manhattan. Mary Jane finally gets the cured civilians to Horizon, where she learns she has built up an immunity to the virus, later revealed to be because of her sexual relations with Spidey. Spidery Transmitted Disease indeed! As Peter and Kaine head off to stop the Queen, Madame Web interrupts them and tells Peter that in order to stop the Queen, he must break his vow and kill her, something he doesn’t want to do.  After a pep talk from Mary Jane about great responsibility coming with great power, Peter realizes he has some leftover nanobot technology from a past Doctor Octopus plot. Peter injects the cure into millions of nanobots and heads to the top of the Empire State Building where he can control them all through radio transmissions. As the superheroes fight with the Queen, Peter has his nanobots inject everyone with the cure, weakening her powers. She draws her energy from the Web of Life, and without her subjects, there is no power for her to use. The Queen weakens and is finally killed by Kaine. Madame Web had misinterpreted the future, originally believing Peter to be the one to kill the Queen. The story ends with Peter and Mary Jane saving the day and looking down at all of the cured New York citizens.

ASM #673 – Epilogue

It’s the morning after the war and all of the infected citizens wake up naked on the street, with vague recollection of what happened. This fulfills the comic's need for useless T&A I guess, although it isn't as bad as any of the stuff in the DC New 52. The Avengers and other heroes start cleaning up the city and getting clothes for everyone, especially the fatties. Madame Web steps aside with Kaine to discuss the future. The Jackal is shown inside a construction crane, telling someone that the Jackal killed by the Queen was a clone, and hints at a return with more cloning antics. Peter and Mary Jane talk on the top of the Empire State Building until Peter gets a call from Aunt May, whose plane is set to depart soon. Peter goes to see her off again but runs into Kaine in the airport, who reveals that he is leaving NYC thanks to Madame Web’s advice. Peter returns to his apartment to find Carlie leaving. She’s figured out that he is Spider-Man and is sick of his lies. Peter goes to talk to Doctor Strange, who put a spell on the world after Peter revealed his identity as Spider-Man. Doctor Strange reveals that the distress message he sent out over the Internet in Issue 668 has weakened the spell and people can now find out his true identity again. A depressed Peter goes and takes the last syringe to cure Mary Jane, and complains about not getting any credit or thanks for saving the city (the FF claimed Eddie Brock was the reason for the cure). Mary Jane tells him to look up, where we see the Empire State Building lit red and blue, as a tribute to Spider-Man for saving everyone.

OVERALL, this was NOT the Spider-Man Event of the Decade that this storyline was billed as. The beginning was a confusing, jumbled mess that really didn’t start to pick up until parts three and four, when we finally started to get some answers and back story. But the ending was just as puzzling, with everything happening super fast and being just unsorted in general. And what was the point of the random Morbius cameo?

I’ll keep reading ASM because I love me some Spider-Man, but take a pass on this storyline.