Catching up With the Amazing Spider-Man
Posted by dailypop on November 25, 2007
With the Civil War crossover event at Marvel Comics, many exciting changes were thrown at readers at an almost dizzying pace. One of those many stories involved Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man. A lifelong loner Parker found himself a member of the New Avengers. This brought many changes into the webs spinners life, including a posh new apartment for his wife and the ailing Aunt May as well as a new job, assisting Iron Man, Tony Stark. A brilliant chemist (once upon a time), it’s amazing that it took this long for Parker to climb the ranks of success as he had and work alongside the most brilliant businessman in the Marvel Universe.
Along with the new job and lifestyle came a new costume… much to the annoyance of many readers. A garish bright red and yellow affair, the only artist to ever draw this monstrosity properly was then artist on Amazing Spider-Man, Ron Garney.
The new costume was the peak of technological wizardry with its many prehensile mechanical arms (inexplicable called ‘waldoes’) and the ability to change design and color… though it was seldom used.But as any Spider-Man reader can tell you, all good things eventually go sour for Peter Parker and this was no exception. Convinced of his boss’ good intentions to back the super hero registration bill which would make unregistered super heroes criminals, Peter did the unthinkable and unmasked on live television. This caused numerous problems and also tipped off the incarcerated Kingpin that his most deadly enemy was now very vulnerable.
Things got worse when Parker realized that the heroes he fought alongside for so many years were being imprisoned in the Negative Zone… forever. This included former compatriot Daredevil and many other heroes that stridently opposed Stark’s crusade. If accepting a new and more profitable lifestyle was difficult, watching it all go to Hell was even harder. In the end, Parker joined the resistance to the bill led by Captain America and went to war. The war ended badly (as most do) and Spider-Man was once more a criminal and outcast of society.
Though he still operated with the New Avengers, the team themselves were fugitives from the law and remained in a kind of magical safe house provided by Doctor Strange.
But it got worse… an assassin hired by the Kingpin missed a key opportunity to kill Parker and instead winged Aunt May. Spider-Man donned his black costume and hit the streets looking for answers and cold-blooded revenge.
The road led to a one-on-one battle with the Kingpin in front an assembly of prison inmates. The fight ended with Spider-Man ready to kill the Kingpin by filling his lungs with webbing but he backed off; not because he has a change of heart, but because he wanted to milk the moment and watch the Kingpin sweat it out, waiting to die. The enraged and maskless wall crawler roared at the prisoners that he would kill anyone who came near his family and departed. A flurry of desperate measures to protect Aunt May and move her from hospital room to hospital room mounted with criminal activity until an exhausted and deeply disturbed Spider-Man paused outside of a stolen ambulance wondering how his life came to this.
And this is just the start of the most important era of the character’s life since his creation.
Next year Marvel Comics will begin a major event for Spider-Man called ‘Brand New Day’ that is so bizarre that I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it. Rather than introduce a slew of new monthly comics (as most ‘event’ comics do), Marvel will instead be canceling the other Spider-Man comics and instead only publish Amazing… three times a month. To my knowledge, this kind of thing has never been done.
Those interested in reading the series, but also save a few bucks can subscribe at Marvel.com which will greatly reduce the price punch. I’m just curious as to how they’re going to pull this off!
Recommended Reading:
The Road to Civil War (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four)
Civil War: Amazing Spider-Man
Spider-Man: Back in Black
Amazing Spider-Man: Back in Black
Milly said
I love you Peter Parker you are the best. I love the Spider man the movie was awesome. Love tou
harshit said
is spiderman 4 coming in the theaters
spider man is amazing
dailypop said
Spider-Man 4 and 5 were recently announced as being in production back-to back, yes. Sam Raima and Toby Maguire are returning to the franchise and can hopefully recreate the excitement of the first two films rather than the musical theater/pantomime nonsense of the third.