Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Review: Amazing Spider-Man #699


Full spoilers of issue follow…


Not great. Not bad. Just average, but necessary nonetheless. #698 left us with one of the greatest cliffhangers in recent Spidey memory: Spiderman reveals himself as Dr. Octopus, controller of Peter Parker’s body, while the real mind of Peter lies in the dying body of Doc Ock. I had big expectations for this issue, but maybe I expected too much. I imagined them going farther with the story then they did, so they must be saving all the good stuff for #700. As usual, Humberto Ramos provided excellent, animated artwork, especially the close-up shots of Dr. Octopus, which were very detailed. Writer Dan Slott did good too, but not quite “amazing”.

I don’t blame Slott himself, in fact, the story that he has created and the finale he is leading up to has been, and is sure to be, nothing short of spectacular. My biggest concern with this issue is that it was basically an “in-between” issue; a filler story that briefly gave us some insight on the secret of how Dr. Octopus switched their minds, as well as how Peter planned his escape with the help of some of his old foes. As I said, Slott didn’t do anything poorly, his only crime was holding off on the most important aspects of the story arc until the climax next issue.

There wasn’t much Slott could do dramatically with his title character lying motionless in a life support machine, barely able to speak, but he was able to come through some pretty decent content. As we all know, Spiderman is famous for having great thought-bubbles and narration, which was proven here. Peter imagining all the horrible things Doc Ock is doing in his body, as Spiderman and as Peter Parker, combined with Peter’s new ability to tap into Ock’s hidden memories added some good panels, giving Ramos opportunities to draw character sand situations other then a dying Ock.

Overall, this story was a great filler issue that took us another step closer to the big #700, which, as I stated earlier, should contain all the great action, storytelling and artwork that we’ve been waiting 699 issues to see. I give this issue:

7.5 / 10

The Amazing Spiderman #700 hits the stands December 26th.
See you then, true believers!

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