Amazing Spider-Man 10: Scorpio Rising Part 2 – Power Play
“Cause even if you strip all that other stuff away…I’m still Spider-Man!”
O.K., last issue, Spidey didn’t just jump the shark, he jumped off a satellite and landed safely in Paris. How in the world does anyone top that for big over-the-top moves? Plus, he ended last comic with Scorpio standing over him saying he’s seen the future and he knows Spider-Man will die today. Spidey is beaten and battered from his fall, is out of web fluid (original recipe), and is staring down the barrel of the zodiac key.
Folks, it appears that this is going to be a short issue.
Last issue got a B- from me and a B from Negative Neil (O.K., that’s not his nickname, but I like the alliteration and it sounds like a Stan Lee-y kind of thing to say). Are we both crazy? Will the wackiness continue? Well, you’ll just have to press that Read More link to find out.
So what are you waiting for?
The Devil in the Details
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli
Inker: Cam Smith
Colorist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover Artist: Alex Ross
Editor: Nick Lowe
Published: April 13, 2016
The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test
We pick up right where we left off last issue with Scorpio standing over a beaten down Spidey. Well, Spidey is down, but not beaten. He manages to pull a few good moves on Scorpio until Scorpio flings a car at some bystanders. Spider-Man saves them and Scorpio takes off because Gemini warned him that if he took the time to finish off Spider-Man, all would be lost.
DEAD NO MORE ALERT #1! In New York, the Man in Red tells Rhino to break into prison and bring out the Lizard (sorry, Curt Connors) and some mystery guy.
Meanwhile, Anna Maria and the Living Brain use a flying car to get to Paris and pick up Spider-Man. Brain starts crushing on Peter’s body, which makes both the reader and Peter feel uncomfortable. Anna Maria flies the car into a tunnel for Spider-Man to jump onto the back of the Chunnel (a really fast French train) to fight Scorpio. It hurts for Spidey to stay attached and the force almost pulls him off. Both realize that this is a very hard place to fight, so Scorpio once again puts bystanders in danger (this time Anna Maria) to make Spider-Man leap off the train to save her.
DEAD NO MORE ALERT #2! The Man in Red watches as a scrawny Lizard approaches in a dejected Charlie Brown stance. The Rhino come carrying the mystery man – Max Dillon (Don’t you know, I’m Electro). Dillon has been depowered and the Man in Red assures him that it doesn’t matter and suggests that he can get Electro’s powers back.
Meanwhile, Peter figures out that Scorpio is PI’s very own Vernon Jacobs. Using the power of holographs, he manages to bring PI’s best minds to analyze the room. We learn that there has been time manipulation (like what happened at Horizon Labs) and that they are storing a lot of information. Scorpio appears in a hologram, gets “unmasked” by Spidey and is told that they have been using PI all along to get their information. Spidey and Scorpio virtually square off – to be continued…
Analysis:
We get the set up for Dead No More, but nothing that we didn’t already have in the preview poster. I must have missed the story where Electro gets depowered. I know that Peter wanted Parker Industries to build a prison to cure Electro and people like him, but my understanding is that he never got his chance to do it. What this does give us is a glimpse at the possible powers of the Man in Red. He’s not wearing the jackal head here, but unless we are just going with the idea that he is a super genetic genius, I wouldn’t think that he could restore Electro’s powers to him. Maybe this is a clue that he is NOT the Jackal. He also doesn’t seem to be Anubis (who has appeared in Marvel comics previously). I can’t see him being any other than Miles Warren with the possibility of cloning and the presence of Gwen Stacy, but who knows. Gwen and Kaine’s presence may just be red herrings. Maybe he is a rogue clone of Warren who has been out there all these years waiting to make his move. Whatever the case, he clearly isn’t green and furry.
We know that Brain knows that Spider-Man and Peter are one. I don’t know if that was specifically stated in earlier comics. I don’t believe so. Whatever the case, since it is clearly Doc Ock’s brain in The Brain (should we call him Brock?), we know that Ock will retain the memory of Spider-Man’s secret identity. The Brain goes above and beyond in praising Peter’s body. He calls him the “ultimate vessel,” so it certainly seems that the Ock in Brock remembers some of what transpired. Plus, The Brain seems to resent Peter being called “Doctor” when it was really Spock who got the degree because he emphasizes the word. It’s always written as DOC-TOR – other two syllable words are not given the hyphen. Plus, Peter asks him to call him Spider-Man when in costume, but Brain refuses to do it and calls him DOC-TOR PARKER again. That powder keg is about to blow. Unfortunately, it looks like when it does, it will a story shared with the next big event. My hope is that Ock doesn’t go back to just being a villain. If cloning is involved, maybe we can end up with Ock in a Peter clone (the return of Superior Spider-Man) and maybe a clone of the old Ock to have the old villain around. I could live with that.
We also get more information about the past eight months. Scorpio reveals that they have been using Parker Industries for quite a while. In his words, “the failing start-up that for no discernible reason suddenly spiked one magic day when everyone else tumbled.” This, I believe, is a look into how this all came to be. I’m not up on the ending of Secret Wars (it hasn’t made it to Marvel Unlimited yet), but my understanding is that Reed somehow rebuilt the universe. Maybe he decided to give Peter a break and make him successful. That would also explain how PI got so good so fast.
What Passed:
Anna Maria felt like Anna Maria again. She doesn’t save the day, but she’s there helping. She has good dialogue with Brock that feels organic.
The art is fantastic. Everything is clear and consistent. Slott gave Camuncoli several panels that is just the crew sitting in a flying car talking, but each panel shifts the view and makes it feel dynamic.
The humor is spot on. No pop culture references (that I caught, at least). No explaining jokes the next panel over. Just good Spider-Man quips like Spider-Man hurt and unable to stand up, but still correcting Scorpio when he calls the Archno-Rocket the Spider-Rocket. His Little Bunny Foo Foo comment made me smile. Peter talking to Brock saying, “I’m an idiot and you are the smart robot,” with Brain’s reply, “Affirmative, Doc-tor Parker.”
Spider-Man is not a loser. Sure, he had Scorpio working for him all along without realizing it, but it wasn’t played out to make him look like a tool. The quip he threw in with it also was funny – crap, I was even his secret Santa!
Slott Googled information. The Chunnel is said to go 186 mph and that is the exact speed Google gives for it. After last issue’s guess work, this issue has been researched (and I love research).
It was nice to be back down to earth. This issue felt like For Your Eyes Only compared to last issue’s Moonraker.
What Failed:
There are relatively few things, and most of them just nit picking. Such as, on the train, we learn that by placing a silly Zodiac hat on a person’s head, you can make them 100% loyal to Zodiac. That Cancer hat is absolutely ridiculous looking.
Scorpio is still a powerful, yet lame villain. He has the ability to give power to his crew, but doesn’t seem to understand how it works. Gemini’s ability to see the future is flawed and not set in stone, and Scorpio knows this since he was able to surprise the previous Scorpio with poison, but he always seems shocked when Gemini can’t fix everything. Plus, his power only seems to be harming innocent bystanders.
The ending was lacking for me. The big reveal of the super villain room in Jacobs’s home only gives us information that he is mucking with time (which I would assume would be how he gives Gemini their powers) and that he is amassing a lot of data. A lot means zettabytes. Plural. So what? Maybe I missed the point. The virtual standoff at the end left me on a down note.
The cover showed a fight on the train. In my mind, I’m thinking Spider-Man 2 and the fight with Ock on the train, but this was far from it. However, it was a Peter David-esque feel to approach the fact that they are both on the train ready to fight, only to find out that fighting at 186 mph is not really feasible.
Extra Credit:
I’ll give extra credit to anyone who can tell me ow many terabytes are in one zettabyte (I know the answer to this one, so do your homework).
Also, extra credit to anyone who can remember when and how Electro lost his powers (I don’t know the answer, so you can make up anything – how would I know?).
Final Grade:
For the first time in a while, this felt like a Spider-Man story. Not a Moon Knight, not an Iron Man story. SPIDER-MAN! I think it had a lot to do with the fact that Peter Parker was not really in the story, it was all Spidey. None of the complaints that I’ve had with the existing storyline are in this comic. Sure, he owns a global company, but he’s not a douche bag about it. Sure he has gadgets galore, but he can’t use them. The Spidey we know and love is back – at least for an issue. The quote at the top of this post says it all.
A-
Mohammed Jaafar, break out the tar and feathers.
Your Turn:
What grade did you give it?
What’s Next?
The 13th sign of the Zodiac is THE SPIDER?!?!?! Scorpio is on the verge of controlling the future and Spider-Man’s fight will take him on both sides of the English Channel. But when Scorpio compromises Parker Industries, what will this mean for Peter moving forward?!
Release date – April 27th
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#28 – I meant to say, I should have made a sincere apology to you and #19. Sometimes I go off on sarcasm and hyperbole without paying attention to my tone and force of my words. I’ll try to do better.
#30
I’m guessing the Silver Surfer nominations have everything to do with Michael and Laura Allred and their spectacular art (plus Michael Allred is no slouch when it comes to plotting and writing a well told, fun comic – I loved Madman – and since Slott works Marvel style, there’s lots of room for Allred to influence the storytelling) and little to do with Slott. Slott was not nominated in the writing category, but Michael Allred got an additional nomination in the penciller category and Laura Allred got an additional nomination in the colorist category.
Slott is up for an Eisner. Two Eisners at that, fortunately, it’s not for the drivel he produces for Marvel’s flagship hero, but for his work on Doctor Wh…I mean Silver Surfer, which is’nt all that bad
#27
Sorry. Blame it on being a nitwitpicker, as #19 was so kind to point out.
(Obviously that last post was meant to start with @25. Ah well.)
@24 Wow. Hard to see how anyone could read a thinly veiled personal insult into “It’s cool that you like the issue BUT ONLY A BRAINDEAD MORON COULD EVER LIKE SUCH A WRETCHED PIECE OF TURD but to each their own.”
Seriously, can’t believe the other poster sounded a little defensive and insulted when your post was so tolerant and open to differing opinions and the possibility of others enjoying something you didn’t.
@25 – So what you’re saying is, after 8 years of being kicked in the stomach every month, this month we’ve been slapped in the face instead and it doesn’t hurt as much?
#24:
Again, it’s cool you like the issues.
But from where I sit, only someone whose literary wit stopped developing somewhere around “See Dick and Jane. Run Spot Run” can truly enjoy Slott’s hackneyed, hamfisted and completely lacking in anything resembling storycraft issues. From a creative writing point of view, Slott gets an F-. There’s mindless fun entertainment, and then there’s mind-numbing entertainment that requires the consumer to turn off their brain completely. Slott is the latter.
It’s…telling, IMO…that people are praising this issue simply because it sucks less. We’ve been beaten down by the volcano of &#@% over the last eight years. What I’m taking away about the response to this issue is since it isn’t the usual three month-old moldy pizza, but merely week-old stale pizza, it’s okay.
But take away the comparison, and week-old stale pizza is still pretty nasty.
Anyway, to each their own.
Fiendly Reminder: ouch, that hurt. I’m crying.
FYI I’m not some pro-slott fanboy. I hated ASM vol. 3(written by slott) where spider man was constantly getting shafted in favor of silk or clayton cole. On the other hand most of ASM vol. 4 issues are enjoyable so far, which made me pick up the book again. The recent ASM issues are nowhere near as bad as the ASM vol. 3 issues so that’s why I made that ‘nitwitpicker’ comment. Peter, for once, is sucessful in his life so I for one want the Parker Indrustries to stay. And he should also keep those new webbings too.
Of course, I hated OMD (also hated most of BND era comics because of michelle gonzalise, carlie cooper, mayor jameson, aunt may having xxx with jameson sr) and want MJ to get together with Peter again but I don’t think quesada would let it happen.
#19, I know you didn’t mean any offence, but it’s still rather telling pro-Slott fanboys always tend to insult people when defending how easily pleased they are by this thing. Just call us nitpickers (or people with actual critical faculties), also this “it’s fun, it’s fine” mentality is why I really hate the MCU movies as they spend more time being quipmaster central than an engaging and interesting story.
#19 Hey, if you like it, that’s all that matters.
But there are Spider-Man comics – written by J.M. DeMatteis, Gerry Conway, JMS, Peter David, Brian Michael Bendis, Robbie Thompson, to name a few – that tell a fun story but don’t actively insult the readers’ intelligence and cause readers to lose IQ points through exposure. Slott’s storytelling is DUMB, and gets dumber every issue. So far, this story is nothing but eye-rolling ridiculous action gags – the underwater Pisces base, the Goblin fight in Africa, the fight in the British Museum, the space jump and now this ridiculous and unnecessary fight on a train. The amount of story actually being told is very, very little to the point where Slott makes a Michael Bay or Zack Snyder film seem like examples of erudite, tight storytelling by comparison. I guess you could call Slott’s stories “fun,” but they are also very, very silly and the slightest poke causes them to fall apart like toilet paper in a monsoon.
I love fun. But it’s possible to have fun AND tell a compelling, well-crafted story. Stan Lee’s Silver Age Spider-Man stories have more consistent world building, characterization and plot logic in three pages than Slott’s entire Volume 4 so far. Heck, even the daily comic strip does a better job keeping Peter Parker and his world consistent.
But to each their own. If you enjoy it, that’s honestly great.
@#17&18 – So, how do you really feel? 🙂 I agree with all of your statements, but they just didn’t bother me. Sure, Spider-Man and cling onto a plane or a space capsule, but has a hard time on a train. It’s a problem we find in all comics, but someone as steeped in continuity as Slott is expected to uphold it. I’ve never ridden on the Eurostar (I did visit England and France if you count Disney World Epcot Center – waked around the world in one day and still had time to sit and enjoy fireworks), so I do not know near as much about it as you do. When I said he did his homework, I just meant he at least Googled it. When you Google the speed of the Chunnel, you get 186 mph. That’s more than I can say for the satellite research that went into the previous issue. But when it comes down to it, when I read the comic, it just felt like a Spider-Man comic. His back up was acting like supporting cast, not like the main characters saving the day. The jokes were funny (imo), and he had to use just himself – no fancy gadgets (I don’t mind them, but I liked Spidey being Spidey). I was able to get past all the other stuff because of this (and other things). I can certainly see that if these things bothered you, then you would not be able to get to the enjoyment part. Plus, it is hard to get geared up for enjoying a comic if you’ve been dissatisfied with the last few years. I get it completely.
Luckily for me, like #19, I just found it fun. I hope the trend continues, but I have no great expectations.
@#20 – if you are asking how much is the comic digitally, the price is the same as a printed copy. If you are asking how much Marvel makes per issue, well, the best I could find is this break down for indy comic books: http://www.jimzub.com/the-reality-of-mainstream-creator-owned-comics/
Q: Does anyone have a good guess as to how much $$ Marvel makes on one issue of these? I don’t know how much it costs to get it digitally.
Don’t care what the nitwitpickers (*coughnooffenceokaycough*) say, the book is decent enough for me to read. It’s not crap like the MarvelNOW ASM realaunch was.
Hey I’m reading an imaginary Comic book, not a realistic life book! Why should I care if spider-man falling from space and surviving isn’t “real” enough? If it’s fun, it’s fine.
Addendum to #17 above:
I looked at the art and the train is clearly labeled “Eurostar” so why Peter called it the “Chunnel Train,” a name no one uses and yes, I’ve taken it many, many times, is again beyond me.
Also, Peter exits the tunnel on the French side, even though the English side would have been much closer at this point and would also put them back on Scorpio’s tail. And it apparently takes Anna forty minutes to pick up Peter, for them to decide to continuing chasing Scorpio is useless, and exit the tunnel on the far side. As they exit, the news is reporting Zodiac escaped the British armed forces waiting for them. And Peter says he should have radioed ahead and warned them but couldn’t because communications don’t work – except the news just got done saying the British armed forces were waiting for the Zodiac terrorists so it sounds like they did have warning?! And now Peter knows Scorpio is back on the loose yet Peter is all just, ho hum, escaped terrorists, injured servicemen, whatcha gonna do. Again, such a great sense of responsibility demonstrated by Slott’s Peter!
Just more wholly unnecessary waste of panels, treading time until LivingOck could remind Peter of Peter’s real goal. This issue held maybe four pages, top, of story: The Man in Red and Peter getting closer to Scorpio. The rest was silly, illogical fluff.
I wholeheartedly agree with #13, although I’d give it a generous 2.
A) The train is called the Eurostar (but Marvel probably couldn’t use the name because of trademark). The “Chunnel” is a nickname for the Channel Tunnel, built underneath the English Channel. It’s only 31 miles long, with 23 of those miles under water. It takes about 50 minutes or so to get from Paris to the Channel Tunnel, then about 20 minutes in the Tunnel, then another 40 or so minutes to get to London. So really, Peter would have been much better off fighting Scorpio when the train was on land than in the Tunnel.
B) While the Eurostar can travel up to 186 mph on the high speed lines, while in the Tunnel the fastest the train can travel is 160 kph or 99 mph. So sorry, Slott did not do his research. It’s another fail for Slott and the Spider-offices, to go along with the egregious French.
C) However, the Eurostar is not the fastest way to travel between Paris and London. Planes are. Since Scorpio is a Generic Evil Billionaire Type (TM) with things like Aquabases under his control and we see Parker Industries has a flying car that made the trip from London to Paris in apparently fifteen minutes, I’m assuming a private jet/flying car/superfast helicopter-thingee is not out of the realm of possibility. So why Scorpio needs to travel by something as archaic and as limiting as train – including needing to commander poor Eurostar employees as members of his Zodiac – is beyond me. It’s merely an excuse for Slott to waste pages with an unnecessary fight that did not move the story forward or give the reader any new information at all. Plus, the Eurostar is a very popular passenger train, so Peter endangered the lives of about 750 passengers plus crew with a needless fight that did not stop or impeded Scorpio and in fact distracted Peter from his original goal of finding Scorpio’s hideout. So much for Peter’s sense of responsibility and concern for civilians. Awesome job, Slott!
D) The dialogue in this issue was PAINFUL to read. PAINFUL. Scooby Doo cartoons produced in the 1960s have more naturalistic and less on the nose dialogue.
E) So Peter has a hard time sticking to surfaces when going 186 mph, but according to the recent .1 issues, he has no trouble clinging to airplanes at cruising speed, which is 400-500 mph. Another great editing catch by the Spider-office.
F) Y’know, for a Generic Evil Billionaire Type (TM), Scorpio has really poor lackeys. He seems to put a lot of faith in Gemini’s predictions – only every single prediction we’ve seen of Gemini’s turn out to be RONG or Spider-Man snuck one by them. For example, so much for Gemini foreseeing Spider-Man’s death that day. Poor Scorpio. It’s so hard to co-opt free will and get good help these days.
G) I don’t know why Peter seems so shocked Scorpio is amassing information. After all, Zodiac stole Peter’s very own Apple Watch – I mean whatever Peter is calling his version – back in Issue 1, and we learned in Issue 2 or 3 that Zodiac decrypted the data. Data Peter didn’t seem all that concerned about retrieving – including his own personal secrets – until perhaps maybe now. So rlly, Pete? Rlly? This is surprising?
@#13 – Thanks. I made a choice to try to not factor in the issues leading up to this issue and there are several nitpicky (to steal your term) items in here, but the enjoyment factor for me outweighed the nitpicks – at least this issue. I think that is what made it enjoyable. For the first time in quite a while, I was not sidetracked by the small points. And you are correct in your extra credit, sir. I remember when a friend of mine bought a computer that had (gasp) a WHOLE gigabyte of storage and here we are now talking zettabytes.
@#15 – How did he aim his landing? There was some science done and we factored in comics. Yep. That explains it. Plus the Chunnel is coated in Teflon. Yeah, that’s it.
Also, I find it hilarious Peter is having such trouble sticking to a train when in ASM #1 he stuck to a friggin’ SPACE CAPSULE. Considering Slott wheeled out that one when people were complaining about the ridiculousness of Spidey’s space jump last issue, you’d think he wouldn’t have Peter struggling so much here.
Did they ever explain how Peter managed to AIM his landing, BTW?
@13
Don’t forget after Sanjay sabotage it for the Black Cat in the first place. Plus, Black Cat had her “nerd” glasses on to show how smart she was for sabotaging the device because you know, science.
Nice work, Mark
For my own review, I gave this issue about 2.5 out of 5, or a C-. While this issue is fun, popcorn fare and we get some developments that’ve been building since issue #1, how we arrived here is quite a different matter. It also falls back into the pattern of Spider-Man having to rely way too much on others for help, as he almost seems incapable of doing anything on his own in this comic. The most ridiculous example for me was when he asked Anna Maria to speak “English” when she told him the high-speed rail was moving at 300 km/h. Remember, Spider-Man is a scientist, and as a scientist, he should how all about the metric system, including how to convert metric to US standard units, since the metric system is the universal system of measurement among scientists. At the very least, as a Science Major, he definitely would’ve studied it alongside U.S. Standard measurements. And don’t forget, we just saw last issue how Spider-Man was able to do complex mathematical equations in his head in order to do his free fall to Paris.
Oh, and another little Nerdy Nitpick, while “vous etes les bienvenus” does literally translate into “you are welcome,” that’s not actually the correct way to say “you’re welcome” in French in reply to merci beaucoup (thank you). Unless you happen to be a French speaking person in Canada. In this case, Doc Ock should have said to Anna Maria “je t’en prie.”
As for the “extra credit,” I believe 1 Zettabyte of data comes to 1 billion terabytes. As for how Electro lost his powers? That happened in Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 #6 when Black Cat sabotaged the Electro dampener Peter created for his super-villain prison and it overloaded. Silk, of course, had to save both Spider-Man and Electro.
Its funny, I know its the artist’s representation of the Living Brain having Otto’s mind in there. Yet, as said by @4, everyone is like: “Hey why are you showing Dr. Octopus’s face in all of your eyes, Brain?” “Also, why are you starting to talk like him too?” “Never mind, we have to stop Scorpio!” A few issues from now: “Otto!” “you were in the Living Brain the whole time since Goblin Nation?” “Why didn’t we see it?” I guess much like Black Cat’s reason for trying to kill Miles in his own book: “I hate the original so much because he ruined my rep.” “I must kill this one too, because you know, reasons.”
@#3- I bounced between A- and B+. I think because it was a good one in a sea of disappointing issues it got the bump.
@#4 I’m still going for a way to get a separate Superior Spider-Man to stay. Slott does a good job on that character. I think if he moved to a new Sup Spider title and someone took ASM, it could be a win all around.
@#5 – Thanks! I must have missed it somehow.
@#6 & #7 – Yeah, I think it was because his body was inhabited by I’m for so long, sort of like the symbiote.
@#8 & #10 – Neil did the Superhero Schmoe thing. I believe he thinking about going to a two grade system – one for Spidey and one for Schmoe. That could be interesting. Last issue you had to disassociate the hero from Spidey, but I think this one works well as a Spidey story.
@#9 – I agree completely.
@8 – I read this as “Superhero Schmoo” and had flashbacks to this cartoon: http://www.toonarific.com/pics_root//00001324/fredandbarnmeetshmoo.jpg
This issue was surprisingly fun. Spidey humor works a lot better when there’s no pop culture reference.
So no Superhero Shmoe?
@6 – Maybe because Ock has been inside Peter’s body (oh God) he no longer sets off his spider-sense?
How is Peter’s spider-sense not going off around Living Ock?
Things like this just make me tut.
Electro got depowered in Volume 3, after Peter used a machine that was (I believe) meant to contain him for the Supervillain prison they were intending to build.
Nice to see the “Superior Spider-Man” idiocy around Otto is still in effect.
Otto!Brain is essentially saying “CLICK! WHIRR! OBVIOUSLY EVIL STATEMENT! SENTIENT RESPONSE FROM NON-SENTIENT BEING! CLICK! WHIRR!” and no one seems to notice.
Wanna bet that we’re going to get “Superior Spider-Man Redux” towards the end of Slott’s run, where Otto tries to “Take back” Peter’s body, and manages to succeed for an issue or two before being kicked out again? Hopefully in not as BS a manner?
I really enjoyed this issue, so I was expecting to disagree with the site’s reviews….
And I still do, because I think it’s a solid B, but I’m glad you liked it as much as you did. Slott did good this time around. =)
Ha! That’s funny! I like Scorpio better now. 🙂
That caption with Spidey yelling “SCORPIO!” made me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QEsjd1WZuY