The Amazing Spider-Man #686 Review

Ends of the Earth finally starts to pick up, as Spidey, Sable, Widow and an unlikely new ally finally close in on Ock’s base. This is the best issue of the event so far, and it really throws into perspective just how over-extended this storyline has been — the last three issues could easily have been truncated into one that led right into this, and the whole thing would have been far stronger.

The Amazing Spider-Man #686: Ends of the Earth Part 5 — From the Ashes of Defeat

Words by Dan Slott

Art by Stefano Caselli

Colors by Frank Martin Jr.

Letters by Joe Caramagna

I’ve learned never to get too excited about Slott’s cliffhangers. Too often he ends up pulling fakeouts, something like part two of the time travel story where the sense of impending doom was due to nothing more than a misread clock. This, on the other hand, went over extremely well. I don’t know if anyone guessed the source of the apparent apocalypse that 685 closed with, but I sure didn’t, and I felt it was a pretty clever misdirection. What made it work so well was how believable it was that Ock would fire off his weapon without warning just to be spiteful, and how ready we are to believe he still will; his spot-on characterization during that scene really had me believing that he had actually begun to cook the earth and something of cosmic proportions would be necessary to save it. 

Instead, there’s a battle with the Chameleon posing as Ock to keep the illusion going as long as possible, which provides action and Slott’s trademark banter-heavy dialogue, and is a fine first half of the issue. While there’s nothing exceptional about this battle, it’s well executed for what it is; Chameleon’s fit of uncertainty when Sable attaches a bomb to his Ock suit was particularly amusing to me, and I liked the way that Spidey was able to take advantage of his downed foe to get in touch with Mysterio and convince him that sticking on Ock’s side was not to his advantage. This is a much better balance between the standard, slightly more serious tone that Amazing is usually written in and some of the more over the top Slott stories; it’s funny, but it’s kept within the realm of what makes sense for the characters, and it’s not trying to rely on wacky pop culture references. There is a world of difference between this Mysterio, who will change his allegiance for the right reasons — “two billions dollars worth of ash” being a pretty believable one — and the one who was playing Angry Birds while a battle with Spider-Man raged. Swinging Mysterio’s allegience makes for another surprise, too, something which really helps to start break up what was to becoming a very monotonous storyline. Slott even pulls off his old school dialogue here in ways that didn’t seem too forced to me this time; after Spidey realizes it’s Chameleon in there instead of his main foe, Ock starts communicating to the heroes remotely through the suit and is immediately recognizable with his “it shall be my will which pilots the engine of your desctruction.” There is a line between this and, “Through you, I shall conduct my ‘choir invisible.’ My host of angels, lying patiently in wait, dying to sing.” I really wish he wouldn’t cross it so often.

He was wasting our time. Sending us on another wild-goose chase…

686 isn’t without its problems; it does suffer a bit from what I complained of most heavily in Spider Island, namely Slott’s tendency to try to juggle side plot threads by writing one or two-page sequences that arbitrarily break up the narrative. The main offender this time is the one page with two entire asides on it shoved right in the middle of the issue. On the top half of the page, MJ is seen buying an old super villain hangout for a space to throw Peter a party when he gets back. Then on the bottom half, Jameson Sr. attempts to get in touch with his son only to have a phone hang up in his ear (and yeah, I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t a fake Jonah in some way, because this is just too much on his part that makes no sense), and May worries silently about her unreturned phone calls to Peter (again, why is it that he can call an international squad of super heroes on a dime, but he is incapable of calling Aunt May inbetween one of the Octo factories he was attacking for THREE DAYS?) The point is, this stuff is just shoehorned in here, and it makes the whole issue read in a heavily disjointed fashion and suggests Slott threw it in because he didn’t have enough material to fill all 20 pages — pretty much the theme of this event so far.

It may be a little unfair of me to complain about a forced-in MJ scene anyway, since I’m always begging to get her back in the book as much as possible. But it’s my last complaint, as the story progression is solid outside of these random diversions. Having recruited Mysterio, the team is now able to strike directly at Ock’s home base, resulting in a surprise encounter with an Octo-zombified team of fallen Avengers.

While this was somewhat predictable (what else would Ock’s “plans” for them have been, since the only sensible thing, killing them, was out of the question?), it doesn’t diminish the tension of wondering how Spidey will deal with a situation where he’s this overpowered, and I really liked that he immediately starts formulating a strategy based on Ock’s own ways of taking the Avengers down previously. And I even liked the final implication that Ock’s plan so far has been based on stolen ideas from all of Peter’s Horizon inventions, another twist I never saw coming. I like the point this makes — while on the one hand Spidey predictably starts to beat himself up about it, I’m sure he’s going to realize sooner or later that this means he’s had the intellectual edge on Ock all along. 

Hopefully, the battle next issue will execute smoothly and the writing will lead into a satisfactory conclusion. I had a hunch that EotE would begin to pick up a bit at the end just the way that Spider Island did, and I’m taking this issue as a positive step towards making me right — now I’m just crossing my fingers and holding my breath. One thing, though: it’s going to take a lot more than a healthy infusion of touching MJ moments to get an A out of me this time. Like Dr. Octopus, the same move won’t work on me twice.

Pros:

• Finally the pace starts to pick up and Spidey’s team goes in for the kill. While it doesn’t change the frustrating fact that the last three filler issues could have easily been shoved into one and the story would be better for it, it’s nice to be over the hump.
• This is the kind of Slott writing I like, where the forced dialogue has been toned down a bit to be funny but not outrageous. Ock is suitably mad and full of himself, but not overdone.
• Nothing even stood out to me as a plot hole this time. First EotE issue I can say that about, I think!
• And hey, you know I have to throw in here how much of a relief it is to have Caselli back on art.

Cons:

• Slott slips back to his old Spider Island habit of pointless one or two page asides here, breaking up the flow of the story progress, but it’s not too egregious compared to the last event.
• Caselli, as glorious an artist as I believe him to be, accidentally drew the Spider armor with its mask on for one page that it was supposed to be gone. For shame, man! You’re supposed to be helping me out against the Ramos fans here.

Grade: B+