Peter Parker: The Spectacular
Spider-Man #300

Writer:  Chip Zdarsky
Artists:  Adam Kuber & Juan Frigeri
Editors:  Nick Lowe
E.I.C:  C.B. Cebulski
Crawlspace Reviewer: Chi-Town Spidey
Crawlspace E.I.C: Brad Douglas

Spider-Man finds himself in a pickle but with help from super friends he’s able to get out of it.  Mason brother is a robobro and there is only one Tinkerer.  They are all defeated and collected after the fight.  Don’t celebrate yet, Alien Robots have come a knocking.  He discovers the Tinkerer’s plot.  Apparently Tinkerer, found an alien robot years ago and brought it back to life.  It was destroyed though in his lab along with notes on how to stop them if they became hostile.  Spidey and friends try to figure out how to spot them with the notes being destroyed and all, then Dr. Doom shows up and Spider-Man asks to borrow his Time Machine.  Both Spider-Man and Teresa travel back in time to obtain the notes before they go up in flames. 

Once again Spider-Man is saved by his “Amazing Friends”.  Let’s count them down.  Human Torch, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Ironheart, Falcon, Jameson, Betty Brant, and Dr. Doom.  Wow…what a TEAM UP.  I have said this plenty times before in my reviews for this book.  That’s half the problem, too much “Team Up”.  Being fair though, Spidey was placed in the tough predicament.  He wasn’t going to get out of that mess with being pinned down and five super villain’s there (with amped up suits btw) ready waste him.  I mean look at the first page, yeah…he’s not fighting out of that.

In a situation like this one…you use a life line.  Zdarsky actually does a okay job characterizing Spider-Man during the fight scene.  Writing that Peter finally puts the pieces together and on how frustrated he was when should have figured this out sooner.  Still, the other superheroes are written with more maturity and are shown on how tough they can be than Spider-Man is written.  Not saying Spidey has his moments, which he does in typical Spider-Man fashion no less.  Just ask Jameson what’s the next car he’s going to HAVE to purchase.

Team Ups are supposed to be rare and something to be excited about, now it’s a common thing.  Remember back to the Spider-Man solo title book.  “Revenge of the Sinister Six”.  That was a Marvel Team up in a story that actually was praised.  The other heroes made small cameo’s in issues before or had a personal vendetta with the Sinister Six.  Through the issues though, I was mostly Spider-Man figuring things out and fighting BY HIMSELF.  The last issue is when they all got together and defeated the Sinster Six.
Editor’s Note: Nice subplot of Mary Jane in that run btw. (Spider-Man Volume 1 Issues 18-23)

Agent Mintz story line is wrapped up as well.  It’s the old classic “superhero are freaks! I’m saving people! I’m above the law and have power over blah, blah blah..” speech.  The Gray Blade was a pointless subplot just to move the plot along.  It’s during this point of the book that there is a lot of dialogue to explain basically everything that has to be wrapped up.  Spidey’s secret identity is also talked about when Jameson and Johnny Storm exchange notes.  Honestly Zdarsky could have went another way with that.  I like the art, not going to lie.  It’s the end of this issue that has a major problem….

The way to fix this is Time Travel.

The Flash has time travel, not Spider-Man.  Booster Gold is time travel, not Spider-Man.  MARTY MCFLY IS TIME TRAVEL..NOT SPIDER-MAN.  So the next few adventures are going to deal with Peter and Teresa in the past. On the upside there is a Black Cat heart warming story at the end to full fill the $5.99 that’ll you’ll have to shell out in order to obtain this book.  This book still feels like too much of a Team Up book than anything.  Spider-Man at times is within character and is NOT within his character.  My opinion, the webslinger deserves much more than this.