Doc Ock! Jonah Ock! Spidey Ock! We’ve got more Ock-themed characters than you can shake a stick at in this issue! Buckle up, folks, because we are starting this ride with Jonah at the wheel!
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Story Title: I-tentacle Twins*
Writer: Zeb Wells
Pencils: Ed McGuinness
Inker: Mark Farmer
Colorist: Marco Menyz
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga
Cover Artists: Ed McGuinness and Marco Menyz
Asst. Editor: Kaeden McGahey
Assoc. Editor: Tom Groneman
Editor: Nick Lowe
Remedial ASM 101
Doc Ock has new arms and beat up his old arms for sneaking away at night to check in on JJJ and Spidey. He has taken over Norman and beaten the living snot out of our hero! Is it curtains for our webbed warrior? Of course not! Read on!
The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test
Spidey wakes up to swinging through the town, but this time, he’s the one being carried! JJJ is wearing the mostly fixed Ock arms and got Spidey to safety, but when they arrive, the arms leap in to seemingly attack Spider-Man. Turns out, they just want to tap into Spidey’s spine. What could go wrong there? Meanwhile, Ock is not buying Norman’s conversion and is trying hard to uncover what his real plan is. Finally convinced, he decides to bring Gobby back by injecting him with his own version of the Goblin formula!
Oh! And the best part of all – Rek-Rap is back, baby!
What Passed and Failed
PASS – Rek-Rap! – I know he’s not a fan-favorite of many of you, but I love him!
PASS – Amazing Fantasy #15 cover homage
FAIL – I love McGuinness’s art. I’m not a fan, however, of his Otto Octavius. I can’t put my finger on it, but it is not enough to really hate on, despite the fail designation. The arms, both old and new, are awesomely drawn.
PASS – Great Cover – Give BD all the grief you will about covers, they are the first part of the issue you see. This is one that will probably be made into a poster.
OOTI (Onomatopoeia of the Issue)
On a scale of 1 (POW) to 10 (BLRKBQRKPQRBLNB), gwarble rates a 9.5. I love it! These little arms bits have their own sound and it is soft (you can tell by the lowercase letters). These things bring back two childhood memories. First, it sounds like Hamburglar, and second they look like the scrubbing bubbles (man, I loved that commercial as a kid and was so disappointed when I became an adult and tried them out on my own bathroom).
Analysis
This is a fun issue. There is a place for serious, high-stakes, world ending-events, but there is also a place for the opposite. On top of this, Wells is going for some light-hearted comedy without going too overboard on the slap-stick. When he is in that zone, he is at his best. But just because this is smaller stakes and has some humor in it doesn’t mean important Spidey-Stuff isn’t being taken care of.
The Editors – We now have three editors working on this book, or at least the Spider-Books. I had all sorts of plans to do a deep dive on the role of editors in the history of Spider-Man this summer for a Cobwebs article (I know, Brad, I’m behind!), but that hasn’t happened yet despite Adam Schingle doing the heavy lifting for me. I wonder what it means that Groneman was added to the list here.
The arms – I am glad to see that it is looking like the arms didn’t actually betray JJJ and Spidey, but were rather used by Ock. That said, the arms love Ock and if forced to choose between the two, I am not sure where the arms will land.
I know if you are currently not enjoying the book, the idea of Peter willingly allowing the arms to tap into his spine will tick you off. I get it. Doc Ock entered his brain and took over his body. He did it by Peter wearing something created by Ock previously. I get it. Personally, I think discounting this entire story for that reason is throwing the baby out with the bath water. I also do not buy that this is an example of plot driving the narrative rather than characters because does Peter make questionable decisions? Almost always. While this is inadvisable, it is completely in character for Peter to do something stupid like this. With that mindset, I can completely sit back and enjoy this ride.
Spider-Man keeps saying that working with the arms feels familiar like he is remembering how to do it rather than being told by the arms how to do it. This repetition is Wells shouting at us to pay attention to it. So why does it feel familiar? My thought is that part of Ock is still in Peter’s head. The part of Ock that grew as a character and has to a large degree reformed himself. With Ock’s quest to find what he lost, I think it is a fair bet that coming soon, Ock is going to have to come to terms with the fact that there is a part of him that is not a villain. That part will be ripe for the taking. The question is, will he take it? Crawlspace odds are slightly in the favor of him taking the hero route. This is a story about second chances, after all, and the Superior Spider-Man is fairly popular and can hold his own book for a while. On the other hand, the power of the second chance theme will be intensified when we see that not all people deserve or can handle that second chance. Plus, does Marvel want to give up on another Ditko-era villain? It is something to think about. Spider-Man’s big three are Doc Ock, Green Goblin, and Venom. Venom is now a hero. Goblin is reformed. Doc Ock was, for a while, but is back to being a villain. I think I’ll disagree with the Crawlspace Odds Committee and say that he may just stay a villain.
The Goblin’s Return – Doc Ock is injecting Norman with more Goblin formula. The question is not why is it injected. That’s pretty obvious that this is Octavius’s attempt to recreate the delivery platform. The question is, what would it do? There are two things to consider: 1. Norman already has the formula in his system. His sins were forgiven, but he was not cleansed of the chemicals. Would a second dose just be nothing or will it double his powers? I think the idea we are supposed to think is that it will drive him crazy again and release his goblin persona. And, 2. this is not Norman’s formula, we have no real clue what it will do, though we can assume that Octavius should be able to accurately replicate the effects he desires to induce on him.
Crawlspace odds right now are 60% nothing really happens to 30% he turns into big green hulky goblin and 10% he just turns back into the goblin.
Let me know in the comments your thoughts on what the second dose would do. Also, I can’t recall any time in the comics where a person got more than one dose. Let me know if you remember something.
Extra Credit
Now that the arms have their own puppy-dog personality, and you know Peter is going to want to name them, what name should we assign to the arms?
Final Grade
I am finding this arc to be a fun read. This issue in particularly was fun. I’m wavering between A- or B+. After careful consideration, making charts and diagrams to analyze all aspects, I’m coming down with a strong:
B+
What’s Next?
Spidey goes one last round with the new and improved Doc Ock. Can his newest ally help turn the tide?
Craig’s got you next issue folks, – we haven’t driven him away quite yet! Plus Pain Bot Ryan covers all issues and many sats as well. And if that isn’t enough for you, may I throw a shout out to our Crawlspace reader and podcast viewer who goes by SoFlo in the podcast chatroom who has his own reviews channel on YouTube.
* Unfortunately we are still in the title-less zone and I just keep making them up, but maybe one day soon we can get professional titles once again. However, I must say that was rather witty on my part. Feel free to give me your suggestions!
Deb Whitman not in this issue.
‘Nuff Said!
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Evan – Yeah, I had thought previously about blaming any grammar mistakes on Chi-Town, who in a fit of jealousy over my review skills superiority, snuck in and cleverly added the errors. But who are we kidding? No one would believe that Chi-Town knows enough grammar to add mistakes. The BD route is much better.
Speaking of, I found out why BD was on my review (other than adding grammar errors for some reason). It seems I forgot to put my feature image on the post. Don’t tell Hornacek that, though. He thinks I am some sort of minor deity in the Crawlspace world and I fear that bursting his bubble too soon would be harmful to his Canadian mindset. They can be a fragile lot up there. Comes from too much Maple syrup. I am just a regular guy, after all. Near perfect, mind you, but still just a regular guy and find the deity status a bit unworthy.
Michael’s theories are usually very spot-on. I should get him to feed me ideas *before* I post a review in the future.
@Mark – Aw, I’m sorry you have to wear the cone of shame, especially if it’s BD’s doing. But that’s a great no-prize explanation going forward, at least. Just say Brad did it!
Speaking of no-prizes, I also appreciate Michael’s explanation for why Peter’s memories couldn’t be copied and then given to Ben. In fact, I sincerely hope that turns out to be the case. As Michael added, that there was no mention of this earlier (even if only ambiguous) suggests to me that the idea had not yet occurred to them, but hopefully we’re wrong about that. I wonder if that was a plot hole they didn’t think of until readers pointed it out, and now they have to sort of retcon or do damage control. No wonder continuity is so hard to keep track of. Hence the importance of charts and figures, right?
@Evan and @Michael
Evan – I do not like the cone of shame. I knew to proofread and deliberately chose not to. Completely my fault. The interesting thing, though, is I immediately after reading your comment went to make the change, but was locked out because Brad is currently editing my article. I hope he makes it better or drops some editor notes in there. That would be cool! I caught Tigger’s voice, but completely missed the other. I am tired – it took me a few seconds to catch what you meant by the name. I love it! I’m going with title #3 and I always appreciate it when people read the tags and click the links!
*edit* I went back and BD was done editing my article, but sadly enough, I could not see what he did. You know, maybe I didn’t make that grammatical error. Maybe BD is going in and putting the errors in there. Hmmmm….
Michael – I wonder if it is a memory that Ock has lost and he just hasn’t found it yet. That’s a good point, though. Maybe that Beyond memory thing will factor into this story since he is using Beyond tech here. At first, I thought he was using that Winkler Device until they said what it was. Peter getting the sins and Norman having to take them back – I like it! I had thought he would sacrifice his cleansed self to take them back from Kafka, but now that we know he is willing to sacrifice Kafka to be rid of his sins once and for all, putting him in the spot where he must save Peter by taking them and becoming Peter’s worst enemy again is quite intriguing.
@Steve, @Chi-Town, and @Sthenurus
Steve – I agree – Wells *can* write a great story and this shows some of his talent. I do think the flashback nature of his big story hurt him in the end. Or at least the flashback reveal being delayed so long. You know, I don’t have an answer to your JJJ question, but Sthenurus has a good answer.
Chi-Town – I really do hate that you are not enjoying the run. I’ll still kick you when your down, mind you, but its just not as fun.
Sthenurus – Yeah, the run started fairly strong, but those strong issues were tainted by the mystery. I’m a bit happy to see that he’s starting strong again now that the What Did Peter Do is over. I am surprised that we are not seeing Black Cat as a part of all of this. They are together and there is some serious history between Ock and Cat.
One thing that disappointed me about this issue is that Ock’s dead ex-girlfriend wasn’t mentioned. Norman infected her with a virus for no reason and caused her to die a slow and painful death. You’d think Ock would mention it.
I have to wonder if the bits of Ock in Peter’s mind are the reason why Jean and Maddie couldn’t copy Peter’s memories into Ben in Dark Web. If that’s the case, then it would have been better to have one of them say “We can’t copy Peter’s memories. I wonder why?”
I don’t think the formula is going to turn Norman evil again. The cover of issue 32 has Queen Goblin and Kraven attacking Peter. the solicits for issues 33 and 34 make it clear Peter has turned evil and the cover of issue 34 is half Peter’s face, half the Green Goblin’s. The rumor is that Peter winds up absorbing Norman’s sins somehow and then Norman has to decide whether or not to take them back.
@Mark — Another great review. Sorry to lead with this, but I saw a sort of large grammatical omission here: “His sins were forgiven, but he was cleansed of the chemicals. Would a second dose just be nothing or will it double his powers?”
You mean “…but he was *not* cleansed…” Right?
Speaking of which, I think I’ve seen the Goblin formula administered many different ways. For some reason, its implementation as an aerosol comes to mind, but that might just be my memories of the Sam Raimi film. In this case, I expect (and hope) that Norman will not turn into a hulking behemoth of a goblin — I’d prefer it if the second dose, since it’s different, will somehow nullify the first or otherwise backfire on Otto and make him angry.
That Scrubbin’ Bubbles commercial is slightly before my time, but I recognize the leader of the brushes as Paul Winchell, the voice of Tigger, and, more importantly, Woofer in Clue Club! The other brush sounds a bit like Don Messick, the voice of Scooby-Doo and Droopy, among many others, but I’m not sure.
When Peter adopts the old tentacles, my suggestion for its name is Kala Mary.
Here are my suggestions for story titles:
1. The Rek-Rap Luck
2. Who Ya Gonna Call? Goblin Booster!
3. Eight Crazy Arms
4. Octopus vs. Goblin: Destroy All Monsters!
5. The Amazing Jonah
Also, that third hashtag is the longest I’ve ever seen…but sometimes I guess you just need to be very specific.
Robble, robble!
@Steve I think it’s mostly context.
In civil war he discovered it along with everyone else. He probably felt stupid for never figuring it out and betrayed for not being told in person beforehand .
In friendly neighborhood it was a one-on-one moment. Peter trust HIM and him only with that secret. It forced Jonah to reevaluate years of bigotry.
Hey Mark, great review as always!
Overall I really like this issue. And the arc. It feels like after almost 30 issues this run is finally starting.
With the news of a new Superior Spiderman series coming up I think ock is gonna go back to being a anti-hero.
Peter remembering how to use the arms definitely feels like a part of Otto is still lingering in his head (after all that’s what happened when Scarlet jackal cloned Otto body – Peter’s mind was in it). But it might also be a throwback to “funeral for an octopus” where Peter used the arms of the then deceased ock to fight the sinister Six.
If there is any logic (no doubt there isn’t) that dose of goblin serum should do nothing. Norman already got goblin juice in his system (as seen in red goblin). If anything, it will bring it back to normal level after Norman got it bled out of him by Phil Urich.
I can’t really give a grade, since I didn’t read it. However I have been hearing that they liked this issue, but still dry heave at the sour taste Well’s run has left behind with his “first part”. Like walking in a desert dying of thirst, reaching the half way point and receiving a cold glass of water…only to see the distance you still have to travel in the hot sun. I see that Spidey is still acting stupid, so yes, your points are valid given the written personality by Wells.
“Deb Whitman not in this issue.” I suppose that explain the HIGH grade…
Major uptick in this latest arc over the last few. Maybe if Wells had told his story chronologically, his run might be viewed more favorably. While considering JJJ’s current status in the book, I was curious on how many years had passed ( in the story ) btw Peters Civil War reveal and his reveal of his identity to Jonah in Friendly. Jonah has had 2 vastly different reactions to finding out Peter is Spider-man. What changed for Jonah, in those years, that upon learning this a second time came with a more supporting reaction?