While I know this is a blog about my own comic book character, it seems remiss of me not to mention the comics and characters that have helped to shape my own world. Of those comics and characters, there is not one that stands out more in my mind than Spider-Man, and his geeky, witty, often hapless alter ego, Peter Parker. I will preface now that this diatribe contains many spoilers, and if you are not among those who have read The Amazing Spider-Man #700, may I suggest that you do so now. While I do not guarantee that you will enjoy it--I certainly have mixed feelings about it, as the following paragraphs will tell--it is an important entry for those who have had an interest in Spidey, either past or present. This blog will be waiting for you when you return from the comic book store.
I read my first Spider-Man comic way back in 1991. It came as part of a pack of 25 comics from the Sears Wish Book. I don't recall whether this was a Christmas present, a birthday present, or just my grandparents spoiling me rotten as they so often did in those days. Peter Parker had Aunt May and Uncle Ben to see him through his formative years, and I had Grandma & Grandpa Woolbright to indulge me in my often chaotic childhood endeavors.
But I digress.
The first Spider-Man comic book I ever read was The Amazing Spider-Man #350, written by David Micheline and penciled by none other than Erik Larsen. The story featured Spidey saving a no-account jewel thief known as The Black Fox from the wrath of Dr. Doom. The aforementioned Black Fox had stolen a jewel called The Dragon's Egg from his excellence, Dr. Doom and Doom would stop at nothing to get it back. Spidey took quite a pummeling in absorbing the bad doctor's wrath, landing him with a concussion which in turn led to a brief flashback of the Spider-Man origin story. This was immensely satisfying for me as a first time reader, as I was exposed to the wit and heroism of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man along with a glimpse into his origin, his family, and a solid villain from the Spider-Man/ Fantastic Four Rogue's Gallery. The Amazing Spider-Man #350 was and still is one of my favorites from this title's span, and I consider it interesting that that first issue I read would mark the halfway point for that same span. You see, it all ends with #700.
Fast forward to one week ago. I was hanging out with a friend of mine, grabbing the essential B's and C's of existence: Burritos, beer, and comic books. I had been anticipating issue #700 for some time, and had figured, given that all of the recent storylines had been building to it, that it would spell out the end for good old Doc Ock. Well, yes and no.
I finally got around to finishing the book last night, the aftermath of which left me staring at the ceiling with my covers pulled up over my chest, feeling an emotional blendo of anger, confusion, fear and sadness. Two things had happened in that issue, one that I had expected and the other not so much. The Amazing Spider-Man#700 does feature the bodily death of Doctor Otto Octavius, but it spells out the mind-death of Peter Parker, who was trapped in the rapidly deteriorating body of Doc Ock when he assumed room temperature. The final few panels show Peter's final link with his body as he exposes Octavius to the brunt of his memories, everything he had ever thought and done with his great power and consequent responsibility. Those panels spell out a character 180 on par with Ebenezer Scrooge and his experiences with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, albeit it much shorter. In the final panel, Octavius, now armed with Peter Parker's body and memories vows that he will be a different kind of Spider-Man, a better Spider-Man than Peter Parker ever could have been, a superior Spider-Man.
A page and a half. Forty plus years of super villainy, which had culminated in that final moment as the intended death of Peter Parker, trapped inside the disintegrating body of Dr. Octopus recanted and spun on its heel in a new and heroic direction. In a page and a half. Please excuse me if I'm not falling all over myself to accept this "new leaf" in the life of Otto Octavius.
Writer Dan Slott has stated that this development has been in the works for a while, and that the publication of the new title, The Superior Spider-Man, coupled with the cessation of The Amazing Spider-Man indicates just how serious the World Famous House of Ideas is taking this new direction. The idea, as Slott puts it, is that Dr. Octopus was really nothing more than a shadow version of Peter Parker/Spider-Man to begin with, that both of them had the propensity for great evil, and both of them chose their respective paths as a result of their own life events. In Slott's own words:
"When you look at Peter Parker, and the kid he was before he got bit by that radioactive spider, he was an outcast, he was a nerd, he was resentful of all his peers. One of the first things he says is, "Someday, I'll show them all. They'll be sorry they laughed at me." That's one of the first things Peter Parker ever says, when you read Amazing Fantasy #15.
Peter Parker, at that point, is a guy who could have really easily become a supervillain. We're just all lucky he was raised by Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and even being raised by them, he still went on to become a complete jerk until the moment he learned that lesson of "great power" and "great responsibility." (Vaneta Jones, Newsarama.com)
This does come off as a rather dubious, even villainous statement on Parker's behalf, but all the same, within a few pages, after he has obtained his spider powers, embarked on a life of fame and fortune, has irresponsibly let a thief go and discovered as a result of his own hubris that this same thief has murdered the only positive male role model in his life that with great power must come great responsibility.
While Spider and Doc Ock may share a common thread to the effect that both are bespectacled nerds with uncanny intelligence and physical abilities, the commonality of their character stops right there. Peter's sole act of villainy was a result of dereliction of civic duty; he should have stopped that thief when he had the chance, but he didn't and Uncle Ben paid the ultimate price for Peter's selfishness. Up to the end of his own physical life, Otto Octavius was a villain and a murderer. He swapped minds with Peter Parker with both implicit and explicit intent of murdering him, the physio-mental equivalent of putting a man on a sinking ship and casting him adrift on open water. In the final plunge to his place of dying, Peter, in the body of Octavius states that after this moment, after this leap from the building, he could no longer continue as Spider-Man because he had made that leap with the intent of killing Octavius by doing so. The idea was that he would use the gold Octobot that had facilitated the mind swap to begin with to swap in mid-air, so that when both hero and villain landed, Peter would be safe at home in his own body, and Octavius would be in his for what would amount to the last few seconds of his life. This was the ending I anticipated when I picked up and began reading, and of course, this was not what I received.
What this all boils down to for is the end of ends, as far as Spider-Man is concerned. This isn't the first time a version of Peter Parker has been killed off. There were the Jackal's clones from all those years ago, resulting in Ben Reilly, and of course Kane, who pops up from time to time. And more recently the death of Peter Parker in the Ultimate Spider-Man series--which I deeply enjoyed in its first run--only to have the title and mantle resumed by a new character from a different background, the so far critically esteemed Miles Morales. This is something that has been happening to comic book characters across the many universes of Marvel and DC for decades now. The first I recall was the death of Superman in Superman #75 way back in 1992, just a few short months after I had read my first Spider-Man comic. And it is something that continues to happen. The different comic book universes as we know them are a paradox of concrete hypotheticals. These are all fictional characters in largely fictional universes--Spidey at least lives in the real world city of New York, while Superman and Batman are consigned to Metropolis and Gotham, respectively--and are prone to death as often as they are prone to resurrection.
Change is as good a method as any to shake the dollar bills out of the pockets of the comic book reading public at large, and resumption of an original path, providing that sigh of relief that things are finally where they were before can be equally successful. I've seen Superman die and come back, I've seen Batman return from a near fatal spine injury. I've watched the Human Torch, Captain America and so many others blast their last across the panels and come up breathing on the other side after so many month's hiatus.
Will Peter Parker return to inhabit his own body once more? Who is to say? I'll be waiting for him when he does, but with the ending of The Amazing Spider-Man as a series, so ends also my interest in the continuing endeavors of the body thief, Otto Octavius. I picked up with #350. There are still a lot of issues before and in between that I haven't read yet. So until you're ready to make mine again, Marvel, that's where I'll be.
J. Schiek
No comments:
Post a Comment