This article includes information on Amazing Spider-Man #698 and #699 as well as Daredevil #21, all of which have been on comic stands for at least a week or more. If you are not familiar with what has been transpiring in Amazing Spider-Man in the lead up to its #700th issue, and do not want to be spoiled, read no further. ;) Everyone else, dig in.
Marvel Comics is releasing only two comic books today. The big book is Amazing Spider-Man #700 which serves as the finale to that storied title, for now, to be replaced by Superior Spider-Man #1 in January, both written by writer Dan Slott.
Marvel has released teaser pages for Amazing Spider-Man #700 already and other parts of the book have leaked as well. I will not post any of the pirated unofficially leaked pages, but if anyone picked up Daredevil #21 last week (spoilers here), you already know the ending to Amazing Spider-Man #700. Why you ask? Well, for some reason that Daredevil issue takes place AFTER Amazing Spider-Man #700, but shipped BEFORE actually one week earlier. Weird? Agreed.
It is a safe bet that an Amazing Spider-Man is different from a Superior Spider-Man. We know that in Amazing Spider-Man #698 we saw Doctor Octopus finally beat Peter Parker and become Spider-Man, leaving Peter to die in Doc Ock’s decaying body (more here). In Amazing Spider-Man #699 we saw the continuation of that story, but Peter-Ock survives and succesfully plans a jail break with Doc Ock’s actual villainous cohorts. We further learn in ASM #699 how Doc Ock pulled off the body snatch with Peter Parker (spoilers here).
So do we know how Amazing Spider-Man #700 ends? Well, yes. Before, I go there, let’s talk about Avenging Spider-Man #15.1.
Writer Chris Yost, a fantastic writer BTW, takes the helm of this Spidey team-up book and explains there is a reason it is the only other Marvel Comics book shipping today. In an interview with CBR he reveals the following about Avenging Spider-Man #15.1:
- “My debut issue comes out the same day as ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ #700 and it’s an epilogue of sorts to issue #700. They’re the only two comics Marvel is putting out that week. This is the bridge between “Amazing Spider-Man’ #700 and ‘Superior Spider-Man’ #1. You’ll want to buy them both, but read Amazing Spider-Man #700 first. It’s an amazing issue and Dan Slott has written the Spider-Man story of his career. Then it all kicks off in a new direction come ‘Avenging Spider-Man’ #15.1.”
Plus this:
- “The mission statement of ‘Avenging Spider-Man’ is still the same. It’s teaming Spider-Man up with the biggest characters in the Marvel Universe, but at the same time it’s different because we have a new title character. We all know how Peter Parker is going to interact with Captain America and all these guys, but with the Superior Spider-Man that’s a very different story. I would even go so far as to say that ‘team up’ is not quite the right word.”
So that is all from the public record as it were. Back to the question I posed earlier: So do we know how Amazing Spider-Man #700 ends? And my answer was: Well, yes. So, with that…
Spoilers follow for Amazing Spider-Man #700. You have been warned. :)
…Marvel wouldn’t go to all the effort of cancelling its storied Amazing Spider-Man franchise title if Peter was still Spider-Man. The what’s and how’s will be in Amazing Spider-Man #700. What may surprise readers – who didn’t pick up Daredevil #21 – is Doctor Octopus “winning” and leaving ASM #700 as the Superior Spider-Man. There was speculation feuled by Slott and others that the new Superior Spider-Man might be Miguel O’Hara the classic Spider-Man 2099, but that was a red herring.
However, the only real spoilery new element that one can only get from reading ASM #700 is this: Doc Ock really wants to be a hero and sees his new life as Spider-Man as a way to be that hero in a smarter and better way than Peter did. What happens to Peter? Well, he won’t be the Superior Spider-Man. That’s been clear even without reading ASM #700. So, is Peter really taking a dirt nap?
That said, we KNOW that Peter will eventually regain the Spider-Man mantle. As with many things, it is not the destination that is so important, but the journey to get there.
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