Marvel Presents For The 4th Time: Amazing Spider-Man #1

Ugh. That glowing green chest spider. Just ugh.

The All-New, All-Different Marvel Universe begins today.  Yes, Secret Wars is still ongoing.  And with issue 6 out today…it still has 3 issues to go.  But Marvel is soldiering on with the relaunch of their new universe.

With Miles Morales joining the MCU proper and supposedly being THE Spider-Man, Peter jetsets around the world in that horrible new costume.  Does any of this make sense?  Does it hold up?  Will it cause me to abandon Spidey like One More Day?  Find out, (mostly) spoiler free, after the cut.  (I say “mostly” as I touch on the basic premise of the setup for this new status quo, but no real plot points.)

I was sad to see Superior Spider-Man come to an end.  I gave it a shot, and didn’t send Dan Slott any death threats, because I knew Peter would be back before Amazing Spider-Man 2 opened.  One of the things I enjoyed about the series was that Otto Octavius really showed the potential of Spider-Man with a genius IQ behind him.  It was a bit surprising to see Peter upon his return, immediately abandon all the cool things Otto had come up with.  Even if Peter didn’t agree with his methods, Otto clearly knew what it took to make himself a superior Spider-Man.

So it is interesting in this new Marvel Universe to see Peter actually taking the road traveled by Otto to some degree.  He’s not employing the Superior suit with the extra arms or anything, but the spirit is there with Peter and his role at Parker Industries (something else he can thank Otto for) allowing him to equip Spider-Man with all the coolest gadgets.

Many forget that Peter is a resident Marvel genius as well.  As a teenager he created his web shooters and web fluid.  After that…well…not much of anything.  It seems like all he did for the next 50 years or so was tweak that web formula to deal with the likes of Electro.  But in this All-New All-Different Marvel, Peter has finally put his genius to use and has his company creating and selling some of the greatest tech in the Marvel U.  He also has Spider-Man on the payroll as his bodyguard.  If all this sounds very Tony Stark/Iron Man, it’s because it is.  So much so that even the characters in the book make a running joke of it.

Peter has become Tony Stark Jr. for all intents and purposes…with a sprinkle of Bruce Wayne and his work with Batman Incorporated thrown in for good measure.  With so many websligners hanging around the Marvel Universe, it only makes sense that Peter, as the “father” of them all, would play a role in all their lives.

Time will tell how all of this will play out.  It wasn’t that long ago that Marvel was making attempts to make Peter the single, carefree, lovable loser that he was in years past.  With this new Tony Stark-ized Peter, they’ve gone the complete opposite direction.  I guess with Miles Morales now in the fold, they can rely on him to relate to the young/new readers.

I’m not running away scared from this take on Spider-Man.  I do hate the costume change (well, mostly just that glowing green spider emblem), but everything else seems like a natural progression of the stories leading up to Secret Wars.  Of note, except for mentions of Miles and his appearance in a back up story, you’d almost not even notice any difference in the Marvel Universe presented here and the one prior to Secret Wars.

This issue is oversized (as this post is suprisingly turning out to be) but that is because it features not only an extra length Spidey story, but also short stories that seem to act as prequels to new series for Spider-Man 2099, Silk, Spider-Woman and Web Warriors (which is the gang from Spider-Verse).

Two of the stories have very nice surprise cliff hangers.  One being completely expected if you’ve been reading Spidey since the Superior days and the other that shows that Miles is not the only character that has made his way from Secret Wars into the mainstream Spider-books.

If you’ve been reading Amazing Spider-Man recently, you’ll probably want to pick this up as it continues the stories architected by Dan Slott.  If you haven’t, I’m not sure how good a jumping on point this is for new readers.  There is a lot going on here with Parker Industries and its supporting characters that may leave someone new lost.