Amazing Spider-Man 700.2, Amazing Spider-Man 700.3, Superior Foes of Spider-Man 6

Amazing Spider-Man 700.2
Morrell (w) and Janson (a) and Buccellato (c)

Peter knows something is wrong with Aunt May, he knows it deep down and his spider sense seems to be confirming it. Despite the freezing and horrible conditions, he leaves to go across the city and help her. However, on his way he finds disaster after disaster that require assistance and he makes his way through all of it, saving lives and helping people but slowing him from getting to Aunt May and weakening him throughout it all. He nearly doesn't make it but a dream of Uncle Ben pushes him to cross the last bit of New York he needs to cross to Aunt May, where he finds her passed out on the floor of her freezing home. He warms her back up and puts her in her bed, wrapping her tightly and watching over her as she recovers. Satisfied when she comes to, he sets to work around the house, boarding up the windows and removing the debris and shoveling out the front. She insists he rests and reminds him that Ben always said that this is nature's way of saying everyone needs to slow down.

Not a bad little story (though still somewhat inexplicable that we've seemingly kicked off a new series not set around the time of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 700 but all with that title and starring Peter Parker in different Peter Parkery situations) and it works to show off a little taste of Peter Parker. Overall, though, it still feels weird to have this series going and the story itself isn't anything of such importance or such originality that it feels like it absolutely required an ASM tie-in? I don't even really know how to classify this book. On top of that, as an issue removed from everything else happening with Spider-Man at present, the writing gets a little clunky and insists a little too much on explaining everything that's happening, which might not so much be a flaw in the writing as it is a flaw in Peter Parker, Captain Over-Explain-Your-Feelings over there. Janson's art is strong almost all the way through, but his post-storm Peter looks a bit like a 50 year-old man, which I get in the way of "he's had an incredibly long day" but I don't so much get in the way where it looks like he's gained a bit of weight. Maybe that's too judgmental. WHATEVER. I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS BOOK AND IT'S NOT ABOUT TO GET ANY BETTER BECAUSE...

Amazing Spider-Man 700.3
Casey (w) and Green and Wong (a) and Simpson (c)

So this was the point where I realized this little series was still going. Here we see Spider-Man fight Firebrand in a scrapyard and pretty much win the fight until Firebrand pins him and goes all out, burning him to a crisp but exhausting himself in the process. Firebrand is later picked up by an ambulance team and they see Peter there too, though he's unrecognizable with his burns. Peter awakes to find himself in a hospital bed and eventually realizes (though the audience knows the entire time) that this is an underground hospital specifically designed to treat supervillains who have no where else to go. Peter didn't come in with a costume but did still have his very damaged web shooters on him, which the surgeon general of the hospital takes to examine later. They start fixing him up and, a little healed, he begins to investigate the place. He figures out what it is and knows, despite his injuries, he has to get out because they'll soon figure out who he is. By issue's end, they have, with Firebrand returning to consciousness and revealing who he came in with and the surgeon general identifying the web shooters.

It's a somewhat interesting premise for the story but it's a little heavy-handed, with the extremely heavy-handed surgeon general preaching about fixing these people who have nowhere else to go and constantly talking about how they must do this because WHO ELSE shall look after these people? Despite this and despite the obviously criminal people he starts hanging out with in there, it takes Peter an awfully long time to figure out where he is. I also have some amount of trouble believing that the surgeon general, after years in medical school and presumably years working as a doctor, has the knowledge to identify a web shooter. Moot point, though, since Firebrand also told them. ANYWAY, the story's okay, the writing's not amazing, the art is okay, but frankly the whole story MIGHT JUST be hurt by the fact that the issue comes with an 8-page Black Cat story written by Jen Van Meter, drawn by the amazing Emma Rios (check her out on PRETTY DEADLY, in stores now), and colored by top-of-the-game Jordie Bellaire. It's an interesting story and it's absolutely gorgeous and you read it and kind of go "gee, I wish this had been the whole issue." Ah, well. This little series continues to be weird and out of place for me.

Superior Foes of Spider-Man 6
Spencer (w) and Lieber (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Boomerang has made it out of the Owl's hideout with the painting of Von Doom without his mask on, which has a single tear running down it, the insertion of which led to Doom killing the painter and hiding the painting until it was eventually stolen and stolen and stolen. Now Boomerang has it and it's valued, potentially, at upwards of three million dollars, all for him. He assumes that his teammates are dead and, while he has some remorse about that, he's not overly concerned. He takes his new kind-of girlfriend out on a date, he contemplates what he's going to do with the painting, and he ultimately meets with an angry Mach V who informs Boomerang that he was supposed to meet with him and who is suspicious of him, though he can't place just why yet. Meanwhile, Owl interrogates the still-alive Speed Demon, Beetle, and Overdrive. At Beetle's insistence, they don't give up Boomerang (who she still believes must have gotten away with what they wanted and must still be on their side) and Beetle manages to engineer their escape by covertly texting for a rescue to her father, who turns out to be Tombstone.

Another fun little issue here that deals with Boomerang's lies to both his team and to the audience of this book, who believed we were after the head of Silvermane only to find that we were after the painting of Doom and that the head of Silvermane doesn't really exist but it really does and boy sometimes this is confusing. The dialogue and Boomerang's narration continues to be fun and fairly natural and the story is gaining some steam now that we have a few things happening all over. The best scene, probably, comes as Mach V and Boomerang talk to one another about the terms of his probation and about the fact that Boomerang is probably hiding something. It's a pretty fun scene with Boomerang denying that he was the same Boomerang who broke his team out of their potential imprisonment a couple issues ago and Mach V not quite being stupid enough to believe it. There's another fun bit as Mach V prepares to make a menacing exit line as he jumps from the window but finds his wings won't fit and so has to sheepishly wait to say it (at Boomerang's insistence) as he leaves through the door. There's a lot to like about this series at this point (it also made the AV Club's top comics of the year list, which I think was maybe a little crazy given that we're six issues in and that I think it hasn't been as fun as it is now all the way through) and I think it's only going to get stronger as the characters become more defined and as the plot continues to pick up. Should be fun going forward on this one.