Superior Spider-Man 23, Amazing Spider-Man 700.1

Superior Spider-Man 23
Slott and Gage (w) and Ramos and Olazaba (a) and Delgado (c)

Flash manages to just barely escape Spider-Man's attack, wriggling free enough to let the symbiote grab one of Crime-Master's gas grenades and escaping into the crowd. Spider-Man is furious that he got away and dedicates his troops to finding Flash Thompson, on top of finding Goblin (which is already a priority). Goblin, meanwhile, has learned from Carlie that Doc Ock is now Spider-Man but still wants to know whose face is under the mask, something Carlie won't reveal. Yuri Watanabe has discovered that Carlie is missing and checks in with MJ, who Carlie's phone records indicate she had called last before her disappearance. They listen to Carlie's message (which MJ hadn't yet done because she's been busy rebuilding her club) and, though it doesn't say much, it warns MJ to stay away from Peter Parker. Back with Peter, Anna Maria is helping to clean up Peter's apartment and prepare brunch for May and Jay, who will be returning from May's surgery to fix her leg in no time. Who should show up at the door but Flash Thompson, needing a place to stay and hoping to crash with Peter for a little bit. This throws Peter for a loop but of course he accepts. At brunch, Peter tells Flash that they could use the same nano-based technology they used on May to re-grow his legs. Flash is against it but Peter guilts him into it, saying that such a procedure would help all veterans missing limbs if proven successful. They go right away to the labs and Spider-Man shows up to assist should anything go awry in the testing. They use a sonic imager to scan Flash's body, causing the symbiote to go nuts and leave Flash, where Spider-Man traps it and contains it in an old Reed Richards design. Flash warns Spider-Man that the symbiote has grown stronger since then and it quickly breaks free, launching itself at Spider-Man.

Plenty happening here to talk about. This is the kind of Spider-Man issue we've been looking for for a while. At every turn, something is happening, whether it's with Peter, Flash, Carlie, May, Yuri, MJ, Goblin, or even Mayor Jameson (who has hired Alchemax to make new Spider Slayer bots despite his recent history with them and his current "arrangement" with Spider-Man). The result is a comic that doesn't waste any words or any pages (though, again, with the Miguel O'Hara storyline, the Spider-Man team isn't content with hoping that we've all been reading and paying attention as we get a thought-bubble from Miguel to make a time-quip and an editorial footnote saying that Michael O'Mara is REALLY Miguel O'Hara, Spider-Man of 2099. Speaking of, did he need to change his name? Like, that Spider-Man isn't around for almost 90 years, I think we can safely say that very few, if any, people know him in this world. Oh well). Of course, the Venom storyline takes precedence as it mostly directly impacts Spider-Man at current but you can see the wheels turning to take us through a series of these storylines all in a row. Should be a fun time. Still miss the real Peter, though. WAIT A MINUTE, WHAT'S THIS...?

Amazing Spider-Man 700.1
Morrell (w) and Janson (a) and Buccellatto (c)

A look back at our favorite web-slinger as we see Peter Parker, sometime before his fall, patrolling the city once more. He's out on a cold November night with a major storm set to come by any time. Still, Spider-Man watches over the city, not his normal quippy self, but rather someone who knows what he has to do for the city but wishes he wasn't needed. Not so much for himself, but for the city's sake. He saves people, he stops disasters, he beats up muggers, he stops drunk drivers, everything, before going home, knowing that he'll never have done enough. He wakes up with what seems to be a cold and lives his Peter Parker life, going to the Bugle to get yelled at by Jameson about how he's not getting enough pictures of the menace Spider-Man and to be lectured about how Spider-Man is, in fact, a menace. He visits his Aunt May, who comforts and consoles him, letting him know that everyone needs a rest now and then. Peter gets his as he sleeps through the night and most of the next day and waking to a world covered in snow, knowing that he doesn't need to patrol since the lowlifes will be taking it easy too. However, unbeknownst to Peter thanks to blocked communication, his Aunt May is on the brink of freezing as a tree crashes through her window. Spidey's sense starts tingling and he decides to go check in, just in case.

It's nice to see Peter back on the case even if it's a little hard to place the timeline. You a little bit get the sense that someone wanted to write a Peter Parker story but no one had any reason to do it, meaning that they didn't just want to make a special and advertise it as an untold Spider-Man story so, instead, they just numbered it and named it to show us that this is indeed the Amazing Spider-Man and not the Superior Spider-Man. However, the numbering would lead you to believe that this happens right around the time of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 700 (out a year ago this month!) and it pretty clearly doesn't. Peter still works at the Bugle, May seems to live alone, and I don't see a single Octo-bot anywhere, you guys. That puts something of a damper on things but not enough to diminish the bittersweet feeling of seeing Peter back at work and of seeing him having such a hard time of it, just being exhausted and depressed. The writing is good enough at these points, as is the art, to really make you feel how hard it's been of late for Peter and you're really hoping for some form of relief for him, something to make give him a break. But maybe not Doc Ock killing him and taking his body. Maybe not that.