Amazing Spider-Man #649: "Big Time"

***** (five of five stars)

Favorite Quote:  “Stay out of my closet!”  “Oh, dear, it’s the pornography, isn’t it?”  “Yes!  It’s porn!  Mountains of porn!”  “I’ll be outside”  -- Peter and Aunt May, in possibly the funniest conversation I’ve ever seen in a Spider-Man comic

Summary

The issue begins with a prelude of Roderick Kingsley, the Hobgoblin, killing a drug lord somewhere in Latin America.  It’s revealed he’s working as a mercenary, and the guy who paid him for the job informs him that Osborn is no longer in the game so he can return to New York.  Kingsley does, and he’s given an “audition” for the Kingpin, being told to retrieve an item in order to become the Kingpin's henchman.  Kingsley goes to Osborn’s Goblin lair to raid some equipment, and discovers Phil Urich there, who’s trying to get stuff to impress Norah.  Urich uses his Joker laugh…I mean, his Goblin laugh…to disorient the Hobgoblin and then decapitates him.  (Yup.  Bye, Roderick.  We hardly knew ye.)  Meanwhile, Norah is trying to infiltrate a Goblin gang and, when things go bad, she’s saved by Spider-Man and the Black Cat, who’s teaming up with Spidey in an attempt to get in the Avengers.  Spidey ditches the Cat so he can go home and get some sleep at his new suite at the Waldorf (thanks to Horizon’s pay check).  Carlie drops by and Pete has to do some fast thinking to explain his Web-Fluid building apparatus on the coffee table and to distract her from his glove, which is showing under the closet door.  The next day, “Front Line,” now the “Daily Bugle,” goes live.  Phil (wearing a creepily familiar purple coat) tells his Uncle Ben that he’s got a lead on a job, revealing a Horizon Labs dossier.  Aunt May, proud as a peacock, makes sure Peter isn’t late for work by escorting him there.  Meanwhile, it’s noted that Mac Gargan is dying since he’s been de-symbioted.  Pete gets a tour of Horizon Labs, where he gets his own lab with a secret locker.  His first day is interrupted, though, by the appearance of the Hobgoblin, who uses his Goblin laugh to paralyze Spidey.

The Review

This issue is just as amazing as the last one and is so packed full of stuff that I realized I’m going to have to start recapping/reviewing these issues one at a time!

The Good

1) My response to the first few pages of this issue?  Holy fucking shit.  Seriously.  First, I was mistaken in my last review when I said that Phil Urich was a Green Goblin gang member.  I actually didn’t realize he had been the good Green Goblin; he appeared during my, um, hiatus from Spider-Man so I was only vaguely aware that a good Green Goblin had existed.  But, I’d say Philly boy isn’t exactly walking on the good side anymore given that he DECAPITATES Roderick Kingsley.  I mean, let me just repeat, holy fucking shit.  I totally didn’t see that coming.  Slott totally pulls a bait-and-switch here, bringing back a guy like Roderick Kingsley and then throwing him over the boat so that the new guy can take the steering wheel.  (Do boats have steering wheels?)  As I think I’ve mentioned before, I like my Goblins ca-ray-zy, and Phil looks like he fits the bill!  I’m totally going to have to buy the old series and see how he got this way.

2) Still speaking of Phil, I also didn’t realize until now that he likes Norah; in the last issue, when I thought he was a gang member, I figured he viewed her as a threat.  This whole thing could get really, really interesting.

3) Screw the Spidey/Cat team-up.  I want the Norah/Cat team-up!  Fighting crime, dishing snark!  Make it happen, Marvel!

4) I teared up a bit at the scene with Aunt May, telling Uncle Ben that Peter did it, making it as a scientist.  Please, Marvel, don’t take this away.  The whole sequence of her making sure he wasn’t late for work and taking him to work was just great.  My parents actually took me to my first real job (long story) and seeing Aunt May take Peter was really humanizing.

5) The secret member of the think tank?  Nice, Slott.  Mystery!

6) Peter Parker gets a special black storage locker?  Again, just like giving Pete a job at a “work your own hours” think tank, why didn’t anyone else ever think of that?

The Unknown

1) So, did Phil really have a job interview at Horizon?  And, why did he have that file on Horizon?

2) I actually don’t think I was reading Spidey when it was revealed that Roderick Kingsley was the Hobgoblin and not Ned Leeds.  So, I’m not really sure what went down between him and Norman Osborn.  It appears that Hobby stole all Norman’s equipment, which makes sense, since Norman was “dead” at the time he first appeared.  So, I guess that’s how he knew where the Goblin lair was.  But, how did Phil know?  I’m really going to have to read this “Green Goblin” series.

3) I wonder where this Venom thing is going…