Amazing Spider-Man #650: "Big Time"

***** (five of five stars)

Favorite Quote:  “Oh, the imagination you have, like I’m some made-to-order cliché…” – Felicia to Pete, who expresses surprise she’s taking a bath, while she takes a bath…in milk…

Summary

Spidey is saved from the Goblin laugh when Bella, one of the other think tankers, uses her iPhone to play a song over the Horizon speaker system, blocking the laugh with a stronger signal.  Spidey asks his boss to evacuate everyone, using his name (and starting the wheels in his boss’ head turning, given that Spidey appeared so quickly AND knew his name).  The Hobgoblin is trying to steal the reverbium we saw last issue.  Spidey tries to stop him, but fails, and Hobby escapes.  Modell and the think tankers break into Peter’s lab since he hasn’t been seen since the attack...to discover him in his boxers listening to headphones, his “eccentricity.”  The Hobgoblin delivers the reverbium to the Kingpin (oh, that was Phil’s “interview” at Horizon!), who agrees to hire him, saying he never really liked Kingsley in the first place.  Pete calls the Cat, telling her they need to steal back the reverbium.  At the “Bugle” offices, Phil reveals that the little device that was following him recorded his whole fight with Spider-Man, giving the paper the scoop on the new Hobgoblin.  He gives the scoop to Norah, but he’s annoyed when she celebrates with Randy.  Carlie and MJ stop by Peter’s lab to congratulate him on his new job (in Carlie’s case) and make sure he was unhurt (in MJ’s case, who had heard about the fight with the Hobgoblin).  The fun is interrupted when the Cat calls, telling Pete that she “convinced” a Goblin gang-banger to reveal that it was the Kingpin who set up the raid on Horizon.  She goes to rendezvous with Spidey, and we learn that it was Phil who fed that information to the gang-banger…and who promptly kills him to keep it quiet.  Spidey meets Felicia on the top of a roof, giving her a pair of new goggles so she can see him in his nifty new light-and-sonic-bending uniform!  The two then go to find the Kingpin, unaware they’re being manipulated by Urich.

In the secondary feature, we see Mach-5 (formerly the Beetle) welcome a Professor Folsom to the Raft.  Folsom compliments Mach-5's rockets, noting that he used to build them with his father as a kid, which is what got him interested in science.  Mach-5 exposits that Folsom is a surgeon and one of the country's top geneticists and notes that building rockets is a long way from those fields.  Folsom further exposits that his father was a versatile scientist who constantly challenged his son in a game of "one-upmanship."  Mach-5 gets to the point, introducing Folsom to Mac Gargan, who's been de-symbioted and is dying as a result.  Folsom realizes that Gargan has actual scorpion DNA infused in his genetic structure, which he blames not on the scientists who experimented on him, but JJJ, Jr. who encouraged them.  The symbiote had staved off the negative effects of the tampering, and Folsom announces he's got to take Gargan to his lab.  When Mach-5 tries to stop him, Folsom reveals he's actually Alistair Smythe, the Spider-Slayer.  Smythe takes Gargan, vowing vengeance on JJJ, Jr., since the radioactive material that fueled the Spider-Slayer robots eventually killed Smythe's father, who invented them.

The Review

I know, I know.  Another five.  But, seriously, I can’t find anything wrong with these issues.  I mean, even when I have questions, like what Phil’s motivations are, they’re resolved in the next issue in a totally logical way.  Slott is totally, totally on his game here, and I’m having a blast reading these issues.

The Really Good

“Nothing suspicious or anything.  He helped Stark build some armor for Spidey.  Once.  That’s the perfectly logical reason we lived in Avengers Tower.”  Heh.  Slott gives a clever nod to the fact that no one knows that he, MJ, and Aunt May lived there because he was Spider-Man.  I often get annoyed when writers put in these clever nods to illogical plots in comics, since I’d rather them just not give us the illogical plots in the first place.  But, the mindwipe is water under the bridge at this point, so I actually enjoyed this clever nod.

The Good

1) I like how Peter is worried his job is too good to be true as well.  You have good company, Pete!

2)  Aha!  So, Phil Urich didn’t have an interview at Horizon labs.  He had the Hobgoblin’s dossier on the reverbium and stole it for his “interview” with the Kingpin.  That makes much more sense.

3) I’m thoroughly enjoying Phil’s full-on cray-cray.  Boy is nuttier than Mr. Peanut.  Also, Slott gives us a genius stroke here, turning Phil into a photographer, the bad guy analogue to Peter Parker.  It’s a nice touch.

4) “Peter Parker’s Private Lab.”  I cheered when I saw that.

5) Um, the new Spidey suit is awesome.  Seriously.  I loved the scene where he drops the box with the Cat’s special goggles, which reveal him to her.  It was really clever and another example of Pete getting a win, since the Cat is forced to note that he’s never been this good.  I’m just loving that Peter gets some wins, but still finds himself challenged by his enemies.  For a long time, sure, he was challenged by his enemies and overcame those challenges, but it was almost always at the expense of Peter.  Here, it’s becoming clear that he gets to overcome those challenges, and then use that knowledge for Peter’s gain at Horizon.  It’s perfect!  So, I’m probably wrong to hope it’ll last…

6) To quote Bree Three-Hands from “Dungeons and Dragons,” Phil is playing a “deep game” here.  He sold out the Kingpin so that Spidey and the Cat can get back the reverbium.  Why?  I’m sure we’ll find out next issue (which, again, is why I keep giving these issues fives, since I’m so excited to see what happens next every issue).

7) The art is amazing.  I love Ramos.  And not just because we got Peter in his boxer shorts this issue...

8) The MJ/Carlie bit was cute.  Pete “shush”ing MJ over Carlie’s shoulder when she almost mentions Spidey was funny, and the device of Carlie and Peter talking about science stuff MJ didn’t understand and MJ mentioning fashion stuff the two of them didn’t understand was great.  It’s actually that bit that, for the first time, made me glad Pete had Carlie.  We’re still Team MJ here, but Slott gives us arguably the most compelling case for Carlie Cooper that we’ve seen.  Yet more good work by Dan.

9) The Spider-Slayer.  Aha!  Now we know who the cyber-Spidey guy was.  I’m really intrigued what he’s doing to Mac Gargan…