***** (five of five stars)
Favorite Quote #1: "Thank you, Spider. I'm glad I spotted you earlier. I've learned wherever you go, trouble is bound to follow. "That's me all over." -- Silver Sable and Spider-Man
Favorite Quote #2: "Hold on. I just want to get this straight. Guy from the Avengers swings in. Captures an escaped tiger from the circus. Saves you all. And noboby calls this in to the Daily Bugle? Really?" "Mayor's right about you, man. Just in it for the headlines." "That's sad, yo." -- Spidey and two bystanders he saved from said escaped tiger
Summary
Spidey and Grady prepare for the end of the world as the clock strikes 3:11...but it doesn't come. Spidey realizes that it's because the watch that he's using as his guide to when the event happens is analog, meaning that the event must have happened at 3:10 am. At the end of his rope, Grady loses it, shouting at Spidey that he can try to prevent the destruction of New York City on his own, because Grady doesn't matter, since "tomorrow exploded" when Parker when through the door but nothing happened when Grady did. To prove his point, he steps through the door again...and now finds Spidey's shredded costume in the rubble of New York City. Rushing back through the door, Grady agrees to help, but notes that the paper has Spidey doing nothing else for the day. They agree that Spidey should go on patrol, since it's what he would normally do. As he's swinging over the Symkarian Pride Parade, his Spider-Sense buzzes. Silver Sable, riding in an open-air limo with JJJ, Jr. sees Spidey and, figuring where Spidey is, trouble is, she and her men follow him. They arrive to see ULTIMATUM planting its bomb and engage with Flag Smasher's men to stop them. Just as Flag Smasher is going to knock out Silver Sable with his mace hand, Spidey arrives, pulls off the arm, and beats Flag Smasher with it. Silver tries to disarm the bomb, but Spidey stops her as she's starting to cut the red wire. Using his Spider-Sense, he cuts the green wire instead...and New York City is saved! Silver Sable kisses Spidey in gratitude for saving the day. Meanwhile, at Horizon Labs, Grady has to stop Bella from entering his lab; Bella is angry, since she feels like it's because Grady thinks she wouldn't understand. Grady and Spidey reconnect, and Grady notes that Spidey saving the day isn't in the paper. Spidey hypothesizes that JJJ, Jr. must've called in a favor (since he was adamant earlier that no one would know that a nuclear device was smuggled into the city under his watch), and gets an idea. Heading to the "Bugle," Spidey asks Joe to publish anything that involves him for the day. But, Madame Web appears and says that Spidey's plan won't work, since the existing paper that Grady is using as a guide came from a good future; by changing the paper now, Spidey wouldn't see it until tomorrow, since it would be a new paper, and, therefore, it wouldn't help him now. Spidey leaves, frustrated, and Madame Web encourages a confused Joe Robertson to forget about their conversation. Spidey continues to patrol, stopping a falling sign from hitting bystanders, giving the Heimlich maneuver to a guy choking on a hotdog, stopping an escaped lion, and taking down a carjacker. Grady and Spidey start to panic as they approach 3:10 am, when Spidey gets a private call. Grady tells him to take it, because it could be the "magic thing" that gets him to stop the event. The call is from MJ who's asking Pete if he wants to grab a bite at his favorite diner. Spidey is reluctant to do so, until MJ says, "It's not like the world's gonna end if we don't get pie and coffee." Realizing it could be the "magic thing," Pete meets MJ for pie and coffee, but he's nervous, waiting for the "magic thing." When MJ asks if he's feeling weird about them being together alone, he tells her that he's acting weird not because of anything in the past, but because he's worried about tomorrow. MJ tells him she's not, because she has faith that he'll do what he needs to do. Pete suddenly realizes what he (and not Spider-Man) has to do and leaves for Horizon Labs. He yells at Grady to shut down the door, telling him that the thing that didn't happen by him going 24 hours into the future wasn't him getting Spidey to do something but instead him not checking Grady's math (and them keeping open the door). Grady turns off the door and nothing explodes at 3:11 am. Pete calls MJ telling her that he's going to help his friend put away his experiment and asks her if she wants to meet for breakfast at the same place; Grady calls Bella and tells her he really needs her help dismantling the machine. Pete heads to breakfast with MJ and Grady and Bella head to spend the day together, doing one of the many things Grady learned was happening from reading the paper.
The Review
This arc, like the Mayan deity arc from "Brand New Day," is, to me, the perfect Spidey story. It avoids the soap opera, but still incorporates members of his supporting cast. It's not a "MAJOR EVENT" but it tells a fun story. I feel like the need for every issue to "mean something" is what gets us the "Fear Itself"s. Sometimes, I just want to read a fun, two-issue story featuring my man, Spider-Man. Slott gets that, and he really delivers here. I just really enjoyed this arc so much, and I can see myself reading it over and over again whenever I need to remember how much fun Spidey stories can be.
The Really Good
I loved that Slott made this story a Peter Parker story. I've been reading through the "Life of Reilly" blog I mentioned in my "Scarlet Spider" #1 post, and I've gotten to the point where they're trying to find a way to resolve the "Clone Saga" without using divine (or demonic) intervention or time travel, because they don't feel like Spider-Man stories. (Of course, the irony of Mephisto being discarded as a solution because he didn't fit in Spider-Man's world was lost on no one.) But, Slott manages to make a time-travel story resolve itself because of Peter Benjamin Parker, and you can't get more of Spider-Man story than that!
The Good
1) OK, the funniest part of this issue's resolution is that I noticed two of the key pieces -- the analog and math problems -- in the last issue but didn't realize they would be important. I had actually written in my original post "3:10 pm" every time I mentioned it, but I deleted the "pm" because I realized that the watch didn't actually say whether it was am or pm. But, I never though the resolution of the problem would be tied to that! Also, I noticed that Pete didn't check Grady's math, but I didn't really think it was all that notable. Wrong! Awesome. I love stories like this one, where the answer is right in front of you, but the author is clever enough to successfully hide it from you.
2) This issue, like last one, is still LOL funny. Telling the escaped tiger, "Here, you can haz web-burger?" I mean, good stuff, people.
3) Ramos really pulls out the stops on the parade scenes. It really felt like we were IN the parade. Awesome work.
4) Um, I kind of loved Spidey beating Flag Smasher with his own arm. Just sayin'.
5) MJ! Yay! I don't have much more to say other than the fact that Slott has really done great stuff with MJ over the last few issues, between her participation in "Spider-Island" and in this issue. Slott had flirted with making MJ the jealous ex-girlfriend in the beginning of his run, which had disappointed me. I'm glad to see him portraying her more in the light of who she always has been, the person who believes in Peter enough to make him believe in himself. It sounds "After-School Special"-y, but it's true. Moroever, their entire scene was LOL funny. "I dunno. Like when Aunt May inherited that nuclear power station." Hilarious.
6) I am also continually amazed by how excellent of a job Slott does with Spidey's supporting cast. Slott did great work with Grady in this issue. As I mentioned in my review of last issue, I thought it was an innovative idea having Spidey work with Grady in resolving the problem, because I think a lot of authors would've just left Spidey to do it on his own. Instead, Slott takes the chance to develop Grady further as a character. By having Grady realize he's important when he sees that Spidey could die in the future if he doesn't help him, Slott gives him the confidence he needs later to ask Bella on a date (more or less). Slott has been hinting at Grady's crush on Bella for almost the entire time they've appeared in "Amazing Spider-Man," and it was great to see him use Grady's participation in the main storyline of this issue to move that sub-plot forward. Slott, more so than I think any writer currently writing, gets that a character's supporting cast can really make a book, and we see that so clearly in this arc.
7) Grady stealing Max's paper in the next-to-last panel? Nice.
The Bad
The only thing I'd note on the bad side is that I'm not totally sure that Joe Robertson would agree not to publish a story on a terrorist group smuggling a nuclear bomb into New York. I mean, I get that the idea is that JJJ, Jr. called in a favor, but I'm pretty sure Joe's too much of a good journalist to let that one slide.
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