The Entire History of Spider-Man in 70 Minutes

[Music] ever wanted to learn the entire history of spider-man from the comics but you're either too poor can't be asked to read the wiki or just hate watch mojo with your very soul to see the journey from a young inexperienced spider-man to a battle-hardened superhero veteran capable of leading the avengers into battle if i forget anything if i leave out your favorite story of spider kid from the 80s or something feel free to tell me in the comments first off no one likes their time being wasted i could stretch this out and get like a billion dollars in ad revenue but we all know spider-man's origin story there's no point going over in tremendous detail peter parker gets bit by a spider his uncle gets bit by a bullet with great power comes great responsibility we've seen it a million times however a lot of people think that it was uncle ben who said that famous line whereas in the original comic uncle ben shows up for like two panels dies off-screen and peter learns his lesson from a text box little does peter know he's seen crawling out his window by the girl next door mary jane watson making her the first ever person to discover spider-man's identity this origin story was meant to be a one-off deal but due to the popularity of the character he was soon given his own main series the amazing spider-man followed the daily double life of peter parker as he balanced his high school studies with his secret alter ego he would be constantly picked on by the people at school especially by flash thompson who despite being a relentless bully would become spider-man's number one fan he would defend his hero no matter what anyone said about him even making his own spider-man fan club completely oblivious that the person he's worshiping is the same one he tries to beat up every day after a long day of fighting hardened criminals peter would come home to aunt may he thought he was just this poor little delicate boy who wouldn't harm a fly and while aunt may was just this frail old lady who could be taken out by a paper airplane underneath she was a very strong spirited fighter who had a lot of wisdom for her nephew peter's heroic says spider-man would be publicly shamed by j jonah jameson whose blind hatred for spider-man was really just a cover-up for his own self-doubt as head of the spider-man fan club flash would speak out against jameson's biased reporting and even tries to fight him one time peter would take pictures of himself as spider-man and sell them to jameson thus allowing peter to pay for ant-may's rent it's also depressing as hell seeing how a single paycheck is enough for him to pay an entire year's worth of rent while at jameson's office peter meets his secretary betty brandt the two are very fond of each other and eventually start dating however a spanner is thrown into the works when her brother is brutally murdered and she blames spider-man for his death therefore peter can never reveal his identity out of fear that she'll despise him to make things even worse liz allen who was previously one of the people who bullied peter does a complete 180 and now will stop at nothing until he's wrapped around her finger peter doesn't really give a [ __ ] but betty gets super jealous and the relationship soon falls apart after they break up aunt may's like oh don't worry peter i know a beautiful girl her name is mary jane watson but peter's too busy with spider-man stuff and so he declines the offer there's something very charming about peter's early career as spider-man it's light it's fun and very nostalgic reading it back now seeing this young boy meet all of these iconic characters for the first time these people who will go on to impact his life in so many ways and he has no idea of it yet he's dreaming of being a scientist not knowing that one day that will come true we get to see peter make new friends fall in love for the first time and watch as he messes it all up we see the first appearances of all's classic villains such as dr octopus sandman electro and craven the hunter such tragic characters as dr kirk connors who accidentally turns himself into a lizard and tries to eat spider-man only to be cured and returned to his loving family or the scorpion who jameson helped create to try and capture spider-man only to be driven insane and turned to a life of crime there's also the mysterious green goblin whose main goal is just to [ __ ] with spider-man every time spider-man would defeat him he'd go back to his secret lair and it'd be like oh who is he guess who it's going to be and then they just don't tell you it's also interesting to see how little a role uncle ben plays in these early issues his death serves more of an inconvenience to peter than anything and after being briefly mentioned in issue 1 he's not even brought up again for the next 30 odd issues peter instead looks up to his fellow heroes such as the avengers or the fantastic four sure he might insult them and get into the odd fight now and again but deep down he desperately wants to have their confidence their respect in his first fight with dogs or octopus peter gets completely annihilated and feels really ashamed about his defeat he's ready to just give everything up until the human torch delivers a powerful speech about resilience and beating the odds no matter what peter's then inspired to confront doctor octopus again and emerges triumphant peter's heroic actions come from him just wanting to be better rather than from a burden of guilt these big superhero teams represent where he's trying to get to both as a hero and as a person a bunch of peter's villains come together to form the sinister six but they're so far up their own asses that they fight him one-on-one instead of as a team and he wipes the floor of them determined to get rid of spider-man for good jameson commissions a killer robot to hunt him down and capture him he enlists the roboticist spencer smythe to build it calling it the spider slayer peter ultimately outsmarts them by making a puppet of himself and tricking them into capturing the puppet eventually peter graduates from high school getting a science scholarship at empire state's university unfortunately for peter flasch is getting a sports scholarship to the same place so he'll not be getting rid of him anytime soon at university peter meets some new faces such as his new classmates harry osborne and gwen stacy just as peter's getting used to this new stage in his life aunt may falls hideously ill and is rushed to the hospital this completely throws peter off and he's so busy focusing on ant-mate's health that all his new classmates think he's some sort of massive anti-social prick it doesn't help that flash thompson is there to talk [ __ ] about him reaffirming everything that harry and gwen already think of him the doctors are like listen mate your aunt's probably [ __ ] dead so peter seeks help from dr curtis connors aka the lizard who tells him of this special serum that can save aunt may and it's so unbelievably rare that there's like one in existence peter pawns off all his valuables to pay for it however doctor octopus conveniently needs the same serum for his own research and hijacks the shipment before it arrives peter tracks down doc ock to his underwater base and manages to steal back the serum that ant-may needs but it doesn't matter because during their fight the base's structure is so significantly damaged that it collapses on top of them it's here that we get one of the most iconic spider-man moments of all time where peter is trapped under the machinery exhausted and alone moments away from drowning knowing that ant-may will die if she doesn't get the serum and fuelled by the memory of uncle ben peter defies all odds through sheer willpower alone finding the strength to lift an impossible weight and free him from the base's runes it's a moment that fully embodies one of spider-man's most powerful abilities his will to always get back up peter rushes back to the hospital with the serum and saves ant-may's life he's of course relieved but now has to go back to his university where everyone hates him everyone that is except gwen stacy who's determined that peter isn't all bad and maybe just misunderstood at this moment in time peter is not interested in gwen because he's still hung up over betty who's now dating a guy called ned yes that ned and she might even be getting married to him oh but peter don't you want to meet mary jane watson she's a beautiful young loss shut up at me i'm going through my edgy all women are the same phase at the same time we get the first appearance of norman osborne who yeah okay at this point everyone knows he's the green goblin norman hatches a plan to find out spider-man's identity and so he just follows him home and attacks him out in the open for anyone to see with the element of surprise he's able to defeat peter and take him back to his evil lair after a villainous speech about how he's gonna put peter in a cheese grater and make his life misery peter manages to get free and the two battle without if the goblin escapes he could go for aunt may he could go for betty everything is at risk and so peter doesn't hold back he beats him to near death covers him in a bunch of deadly chemicals and accidentally sets him on fire still overpowered by doing the right thing peter gets norman to safety he discovers that the chemicals have messed with norman's mind and that he doesn't remember who peter is or that he's the green goblin very convenient but peter hands him over to the authorities saying that norman is innocent and actually helped him take down the green goblin norman is admitted to hospital and peter comforts harry over what happened to his father an act that brings them closer together and sets them down a path of friendship peter begins to heal his reputation at university and finds himself attracted to gwen he's about to make a move when peter mary jane is here and in another iconic spider-man moment peter meets mary jane for the first time he's instantly taken aback her beauty her charm her carefree attitudes peter's like i go in respectfully you can [ __ ] off and instantly starts dating mary jane it's not really like an exclusive thing so peter is still going for gwen the college era of spider-man is one of my favorites and is equally as nostalgic as his high school days it took what worked from the previous era and developed it further resulting in some of the most iconic characters that we all know today and while old villains were expanded upon we were introduced to some new ones such as the rhino the shocker and the kingpin also jameson commissioned spencer smythe to create yet another spider slayer which works out just as well as the last one as time went on peter's friend group solidified a bit more with mary jane joining the group and flash slowly losing the bully persona peter finally moved out of aunt may's house and started sharing a fancy new apartment with harry peter also grew closer with gwen and the two became more romantically involved but once again spider-man got in the way when during a fight with dr octopus peter suffers complete amnesia and takes days to regain his memory during this time he doesn't know his real name or where he lives and so his absence severely worries his friends and family peter goes to the police department for help where he meets gwen's dad captain george stacy you see captain stacy has been studying spider-man during his retirement and has come to the conclusion that he's an all-around pretty good guy so when the other officers have doubts about spider-man captain stacy comes to his defense and convinces the others to help him meanwhile harry's looking through peter's room to find clues of his whereabouts and discovers some of his spider-man equipment this leads harry to put two and two together and come to the realisation that spider-man kidnapped peter parker not exactly sherlock holmes all right mate instantly word breaks out that spider-man has in fact kidnapped peter parker while he's in the police department and they're like did you did you kidnap peter parker no just then gwen rushes in and demands to know where peter is spider-man's still suffering from amnesia so he's like i don't know what the [ __ ] he's talking about and escapes before things can escalate eventually peter gets his memory back through water or something and returns home to his friends and family of course he needs to think of an excuse and so the best he can come up with is that spider-man kidnapped me but you know he's actually a pretty good guy well that checks out captain stacy takes peter to see gwen who's over the moon to see him however while she's helplessly in love with peter she now absolutely detests spider-man captain stacy became a recurring character who was very supportive of his daughter's relationship and was someone that peter could confide in this all changed during yet again another battle with dr octopus during their fight on top of a building a crowd builds up on the ground below captain stacy arrives at the scene urging the civilians to get to safety but it's no use things take a turn for the worse when dock knocks into an abnormally large chimney sending a mountain of debris hurtling towards a small child while everyone else runs away captain stacy lunges towards the boy sacrificing himself to save him in his last moment stacy reveals that he had figured out peter's identity and tells him to be there for gwen when he's gone spider-man is blamed for captain stacy's death because of course he is with jameson using it as an opportunity to sway the public against them and if gwen hated spider-man before now it's like on-site if there was ever any hope of peter telling her the truth it's gone further driving a massive rift between them and so begins a series of extremely depressing issues where gwen moves to england and peter thinks he's lost her forever harry finds himself caught up in a drug ring and overdoses a bunch of times the entire city is now strongly against spider-man abusing him at every chance they get and every issue ends up with peter crying but among the darkness there is lightness during her time in england gwen has time to reflect on her father's death realising that her hatred of spider-man got in the way of her relationship with peter and that she does truly love him she comes home to new york and the two of them are now happier than ever they go on a romantic vacation to the savage land which goes as well as it sounds jameson creates yet another spider slayer peter even tries to remove his powers to spend more time with gwen but in doing so accidentally grows an extra four arms once again he goes to kurt connors for help morbius gets in the way [ __ ] the whole thing up and the lizard goes out of control but in the end they're able to use more bass's blood to control the lizard and get rid of peter's extra arms it's here that gwen is at her most supportive of peter they're both deeply in love the gangs all together everything's going perfectly until she [ __ ] dies it's no spoiler that the green goblin kills gwen stacy i'd say that the knowledge of her death makes this story all the more impactful just knowing that she's doomed no matter what and there's nothing you can do about it norman osborne suffers a mental breakdown brought on by his son's troubles with addiction suddenly all of his memories start flooding back and he instantly resumes his mission to make peter's life hell his first stop is at peter's apartment where he finds an unsuspecting gwen stacy peter confronts the goblin on the brooklyn bridge where he throws gwen to her death now it's meant to be ambiguous whether or not it was the fall or peter's webbing that killed her but roy thomas editor of marvel comics at the time basically came out and said it was the webbing chop gwen's death really captures what death is for a lot of people it's sudden it's unfair the actual event is over quickly but its effects the consequences it has on the people around it stay around for years the green goblin is impaled by his own glider and peter is left with no one to blame but himself in the wake of her friend's death mary jane unravels her mischievous carefree persona becoming far more serious and emotionally transparent she and peter support each other through this time and ultimately grow closer to one another meanwhile harry's figuring out that maybe peter parker is spider-man harry discovers his father's evil lair and tries to avenge him as the new green goblin blowing up their apartment to try and kill peter peter responds by punching him in the face and leaving him for the authorities harry is diagnosed as a complete lunatic and is sent to an asylum now months after gwen's death peter and mj enter the dating stage and share their first kiss finally something positive in peter's life with him and mj's relationship pulling him out of his depression he can't stop thinking of her and this is exactly what he needs to gwen is back after peter convinces himself that he's not gotten insane he's now got to deal with the fact that his dead girlfriend is back and has no idea about his new very much alive girlfriend which is just as awkward as it is heartbreaking after some quick investigating they find that gwen's body is still in her grave so this new gwen while being genetically identical is something else entirely this storyline marks a beginning of a certain trend in spider-man comics starting the series down a path that would result in a very confusing controversial mess clones you see this new gwen stacy is actually a genetic experiment created by one of spider-man's most infamous enemies the jackal spider-man's villains have always had these tragic backstories dr octopus was a scientist whose experiment messed with his head the lizard was just a family man trying to grow his arm back and the jackal is announced a professor at empire state university the jackal fell in love with one of his students and became very jealous of her boyfriend at the time after her death he was so heartbroken and used his scientific skills to clone her back from the dead he then dressed up in a grinch costume and psychologically tortured spider-man with the clone of his dead girlfriend and if that wasn't enough and this next bit's actually a pre-genius plan he creates a clone of spider-man with all of his memories and personality so that from the clone's perspective he is spider-man he then kidnaps the real spider-man and switches them about so they have no idea who the clone is jackal blows himself up he's a [ __ ] who cares but what matters is that one of the spider-men dies with him so while it's back to normal there's only one peter parker he's not actually sure if he's the real peter which sends him into an existential crisis realising that she's not actually gwen stacy the clone of gwen leaves new york to become her own person i'm sure these clones will never be a problem in the future meanwhile jameson goes to create yet another spider slayer however this time spencer smith is like [ __ ] your spider slayers and tries to kill jameson only to end up dying himself aunt may almost marries doctor octopus i can't remember why and i don't care also kurt connors has beef with this guy called stegron who's basically the lizard but he turned himself into a dinosaur kurt's son billy is kidnapped and the lizard goes toe-to-toe with stegron who's now got an army of dinosaurs and spider-man's caught in the middle of it stegron falls into a river and dies and kurt is reunited with his family from this point on kurt became spider-man's solution to everything hey someone put a bomb on us help the moon stones something to do with the moon while the whole clone situation puts some strain on peter and mj's relationship they eventually heal things and peter ends up proposing to her to which she says no she friendzones him and moves to florida this just so happens to take place in the same issue as the big wheel sure the majority of peter's college friends are either dead clinically insane or in a different state but at least it's time for him to graduate except he's actually denied graduation because he missed one gym class by accident peter starts dating the black cat which is great because now he doesn't have to hide his identity or worry about her getting hurt harry gets amnesia and is cured of his insanity so it's like the whole thing never happened spider-man's sent to [ __ ] space and fights one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse bit of a step up but during his cosmic adventure he gains a cool new black costume which can transform into whatever he wants with a single thought making outfit changes so much easier upon realizing that black cat only cares about the spider and not the man their relationship falls through just in time for mary jane returning home from florida there was probably another spider slayer in there built by smythe's son once you read like 800 issues in a week they all start to blend together it's here we reach a crucial point in peter and mj's relationship in which mj has had enough of hiding the truth and reveals that she's known peter's secret all along the constant knowledge of peter risking his life has gotten too much for her which is why she turned peter down and left new york realizing that things are only going to get better if they're honest with each other the two promise to be there for each other and figure out how their relationship is gonna work peter gets a little bit freaked out when his new costume starts swinging him around new york while he's asleep and so he goes to the fantastic four to get it checked out upon learning that it's actually alive peter has them remove it and put it in a tube it's not that easy though as the suit soon escapes and forces itself back onto peter struggling to get it off peter discovers its main weakness as the sound of a church bell traumatizes the symbiote seemingly killing it for good despite this peter would still wear a cloth version of the black suit because black cat thought it was hot did someone say spider slayer with smythe dead jameson hires dr marla madison to build another one but the two actually fall in love and eventually get married as a wedding gift spider-man makes out with him what the [ __ ] spider-man blaming jameson for what happened to him the scorpion kidnaps marla in an attempt at revenge but his plan is short-lived and he's stopped by spider-man spider-man also fights alongside the mercenary silver sable taking down such evil villains as the black fox the jack-o'-lantern and the us government as peter and mj grow closer and closer peter realizes that this is the person who he wants to spend the rest of his life with and after a massive tick in the balls of a cliffhanger we get to the next issue where mj says yes okay she initially turns him down yet again but we soon learned that she's just afraid of marriage because of how her parents turned out everyone in her family ran out on her and tried to escape their responsibilities so it's almost in her nature to run away from big decisions like this but after learning that it's not a bad thing to commit to someone you love mj accepts peter's proposal and so it's time for spider-man to get married wedding guests include aunt may flash harry jameson marla robbie robertson of the daily bugle mj zantana and betty no net neda ned died peter and mj move into an apartment together as newly wed husband and wife this is something i love about the spider-man comics from well before 2007. for the most part they let peter grow not just physically from a teenager to an adult but as a person as well sure he still has his flaws as any character should but you can see him become more mature you can see how he's learned and improved from his years of being a superhero spider-man's always been about relatability and sure him having his life out of order or being really unlucky is part of it but it's his growth that's the most relatable aspect for me like all of us peter gets anxious and uncertain about each new chapter of his life but he still accepts the change and embraces it whether it's going to college having to find a whole new group of friends graduation choosing the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with married life parenthood accepting and moving on from the death of a loved one if there's one thing i hope this video illustrates it's that change is key to spider-man shortly after their honeymoon peter and mj are tormented by craven the hunter who after a lifetime of being defeated and humiliated by spider-man hatches a plan to kill him and redeem his honor as a hunter in the past craven would use spears darts all sorts of traditional hunting equipment but what have they done for him lately so craven abandons his usual set of tools in favor of a gun which he uses to just straight up [ __ ] murder spider-man craven buries spider-man's body himself puts on a spider-man costume and stands over his grave in what is possibly one of the most coldest villain moments of all time but he doesn't just stop there he then goes around doing spider-man's job for him going so far as to kill people thus ruining spider-man's reputation the only person he doesn't fool is mary jane who instantly sees through craven's disguise after a series of visual metaphors which definitely scarred any kids reading it at the time peter uses his indomitable will and love for mj to dig the way out of his own grave he goes to confront craven but craven refuses to fight back sure spider-man may still be alive but it doesn't matter he proved himself superior and made his point that he was worthy of the title craving the hunter and his honor was restored he leaves a confession for the police clearing spider-man's name and with that craven shoots himself in the head both this story and the death of jean dewolf arc marked a darker time for spider-man with brutal deaths and disturbing imagery spider-man comics were at their most mature but they weren't just dark and edgy for the sake of it they were grounded in character and the themes of morality revenge flaws in the system all of which produced some of the most memorable spider-man stories to date shortly after we reach amazing spider-man issue 300 featuring the first appearance of venom already traumatized by her run-in with craven mg comes home to find this no matter the amount of life-threatening situations she's been in mj has always remained strong in the face of danger so peter is determined to find out what could have possibly made her feel so helpless upon confronting this strange new creature we get a look at his tragic backstory eddie brock was just a simple reporter for the daily globe one of the daily beagles competitors after spider-man exposed his fraudulent journalism eddie's career was made into a laughingstock and with his life completely ruined he had no other option but just to off himself raised as a catholic however eddie believed suicide to be a mortal sin and so before he took his own life he went to a church to pray for forgiveness the same church in which spider-man was fighting the symbiote it latched onto eddie feeding off his humiliation and desire for revenge transforming him into venom and in another contender for the coldest villain moments of all time venom webs spider-man to that same church bell so that when midnight strikes and the bell starts to ring spider-man will be squished into tiny pieces thus exorcising him spider-man breaks free through the power of [ __ ] and defeats venom by throwing him into the ground he takes eddie to the fantastic four who put him in a tube and ship him off to some gulag with mj still traumatized by venom peter ditches his black costume in favor of his classic red and blue meanwhile aunt may worries that she's been getting in the way of her nephew's marriage and distances herself from everyone mj reassures her that they do still need her and still want her as part of their lives bringing them closer than ever mae also finds a new partner by the name of nathan he's a bit of a knob but the two have some decent chemistry and he's vital for me to move on from her dead husband and he's dead also black cat finds out that peter's now married to mj and starts dating flash just to mess with him all right it's the [ __ ] 90s a lot of people really don't like this era because of all the clones and you know marvel and dc were just trying to outdo each other in terms of who could make the most weirdest most edgiest [ __ ] imaginable like kane a rejected clone of spider-man who uses his spider powers to stick his hand to people's faces and rip them off you also have cletus cassidy a serial killer who shares a cell with eddie brock when the venom symbiote has a baby it latches on to cletus and he becomes the super-powered mass murderer known as carnage after harry had got his amnesia things were working out for him he married liz from peter's high school the two had a son called normie you know he's having a he's having a gayle time that is until the x-men do some [ __ ] that messes with everyone's heads and now all of harry's goblin memories are restored and of course you'd expect him to go goblin mode on everyone and spider-man would have to stop him but no it's actually a pleasant surprise when harry doesn't instantly turn evil and instead goes round trying to be a superhero unfortunately it doesn't last long as harry is repeatedly haunted by visions of his dead father and eventually the green goblin persona takes over once again determined to avenge his father the goblin confronts peter and tries to blow him up during the fight harry's real personality starts to fight the goblin and he keeps switching between the two personas peter tries to get harry to fight it but it's no use after a fierce battle peter surrenders himself to the goblin saying that the only way this ends is if one of them dies even though he has every advantage the goblin can't bring himself to kill peter proving that harry's still in there and still fighting to do the right thing the goblin fleets the scene and spends the next 12 issues swimming in goblin juice making himself stronger crazier and diluting what's left of harry's personality but while this special juice does enhance him it's also killing him from the inside he then starts stalking peter following him in the street or at the daily bugle threatening to give up his identity he even goes so far as to bring mary jane to the same place that gwen died just as another way of [ __ ] with him peter takes the bait and confronts him still hopeful that his old friend can be redeemed the goblin lures peter to a building rigged with explosives and drugs peter so that he can barely move it's clear to him that their rivalry will go on forever so the goblin plans for both of them to die in the explosion that way he'll have avenged his father's death while also ending his own mental suffering peter is [ __ ] and can do nothing but lie there and wait to be blown up however the day is saved by mj who has brought harry's son with her in an attempt to break through to him upon realizing that his son is about to be turned to ash harry's personality snaps back he instantly gets mj and normie to safety realizes he forgot about peter and saves him as well but the goblin formula has taken too much of a toll on his body and harry collapses harry thanks peter for believing in him and lets him know that no matter what happened between them he still considers him his best friend he holds peter's hand and smiles before succumbing to his injuries and dying as peter grieves his friend's death the issue ends with a picture of peter and harry in their college days a simpler happier time before any of this happened alright it's time for the clone saga now this event was stretched over several years and has a [ __ ] on the characters so it was a nightmare to navigate for this video i did want to actually read everything myself and not just rely on the wiki but my god it helped if the story just took place in one comic and was really really long then sure that's fine but it took place back and forth between the four concurrent spider-man series at the time plus the 30-something other series that the story was planted in between and you know what i didn't actually have to read like half of these most of them have [ __ ] all to do with the main story but that's what wikipedia told me maybe the teachers were right about wikipedia all along the actual main story is pretty simple if you remove like half the stuff they threw in there remember that clone of spider-man that the jackal used to [ __ ] with him turns out he didn't die and has actually been living in secret under the name of ben reilly after doing a fancy dna test it's revealed that our peter the one we've been following for the past 30 odd years is in fact the clone and that ben is actually the original peter parker from those very first issues also mj is pregnant another existential crisis ensues but you know what this is actually kind of good news now that there's another spider-man peter can now focus more on his family and dedicate most of his time to be a dad and so peter retires from being a superhero and lets ben take his place as the new spider-man some stuff happens venom clonage maximum clonage oh [ __ ] they got speedball in this and then at the end it's revealed that norman osborne is alive and he's been pulling the strings this whole time turns out norman faked the dna test because why not [ __ ] you and peter is actually the original this is proven when during a final confrontation with osborne ben sacrifices himself to save peter and his body turns to ash the clone saga then ends on a very tragic note peter and mj's child is stillborn which is probably one of the most traumatic experiences any couple can have why add this to the list of tragedies they've faced well the story is that marvel thought that peter having a child would age him up too much and the change would be too much for the readers without realizing that's the whole [ __ ] point and this comes right after aunt may gives them a speech about how much of a responsibility it is to raise a child responsibility spider-man the clone saga may have been a controversial convoluted mess but in the midst of all the chaos we got amazing spider-man 400 which is just an absolutely beautiful issue and marked one of the biggest changes in peter parker's life aunt may's been on the cusp of death for the past 30 years and having got another illness it's clear she's not going to last much longer she's advised to stay in bed and rest but may wants to make the most of the time she has left with peter and they visit the top of the empire state building much to peter's surprise may reveals that she's known he was spider-man for a very long time and says that uncle ben would have been proud of him now weaker than ever peter takes mae home to rest when peter tries to call the doctor may refuses she knows that she's way past her time but she just held on that little bit longer so she could say her goodbye to peter while she knows he won't take it well she reassures him that she's had a good long life and that she couldn't be prouder of the kind decent soul that peter has always been mj and aunt anna arrived to find a devastated peter grieving over may's body and they break down into tears together aunt may is buried next to uncle ben and peter accepts yet another inevitability of life the 90s marked the last real progression in peter's stages of life he'd gone from an angsty teenager who lived in his aunt may's house and had no one to confide in to a mature married man who'd lost more than he deserved but had loved ones to support him and be honest with this was of course ruined by a number of decisions made by marvel in the dying breath of the 90s new writers step in aunt may's back turns out she didn't actually die and blames her death on rap music the [ __ ] also she doesn't know that peter is spider-man because that wasn't her that was some actress clone thing that the green goblin made mj goes on a plane and gets blown up but turns out she actually wasn't on the plane and she got kidnapped peter's like okay i don't care and starts kissing this teenager okay i'm doing this run a disservice by explaining it like this but it more or less cements a trend in spider-man comics of one shaking things up for no other reason than just trying to get an increase in sales which never actually ends up working and two refusing to let peter grow or actively regressing his character in an attempt to make him more relatable peter saves mj from the kidnapper to which she uncharacteristically says that they need to go on a break and the two of them separate not the brightest of times but here's when j michael straczynski comes in at the start of the 21st century strazinsky took over amazing spider-man and was like alright time to fix this mess first things first get peter and mj back together but don't just have them instantly come back make the most of their time apart exploring why it is they need each other and so that when they do reunite it's satisfying and it's earned this is spider-man in his absolute prime having become a teacher at his old school peter is able to express his passion for science while helping the same vulnerable kids that he used to be his sense of responsibility is in full swing going out of his way to help impoverished students and making a genuinely positive impact on the neighborhood not just by punching a villain in the face but by being compassionate and just putting in the effort less spider more man his years of crime fighting are evident in the way that he tackles problems he's still got that witty trickster's edge from stan's original comics he's still tremendously unlucky and suffers hard times but there's always that glimmer of hope in there somewhere some people don't like what strazinsky did with the spider totem stuff suggesting that peter's powers came from a magical spider god i for one can't get enough of it but it's important to note that he's more just posing a question rather than giving a concrete explanation one of the best things that he did was completely revamp the character of aunt may in the past there were signs of her internal strength which is something issue 400 understood but a lot of the times it would be forgotten and she'd be reduced to this weak old lady who would die from shock if she ever found out her nephew's secret strzinski understood that for someone to take in a child that wasn't originally hers raise him despite all of the other tragedies in her life watch as the love of her life is gunned down in front of her watch as her nephew suffers loss after loss and feel like she can't talk to him about it try to find comfort in someone new only to have them ripped away from her to suffer through the loneliness of old age and even then to still keep going a life like that would require absolute unparalleled strength and something like peter being spider-man wouldn't change that when mae discovers peter's secret by accident she's realistically in shock but after having time to process it the two sit down and have a lengthy conversation about everything they've been through all of the years they've lost to a lie and how ant-may just thought he was gay the whole time this is also the first time that the great power great responsibility line was attributed to uncle ben and was no longer stuck in that little text box a bunch of cool stuff happens some not so cool stuff happens not his fault peter fights the spider queen whose kiss gives him all sorts of new powers such as organic webbing out of his wrist peter then dies and comes back to life don't worry about it he also fights a villain called paste pot pete and upon hearing this ridiculous name bursts out into so much laughter that he can no longer fight the villain things really start to change when after a villain attacks their homes and leaves peter mj and ant-may homeless they're invited to live with the avengers they don't have to worry about money anymore peter becomes close to iron man and becomes his right-hand man aunt may's kind of got a thing going on with jarvis and then speed ball old [ __ ] speed ball comes along and ruins everything if you don't know i'm talking about the massive civil war event of 2006. it kicks off when a bunch of inexperienced superheroes attempt to stop a team of supervillains but the whole thing goes sideways and ends up causing a devastating amount of civilian casualties this leads the government to rethink how they should treat superheroes and peter is left with a choice he can either give up his secret identity to the government and become their little errand boy or he and his family can be hunted down and put in a hell prison iron man is supportive of the government and so being his right-hand man peter goes along with him an act that he would come to regret so very very much it's important to note that peter doesn't just go along with iron man because oh it's iron man after what happened with speedball he genuinely does believe that superheroes need to be trusted and that this is one step in the right direction however out of all the people who are on iron man's team all the heroes who are publicly in support of the government peter's the only one with a secret identity so to practice what they preach and get the public on their side they ask peter to reveal his identity to the world if you think this is stupid peter does too but after being convinced by his loved ones that this is the right thing to do and that this would demonstrate responsibility for his actions peter accepts and so in a moment he's been dreading ever since he was a teenager spider-man reveals his identity on live television peter's whole life goes to [ __ ] he's abused by the public his family is hunted down jameson tries to sue him for like two trillion dollars the only real people who stand up for him are flash thompson and betty but that's basically it still peter made a promise and continues to hunt down those who defy the government even though he kills him inside upon seeing the hell prison where they're keeping all of the unregistered superheroes peter reaches the final straw and turns against iron man this is quite difficult as they still live in avengers tower so after moving his family to a dodgy motel peter joins captain america to fight for the side of freedom from the shadows kingpin along with many other of spider-man's villains start a plot to kill peter and his family in the wake of the civil war captain america is shot dead and peter barely makes it out alive he returns to mj and ant-may only for one of the kingpin's men to open fire on them aunt may is hit instead of peter and peter rushes her to the hospital while may desperately clings to life peter brutally tracks down everyone responsible for the incident which leads him right to the kingpin breaking into the prison he's held in peter humiliates the kingpin using his raw strength and no longer pulling his punches setting an example of what happens when you come after spider-man's family with ant-may's condition getting worse and worse peter tries to get help from everyone he can think of he goes to iron man but iron man's like no die and so he goes to doctor strange who has literal magic that can raise people from the dead but he's like i'm sorry man i can't help you because and so with no one else to turn to peter thinks ah the devil it's here we get one more day it's not exactly a groundbreaking opinion to say that this is the worst thing humanity has ever produced in the history of anything ever a certain someone at marvel didn't want peter and mj to be married and so this story was created to wreck on like 40 years of history and assassinate peter's character and even though i despise it with every fiber of my being and it makes me want to devolve myself into a fish and go live in the sea it's actually not that bad hear me out but the actual presentation how this story is told is actually alright and in some places dare i say actually kind of beautiful the devil aka mephisto shows up and gives peter a deal he will save ant-may's life he will make everyone forget spider-man's identity he'll provide a fresh new start for all of the characters on the condition that peter and mj are no longer married in what is possibly the worst divorce of all time peter and mj's marriage will be erased from history they will have no memory that anything has changed and they will spend the rest of their days apart from one another living with an unbearable emptiness in their souls which longs for a love they won't even know existed instead of accepting what happened to aunt may who as much as i love her character was way past her expiration date let's bureau not to mention that she would definitely be against sacrificing her beloved nephew's happiness peter says okay sure he's reluctant to do it but he still does it anyway and so peter and mj have 24 hours left to spend with each other and this bit's actually kind of beautifully written it's almost as if strazinsky is saying hey i don't want to do this but there's nothing i can do even mj's like what are we doing this is stupid if you swap out mephisto for marvel editorial you can really identify with the characters and the situation they're forced into having developed these characters over the course of his run building up a genuinely realistic human relationship between them strazinsky is able to make their last moments together very touching and impactful and so a giant infuriating big red [ __ ] you reset button is pressed pretty much erasing decades of character development that's like half an hour of this video gone mary jane is now the ex-girlfriend of peter parker for reasons unknown ant-may's alive and well has no idea peter is spider-man are you really gonna do this a third time marvel also harry's back way to negate that touching moment but at the end of the day it's a comic book i didn't like it happened like 15 odd years ago and hey you gotta take the band with the good for every craven's last hunt there's a one more day for every beautifully written character piece there's a bite in the [ __ ] ass at least stan lee liked it and so begins a brand new day an editorial attempt to wipe the slate clean and get peter back to his roots you know he's young he's cool he's got his life out of order he sleeps around he doesn't have a job he's back at his aunt may's house god this physically hurts we get new villains such as mr negative a super powered crime lord whose touch can either heal people or corrupt them there's also overdrive freak menace paper doll screw ball barack obama's in this flash has returned from the war in iraq having lost both of his legs aunt may is now volunteering at a homeless shelter which is coincidentally run by mr negative in disguise also she's dating jay jonah jameson's dad and speaking of j jonah jameson he's essentially fired after the daily bugle is bought out by another company and so leaving his career in journalism behind he decides to run for mayor his first course of action upon being elected is to publicly fund a death squad to capture spider-man you could call it a spider slayers and yeah these first few issues suffer from the whiplash of the new status quo but once it sinks in and you get used to it there are some pretty good stories here's one that's really [ __ ] up eddie brock starts to have doubts about the venom symbiote which is bad for the symbiotes because it needs a host to survive and so it plants memories in eddie's head convincing him that he has terminal cancer and that venom is the only thing keeping him alive this psychological effect then leads to him actually getting cancer to which the venom symbiote is like oh [ __ ] and ditches him leaving him to die of cancer the symbiote then goes on to bond with mack gargan aka the scorpion creating a all-new powerful venom with very little time left to live eddie wants to make peace before he dies and starts volunteering at the same shelter as aunt may during his time there he comes in contact with mr negative whose touch completely heals eddie of his cancer eddie is over the moon just in time for the new venom to show up and start trashing the place upon meeting its old host the symbiote is like alright gargan sia and starts trying to bond with eddie again when the venom symbiote fuses with the special healing cells still left in eddie's body a new symbiote is created transforming eddie into the new anti-venom with the help of spider-man anti-venom takes down venom and goes off on a mission to save the world or something it's here we reach amazing spider-man issue 600 which marked a very special occasion the wedding of aunt may and jay jameson senior but before peter can attend he has to deal with a brand new doctor octopus you see while otto has his robot arms he himself is just a regular guy and after a lifetime of fighting spider-man each punched to the face has resulted in a series of traumatic brain injuries leading him to be diagnosed with less than a year to live and just like eddie he doesn't want his legacy to be that of villainy he wants to leave the people of new york with something positive and so he creates an army of octobots and spreads them all about the city psychically connecting them to every appliance every mode of transport thus creating a perfect system where everything runs on time without any issues but because this system is controlled by his subconscious otto's hatred for spider-man starts to corrupt the city and all of its appliances start blowing up in an attempt to kill him spider-man tracks otto to his lair where he finds him in a disturbing zombified state his new suit keeping him alive while adding four extra tentacles spider-man manages to defeat him by plugging his own brain into the system and overriding otto's so-called perfect city otto escapes by the skin of his teeth and peter goes home to prepare for aunt may's wedding the ceremony is actually really sweet peter walks his ants down the aisle mayor jameson gives a very thoughtful kind of insulting speech and the marriage becomes official making peter and jameson technically related aunt may throws her bouquet the tradition being that whoever catches it will be the next to get married which is then caught by none other than mary jane watson but this happy wholesome time doesn't last forever we get an incredibly sad story about the rhino who has abandoned crime completely and has a steady job and loving wife and it's really sweet hearing him talk about his wife how he'll do anything for her making it all the more devastating when his wife is killed right in front of him the rhino believes it to be a punishment for thinking he could have a normal life and turns back to his life of crime kurt connors starts losing his mind and transforms into the lizard once more brutally killing a bunch of people in his lab in order to get rid of kurt completely the lizard tracks down kurt's son billy and prepares to kill him as well spider-man is too late to rescue him and while kurt's consciousness begs the lizard to stop he can do nothing but watch as he eats his own son with this sacrifice the lizard sheds into a new form and kurt connors is truly dead he escapes into the shadows while spider-man is left utterly defeated and because peter can't catch a break craven the hunter is brought back from the dead he's resurrected by his wife and daughter who stabbed spider-man through the heart in a ritualistic sacrifice but craven is like why the [ __ ] did you bring me back i was happy with my whole big sacrifice thing and then you [ __ ] palpatined me and to make things worse they got the wrong spider-man it was actually kane spider-man's edgy clone from the 90s this mistake has corrupted the sacrifice and has actually put a curse on craven making him immortal until he's killed by none other than spider-man's hand so we have a man who wants to die who can only be killed by a man who hates killing craven begs peter to kill him but peter refuses he tells craven to treat his resurrection as a second chance and use it to do some good and so craven does exactly that he moves to the savage land to start a new life although he's still salty about his family resurrecting him and so he kills them it's around this time that peter starts dating forensic scientist and friend of harry osborne carly cooper also marla puts in a good word for peter at the tech company horizon labs and peter is hired as a member of their think tank for once in his life he's making a really good salary there are no set hours so him disappearing as spider-man won't be a problem and most importantly he can once again express his love for science fulfilling the dreams he had all the way back when he was a teenager peter impresses his new boss by essentially just repackaging old spider-man inventions into new consumer-friendly devices meanwhile the us government removes the symbiote from mack gargan and gives it to their best military veteran flash thompson flash becomes agent venom giving him the power to walk again as he performs a series of missions for the us military all while behind the scenes dr octopus is beginning his final master plan now i know what you're thinking there hasn't been another spider slayer in a while oh [ __ ] aleister smythe son of spencer smythe has returned calling himself the spider slayer and is seeking vengeance for his father's death he does so by trying to kill anyone who jameson's ever loved or has any connection with whatsoever which now that they're family includes peter to help him with this goal the spider slayer develops a army of cyborg minions and recruits mack gargan who shares the desire for revenge against jameson smythe gives him an upgraded version of the scorpion suit and sends him to keep spider-man busy the cyborg minions are sent after aunt may jay marla the daily bugle all in separate places that spider-man couldn't possibly be in at once and then he remembers oh wait i'm part of the avengers why don't i just call them for help and so he calls them up and the person on the other end of the phone is squirtle girl who completely ignores all of his requests to which spider-man is like well i'm [ __ ] surprisingly squirrel girl pulls through in the end by passing his message over to the real avengers who all race to save spider-man's loved ones however they soon discover that smythe programmed the cyborgs with a form of spider sense thus they're able to detect attacks before they happen and overpower the avengers if they want to stand a chance they got to get rid of that spider sense and so spider-man races back to horizon labs to develop some way of disabling it he manages to whip up a neurowave transmitter bioelectrical magical thing that will cover the whole city but the most important thing is that spider-man has to be away from the device once it activates or it'll fry his spider sense too upon planting the device he's confronted by the scorpion who destroys spider-man's controls meaning he can no longer activate it remotely and so peter's like [ __ ] it and activates it anyway severely weakening the spider slayer army but also permanently barbecuing his own spider sense with his plan ruined and no one to back him up a desperate smith tries to kill jameson himself just as he's about to tear a hole in jameson's chest marla throws herself in front of him sacrificing herself to save her husband in her last moments marla urges jameson not to waste any more of his life on hate as she dies in his arms jameson refuses to blame spider-man for what happened and puts full blame on himself after marla's funeral spider-man makes a vow that from now on no one will die under his watch meanwhile anti-venom finds out that martin lee the head of the homeless shelter is in fact mr negative and so he goes to take him out only to be interrupted by spider-man eddie tries to tell peter that martin lee is mr negative but peter doesn't believe him eddie's like alright then webs him to a guy's ass and goes to confront mr negative himself when mr negative's true identity is exposed peter's like oh [ __ ] fair enough all while dr octopus completes the finishing touches to his final plan secretly launching a number of satellites into orbit and as if peter joining horizon labs wasn't enough he's about to fulfill another dream from those early issues joining the fantastic four in the past he may have broken into the baxter building beat the [ __ ] out of them and was like gave me money but he was doing it all wrong instead all he had to do was be patient and just wait for the human torch to die and then a spot would open up for him in all seriousness johnny storm sacrifices himself to save the entire universe in a series of recordings he made in case of his death he asks peter to take his place on the fantastic four to which peter gladly accepts however it's not the fantastic four anymore they've renamed it to the future foundation now a member of the avengers and the future foundation and having a full-time job at horizon labs peter's got barely any time to spend with his girlfriend carly fortunately carly's job as a forensic scientist requires her to be on call 24 7 meaning she conveniently has to leave a lot of the time allowing peter to go off and be spider-man and you know what for the first time since his marriage was torn away from him peter's life seems to be on track to replace his spider sense he's taking lessons from shanghai who is teaching him spider foo he's also expanded his equipment he's got voice command web shooters a stealth suit a bulletproof suit his future foundation suit and his relationship with carly is going pretty well that is until she gets stuck to the ceiling everyone in new york is now mysteriously woken up with spider powers just a heads up this is about to get a little bit complicated as part of a massive experiment the jackal has spent the last couple of months covering this city with his own little spider bed bugs all of which carrying a spider virus also he's resurrected kane and turned him into a giant tarantula to serve as his right-hand man also he's captured captain america and turned him into another big tarantula to serve as his left-hand man the city is quarantined and all of the bridges are blocked off to prevent this spider virus from spreading to the rest of the world while the majority of citizens are decent people who only use their powers for good there is a certain vocal minority who'd rather use them for chaos and so the jackal begins the next phase of his plan to round up all of the gangs in new york give them spider-man costumes and so when the avengers show up to try and fight them they won't be able to recognize the real spider-man and they'll beat him up as well this guy just exists to [ __ ] with spider-man and it's genius peter gets tired of being beaten up by his teammates and ditches his costume pretending to be yet another person who woke up with spider powers peter rallies the good citizens of new york to make a stand and fight all of the gang members it now seems that every person in peter's life even jameson has spider powers every person except mary jane and at may but she's out of town carly gets a little suspicious and thinks that peter is a little too good with his spider powers the jackal sends captain america to break through the blockades and let the virus spread in response the government deploys flash to capture him and his mission is a success flash then uses the venom symbiote to disguise himself as captain america's tarantula form and returns back to the jackal undercover everything's going according to plan until suddenly everyone in new york mutates turning into these massive spiders it's here we learn that the jackal isn't actually the mastermind behind this whole thing no that title belongs to the spider queen who used the jackal's skills to develop a virus connect it to the spider totem [ __ ] that sherzinski was all about in order to create her a massive spider army however her plan is interrupted by anti-venom who's going about using his powers to cure the giant spiders so the queen sends captain america who is actually just flash in disguise to go and kill anti-venom flash of course snakes her and takes anti-venom to horizon labs where they can use anti-venom's healing qualities to develop a cure for the spider virus the queen's like [ __ ] that's not good and sends kane to sabotage the cure spider-man then tries to protect anti-venom but he's completely overpowered by kane and laid to waste just then horizon labs along with the future foundation creates a device that returns spider-man's spider-sense spider-man's now got spider-sense and spider-fu throws kane into the anti-venom juice and turns him back into a human the queen finds out what happened gets really angry [ __ ] kills the jackal he was just sitting there man what did he do and turns into a giant spider monster both flash and a now cured captain america confront the giant spider queen but it's no use and she starts causing devastation all across the city surrounded by her massive army of new york spider people horizon labs now has a cure but they just need a way to distribute it and so peter's like hold up remember that time when doctor octopus connected to everything in the city with his little octobots why don't we just do that but with the cure and so peter connects his brain to otto's system the queen sends her army after him but they're held back by mary jane watson whose spider powers were merely delayed due to years of her and peter doing stuff that's as close as i can describe it without risking monetization peter cures new york using the octobots mj says that she loves him but he doesn't hear her so [ __ ] you kane comes in clutch at the last minute now dressed in peter's stealth suit just [ __ ] launches himself into her mouth which blows her up into a million pieces and scatters her brains all across the city the day is saved everyone is returned to normal and carly breaks up with peter because she's figured out that he's spider-man but hey don't worry about it spider island the end and with these final few stories peter's journey as spider-man is slowly but surely coming to a close doctor octopus activates his final plan an array of satellites covering the globe which accelerates the effect of global warming as billions of people burn otto turns it off and is like just kidding that's what's gonna happen to the earth if we don't do something about it and so his final gift to the world is to actually reverse global warming maybe just lead with that but okay most world leaders are on board with it and they agree to help produce the last of otto's required satellites it seems like spider-man is the only person on earth who has his doubts and so he calls the avengers into action showing off his all-new sinister six proof armor he leads the charge against otto and his fellow villains but otto's been preparing for them and uses a series of gadgets and gizmos to take them down his plan goes off without a hitch i mean a lecture was shot into space but apart from that leaving spider-man and black widow is the last remaining avengers okay so there's no one to help them all of the other superhero teams are conveniently off world black widow's kind of useless no offense once again he's [ __ ] that is until they're both rescued at the last minute by spider-man's old mercenary pal silver stable they escape on sable's invisible jet and start hatching a plan to take down otto otto still needs these last few satellites so if they can break into those factories and stop production then he can't complete his plan right one such factory is in north africa and so they fly the invisible jet there in the hopes of sabotaging it unfortunately they are ambushed by the sandman who's now made up of all the sand in the entire sahara desert with the help of horizon labs spider-man and his crew are able to detect sandman's brain the one singular sand particle which contains his consciousness and they managed to take him down peter and the crew then continued to sabotage factories all across the globe running into several members of the sinister six but it's no use as otto keeps launching satellites faster than they can shut them down and now the only way to stop him is to confront him directly because mysterio is a backstabbing [ __ ] they locate otto's secret underwater base with spider-man and sable being sent to break in upon learning of this otto floods the lower levels of his base during their break-ins spider-man and sable cross paths with the rhino which shouldn't be a problem there are two of them one of him all they gotta do is go around him but rhino's like not so easy you wall crawling web spinning [ __ ] and prepares to join the ranks of the coldest spider-man villain moments of all time he grabs sable with his massive rhino hand and promises that he will not move as the water rises and the air leaves his lungs he will not move he will only loosen his grip when both he and sable are dead and he can finally join his dead wife and so peter is given another choice he can either go and stop octavius potentially saving billions of lives or he can fulfill his vow of letting no one die and save sable the answer is kind of obvious and so peter reluctantly leaves sable to drown in a climactic confrontation with his greatest enemy otto admits that the whole environmentalist saving the world spiel was a lie and that he actually intends to wipe out the human race not every single person though he'll leave just less than one percent of the population alive so they will preserve his legacy as the greatest super villain of all time unfortunately for otto he's stuck in a stalemate with all of his arms being used to hold spider-man he can't reach the control panel and activate his plan if he tries to use one of his arms to reach said control panel spider-man will get free and stop him from activating the satellites and so in a last-ditch effort to succeed otto completely abandons his life support and drags his decaying husk of a body towards the controls with billions of lives depending on him peter once again uses his sheer indomitable will to defy his situation possessing the impossible strength needed to free himself from otto's arms with the controls destroyed and his legacy ruined otto accepts his defeat and if the water doesn't take him out he'll be dead in a couple minutes anyway but despite all that otto has done despite the fact that sable's already dead peter still clings to his promise of no one dying otto is taken to the big supervillain prison known as the raft and hooked up to life support only to be remembered as that one guy who didn't solve climate change upon his return mj throws peter a massive party to say thank you for saving the world oh are they going to get back together no just as peter is about to take a break suddenly the grave of billy connors is robbed sparking a rumor that a certain villain is back morbius yes it turns out that morbius has dug up this child's grave in a supposed attempt to cure the lizard morbius and spider-man take to the sewers and use the combination of his son's dna and morbius's blood to transform him back into kurt connors it's an apparent success and they celebrate kurt's return completely oblivious that kurt's consciousness is still well and truly dead and only the lizard remains the lizard then spends the next while pretending to be curt faking grief over the loss of his son his ultimate goal being to blend in until he can return himself back to his righteous lizardish form however during his time spent with the people of horizon he grows attached to being a human and all the joys of life such as video games and carly rae jepsen it was 2012. even when he's fully developed the formula to change him back the lizard hesitates genuinely considering giving up and living the wonders of human life but when spider-man discovers his plan he's forced to inject himself and mutates into his final form he's about to gobble a bunch of civilians when he's suddenly interrupted by visions of his son his wife and his old self these illusions distract him enough for spider-man to inject him with yet another cure and defeat him it's a lukewarm victory at best while the cure significantly weakened the lizard it failed to turn him back and the hope of conor's ever returning is lost at the very least no one got hurt and the lizard is dropped off at the raft that's where ducks are octopuses if there's one thing i like about this era of spider-man is that it always felt like it was building up to something there'd always be forces at play behind the scenes or elements that would be introduced only to pay off like 40 issues later and all of these things eventually led to the series grand finale amazing spider-man issue 700. it's time for otto octavius to take his last breath but before he does he has a final final master plan while spider-man may have saved the world a bunch of times he kind of [ __ ] up in a big way to stop the octobots he plugged his brain into otto's system to cure spider island he plugged his brain into otto's system even when designing his spider armor he integrated otto's system into the helmet this whole time he's been giving otto access to his mind using his psychic connection otto's been controlling a single octobot slowly crawling from the ocean floor all the way back to new york it finds spider-man during a battle and using all of the brain data otto's been collecting completely rewrites peter's brainwaves with his own effectively swapping their brains and so while peter is now stuck in a decrepit dying body otto octavius is now free to do whatever he wants as spider-man his final way of cheating death and getting revenge against his greatest enemy as he coughs up blood and his organs start to fail peter prays to god and asks what he possibly could have done to deserve this begging not to die in a place like this with not much to do he speaks to the lizard in the next cell along who reveals that the cure worked and that he's now 100 kurt connors on the inside again peter urges him to tell someone but kurt would prefer to stay trapped in his cell as punishment for what happened to his son he only told peter because he's got hours to live and his secret will die with him okay but he's spider-man he's not just gonna give up and die so what the hell is he gonna do well if otto has access to all of peter's memories then it works the other way around peter searches through all of otto's knowledge and experiences his contingency plans secret bases certain memories of also an aunt may on their wedding day that makes you want to bleach out your eyes eventually peter makes the same psychic connection with the rogue octobot and uses it to call his fellow supervillains for help his message is received and he's then broken out of the raft by scorpion hydroman and the infamous paste pot pete meanwhile what is auto up to in spider-man's body well he's arranged a date with mary jane but it's very clear that he wants more than that i can't tell if it's meant to be intentionally funny but as she's getting closer and unbuttoning his shirt he's saying things like excellent another victory for the master planner finally peter and mj get back together and it's doctor [ __ ] num nuts octavius in his body if you think about what's actually going on here it's really [ __ ] but thankfully they're interrupted by a news alert realizing that peter will be coming to get his body back otto does the incredibly smart move of booking a round-trip flight to belgium thus ensuring that peter will never be able to reach him and by the time the plane lands peter will be dead meanwhile peter's life is in the hands of paste pot pete as the villains try to reattach his metal arms to his body in doing so they accidentally kill him and peter is transported to the afterlife it's there that he meets his dead parents george stacy gwen tim harrison real ones now and finally uncle ben ben delivers a powerful speech about how proud of him he is how peter's built such an amazing life which he can't let otto destroy and encourages him to get back up one last time and fight back in the real world peter wakes up ready to get his body back but none of that matters because otto is about to leave for belgium and so the saving grace the hero who saves the day is not spider-man it's not paste spot pete it's in fact j jonah jameson while being interviewed about the breakout jameson calls otto a buffoon a loser a complete imbecile who's never actually accomplished a single one of his evil plans and it is that one speech that makes otto reconsider the flight and face peter himself peter breaks into the police precinct where all of otto's old equipment is being stored he steals one of otto's mind-swapping octobots and is about to make a merry getaway when he's confronted by carly cooper peter tries to explain that it's actually him and that he's stuck in otto's body to which she's like no that's dumb and shoots him point blank her bullet to ricochets off of peter's arms and hits her instead after tying up carly's wound and praying that she'll live peter and the villains go back to their secret base returning from the airport otto has rounded up all of peter's loved ones in avengers tower just in case the evil doctor octopus comes after them for their connections to spider-man we've got mary jean aunt may jay jameson the daily bugle the guys at horizon labs otto also snitches to the police of the whereabouts of dr octopus's secret base and an army of publicly funded spider slayers are deployed to take peter out peter scorpion and hydroman escape leaving pearl pasty pete behind and if this scene was a kick in the balls it gets even worse when they're alone mg confesses to who she thinks is peter that she's always loved him no matter what happened between them or whatever [ __ ] devil deal they've gone through to which auto responds by making out with her using his secret avengers passcode peter enters avengers tower if he can show someone like iron man the octobot then they'll understand what's going on and be able to help peter get his brain back unfortunately otto has already thought of this and has activated his massive octobots all across the globe leaving the avengers occupied and no one at home to help not even squirrel girl it is then the otto accidentally let slip that j jonah jameson is in the building peaking the interest of scorpion and hydroman who ditched peter for a chance at revenge using his watery powers hydroman discovers jameson and his loved ones only to be sucked up and contained by horizon labs and their power of science scorpion breaks into the safe room and they're like well science can't save us now and they all prepare to die but jameson stands up to the scorpion claiming full responsibility for what he did to him in the past and sacrificing himself so that the others can get to safety before the scorpion can take action however otto leaps in and uses that raw indomitable strength to take scorpion's jaw clean off with literal minutes to live peter grabs otto and throws them both out the window now that auto is significantly weakened peter activates this special octobot and begins the mine transfer but just like everything else otto has already thought of it and came prepared otto uses the same raw strength to take peter out and peter lies beaten and broken seconds from death sure his plan may have failed but that octobot managed to get into otto's brain just the tiniest amount leaving the tiniest psychic connection between the two when peter's whole life flashes before his eyes he uses this connection to share the experience with otto and the two are flooded with all of peter's memories and the values he's carried throughout his life the kindness instilled into him by ant-man uncle ben the importance of never giving up no matter how difficult things get how tragic it is to lose someone and learning to move on despite it the meaning of true love and how you don't truly appreciate how valuable it is until it's cut short even saving otto's life despite all that he did otto is overwhelmed from his perspective he is peter parker these are all things that have happened to him and the reminder of all this completely shifts his philosophy as the icing on the cake peter tells him that with great power there must come great responsibility peter takes one last look at his loved ones makes otto promise to keep them safe and with that peter parker dies this was of course very controversial at the time and rightly so killing off their main character on stanley's birthday but to me this is almost a perfect ending for peter that represents who he is as a character for most of his life peter was never rewarded for his heroics nor was he able to really tell anyone what he was doing he simply did it because it was the right thing to do and that was more than enough peter does not get a happy ending there's no reward at the end and he dies as a villain with no one to mourn him no one to celebrate his life or acknowledge his sacrifice to most people this would be the worst fate imaginable but peter doesn't care even though he's utterly defeated even though he could easily give up and rest he spends his last moments trying to find the good in someone and he dies perfectly content with the knowledge that he's done the right thing and that his loved ones are safe he's brave selfless and full of hope and so as peter parker is laid to rest auto octavius takes his place and promises to be spider-man a better spider-man some could even say a superior spider-man [Music] i don't know how this image of ned got in here but the project will not physically start if i don't keep this in

Channel: alex lennen

Views: 608,444

Keywords: spider man, spiderman, marvel, comics, alex lennen

Id: IA3-8dnOY_g

Length: 71min 16sec (4276 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 30 2022