So...That just Happened; a Spoiler-Free Review of Amazing Spider-Man #698 - Updated with Spoilers at the bottom

Now, I've read Spider-Man for a while.  I weathered the later parts of the JMS run, yes I am talking about Gwen Stacy/Norman Osbourne's kids.  Hell, one of my fondest comic shop memories was being a boy when the final issue of the Clone Saga and summarily shitting on it for a solid hour with older, cooler customers.  I enjoyed much of the post Brand New Day run.  I stopped reading at about Spider Island because I wanted to lighten my pull.  Anyway, I would say that the revelations made in ASM #698 rival those earlier ones.  Before I get into the vitriol though, I will say that as a writer, fake in my case, I understand where Slott is coming from.  Comic books thrive on new directions.  They're fictional characters, and the big reveal makes sense given events of the book, and the fact that it's a fucking funny books, so rules of what have you are arbitrary.  I mean the twist does make sense given the focus of the last year or two of the book, which I've skimmed.

Yup

However, as a fan of Spider-Man though; I absolutely hate every last fucking thing about it.  I loathe this new direction.  I'm hoping that this was an attempt to break the internet to push sales up for #700.  I do.  As yet again, it seems like another cheap fucking shock tactic that'll be sustainable for maybe 6-12 months of stories, until normalcy has returned.  Now, this may seem harsh as I'm getting mildly irate about the fate of fictional characters, but it's more than that.  I'm bothered that we all know how this is going to work out.  You troll the core fanbase; they get irked, as is happening here; this gains some legitimate "organic" "legitimate" media coverage; you get non fans into the stores; you get a six month bump; the "nerds", myself included come back to the book, and we repeat.  I mean it's really that well it sounds like an abusive relationship really.  And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.  But it's just an irksome, inglorious way to take things.  Who knows, I may be wrong; it happens, constantly; this entire blog is a monument to that.  I don't know; maybe this is the greatest thing ever, but my gut reaction is that it' just another cheap fucking twist to do get people, more popular ones, obviously, to do this very thing that I'm doing.  It's a vicious cycle.  Seems like a cheap, but rational and prefaced but just dirty feeling, twist that we'll go through for like 6 months-year.  Honestly, I think this may be one of the more reasonable responses to this that you'll see come tomorrow. So the verdict: I can respect the bold writing choices made by Slott; as a fan of Spider-Man I fucking hate this. I just hope this is a swerve before the new series.  Please?


UPDATE - SPOILERS BELOW









Yeah - Dock Ock switches bodies with Peter Parker; Parker dies in the feeble Doc Ock body.  Octavius is now Spider-Man; he's going to bang MJ.  Octavius tried to marry/bang Aunt May.  Weird.  Not sure how much juice is there.