As if things weren’t weird enough, it appears Byrne is just gonna skip ASM 4? Well, last issue, we left Spider-Man broken and defeated in the grass outside a compound Doc Ock had taken hostage, so naturally, this issue opens with Flash Thompson yelling at Peter Parker. Not jarring at all. Also, Flash has an earring, which is just so funny.
He’s tried to update the kids’ looks, and yet Peter still dresses like it’s 1963. For those scoring at home, Flash didn’t break Peter’s glasses until ASM 8, but that’s the Living Brain issue, and given what’s happened so far, I assume Byrne’s gonna skip it, so here we are. Peter slinks away, thinking all he could do when he woke up after Ock threw him through that window was go home. He tries to put his glasses on and realizes he doesn’t need them. But says it doesn’t matter, because Spider-Man is finished. Then, we get to an undebatable mistake:
Joe Robertson, not hired by JJJ until issue 50, is here. And Byrne has reverse the graying pattern of his hair for some reason. You don’t think anything of Robbie’s hair being lighter on top until you see him next to JJJ like this and realize they basically have the same hair now. Well, Flash is getting into his Spider-Man costume to go teach Peter a lesson, as he did in ASM 5, and all the girls have Farah Fawcett hair. VERY 1998.
Instead of rolling up on Flash like he did in the original, Doom beams him up into his spaceship. THEN we ‘re back in ASM 3, where Johnny Storm gives a speech at Peter’s school to inspire him to get back out there and fight Doc Ock. So, soon, Spider-Man’s off to do just that, sneaking into Ock’s compound, which he had by the end of the original. Ock deploys various evil machines and robots, but they’re no match for the rejuvenated Spider-Man, who then crawls on the ceiling so Ock’s security cameras won’t see him, forcing the villain into the open. In the original, Spider-Man ducked into a room in this advanced scientific facility to make an adhesive that would help in the fight. While that was perhaps a bit much, it made more sense than him already having this stuff on him when he arrives. Where’d he get it?
So, our hero webs up his foe and leaves him for some cops to find, instead of the national guard as in the original. Then he swings by to tell Johnny “thank you” for the inspiration, as in the original. But then he goes home and sees Dr. Doom broadcasting footage of his prisoner, Spider-Man, on TV.
All these massive changes to the cannon and he couldn’t come up with a better plot for Doom. Ditko & Lee’s Liz calling Peter made more sense, as she had appeared in more than 4 panels and already had conflicting feelings about Peter. Here, Byrne just gives up. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this…” Me, either, Liz, this comic sucks. Byrne then has the FF cameo, on their way to go save the day. Not as funny as the original. But maybe they should, because Spider-Man can’t find Doom in this version. And instead of just swinging around and getting lucky, he swings up on top of the World Trade Center to do this…
…which is objectively worse.
And we’re once again cutting off in the middle of a comic, which will be the insane status quo of this series from here on out. Every issue of Chapter One ends on a cliffhanger somewhere in the middle of an issue of ASM. Then, next issue, page one shows you Spider-Man in some predicament from the FOLLOWING issue of ASM, only to flashback to show you how he got out of the previous cliffhanger and then run up to the NEW cliffhanger you already saw on page one! It’s NUTS. Unnecessarily convoluted, and with each issue, only more tedious. Insane, insane decision. Ending every issue on a cliffhanger whose resolution is SKIPPED when you open the next book!! Who would do this!? I guess I know. Bonkers. This issue has some letters, 2 positive, 1 negative, about issue 1. The negative one comes from a guy who’s been buying comics since ASM 78, and can’t handle all the teens in “modern clothes” and Peter getting a “personal computer.” Yeesh. But he makes a good point about the original origin. He says something is lost with the big dumb explosion origin, because there was some poetry in something as insignificant as a spider bite changing Peter’s life, and how things only got more and more exciting from that moment. How starting with a big explosion is the opposite. Good point, old timer.