As far as I can recall, this is the beginning of a really terrible phenomenon that continues to somehow get worse today. If something’s happening in a Marvel movie, the comics try to reflect it. I guess you could argue it was the revelation of Wolverine’s past in the terrible, boring miniseries Wolverine: Origin that was first. Marvel staffers are on record saying they felt they had no choice but to finally reveal Wolverine’s real backstory. They thought it might happen in the movie X-Men 2, and if they let the movie give him a history, they’d “be stuck with it.” This makes no sense at all to me. None of the movies perfectly mirror the comics. Why would they be bound to the movie version of Wolverine’s origin when they weren’t bound to the plot, the costumes, and so on from the movie? Never got it, but that sort of mentality takes bitter root at Marvel. In this case, because everyone knew Doc Ock was to appear in the upcoming Spider-Man 2, it was time to start pumping out Doc Ock-related content. He needed to appear in one of the monthlies, but he also needed to appear in superfluous miniseries, one-shots and reprints. A full-court Doc Ock press. This was how they did it in the 2000s. You crank out a ton of product vaguely related to the movie, made by people who are just guessing what might happen in said movie. By 2023, it meant killing Kamala Khan and resurrecting her IMMEDIATELY to reveal she was a mutant the whole time because her TV show revealed her to be a mutant, forcing the best new Marvel character of the 21st Century into the most mercenary, cynical, off-putting fake death I’ve ever seen. Kamala was “dead” for a month. A month! Real-time, not even comics-time, comics time she was dead for, like, 48 hours, max. And for what? No one reads comics. Making Kamala a mutant isn’t going to get you any sales, it’s just going to make your actual readers sit through a crappy stunt “death.” Ugh. I’m still mad about it. Anyway. Spider-Man 2 means Doc Ock is back, and he’s got a new look, and it sucks so bad. So bad. This month’s trainwreck opens with a bunch of snarky narration explaining who Spider-Man is as he arrives home and becomes Peter Parker, who STILL ISN’T BACK WITH MJ, as he enters his apartment and finds it full of this book’s zombie supporting cast, as well as this new Big John guy.
Peter is looking slightly more human under Ramos’ pencil this month, but everyone else still looks insane, got it. We shift our scene to some building somewhere where someone is tinkering with electronics, and that turns out to be Doc Ock.
Then we’re suddenly back to Peter’s place. This is some very quick cuts.
This video game scene has a real “written by guy who doesn’t play video games” vibe. One-page cut to the Daily Bugle, where Robbie is trying to convince JJJ to cover a delegation from Palestine visiting the UN, but he’s not into it. Remember the Daily Bugle? I like those guys. Shame to see them like this. Cut back to Peter for a beat that only makes me more confused.
Why, look, it’s allegedly beautiful model-actress Mary Jane Watson-Parker, not looking at all freakish and inhuman!
Well, that conversation made zero sense. She “stopped by his place?” Not THEIR place? Are they meant to still be living in his crappy apartment? Ugh, who even cares. Spectacular reads like an alternate reality, and thanks to the art, sure looks like one, too. Later, Spider-Man is swinging around, thinking things are going pretty well for a change, and being drawn in such a way that in the first panel, he looks like he’s about to smash into the ground because he swung too low. He asks himself, if things are looking up, why does he feel so cold? This question gets a whole splash page for some reason. Then:
There he is. Alright, so Doc Ock is already known to be wearing a long coat in the new movie. And green tights were never his best look, so sure, put him in a coat. WHY DOES HE LOOK LIKE A VAMPIRE!?!?!
Hey, this is weird, I finally get to say something nice about the art. That bottom panel has some really good energy, despite the weird Spider-Man figure. Ramos is good with Ock’s arms. How about that?
Yeah, the arms are something that actually work in his style! Ock delivers a typical Doc Ock speech about how he doesn’t understand why Spider-Man has always been such a problem for him since he’s smarter and stronger, and talks about what the best way to catch a spider is. As he snaps Spidey up and smashes him into a wall, he says he’s made his arms “ten times stronger,” which… ok. They were already pretty strong. He tells his injured foe that he’s added many new features to these new arms, and once again demands Spider-Man unmask in public. Our guy refuses.
What’s Ock up to this time? I don’t know, but I know this stupid vampire look will hang around for an absurdly long time after this story is over. It’s not great.