This month, the mysterious Studio F is on colors, last seen on Spectacular Spider-Man, Vol. 2, I think. It’s funny how this arc represents the longest Marvel run by a writer/penciler team ever, while at the same time, inkers and/or colorists change almost every month. Well, anyway, despite the 50 crazy things happening at the end of last issue, we open here with Kitty Pryde seeing the bedlam in Peter’s neighborhood on TV news, as well as MJ’s Mom begging for help finding her missing daughter. Kitty demands the X-Men do something over the objections of a surprisingly reticent Professor X, and it seems they’re going to go. Meanwhile, Sue and Richard have gotten MJ to a hospital, where they’re wheeling her in for surgery. And Sue is very suspicious of Mr. Richard Parker.
Oh ho! Back at Oscorp, Peter Parker is winding himself up internally to kill Dr. Octopus as Spider-Woman holds him back.
I guess Peter will have to get in line for the killin’.
Everyone actually listens to Fury and the fight’s over before it starts. Otto thanks Fury for his help, but says his team has this under control. But Fury says he’s not going anywhere. Otto reveals that he made a plea deal to work for the US government, and that’s how he wound up on the Spider-Man super soldier project that Fury doesn’t know about, due to the “great many people” in the US government who hate Fury and want a solution to him.
A clone saga caused by a vengeful Doc Ock trying to save his own skin. Perfect, really. It’s clean, it makes sense, and it’s been an insane ride. Doc Ock goes on to explain, even as Sue confirms it at the hospital, that one of his Peter Parker experiments was making it age faster and convincing it that it was Richard Parker. The hits just keep on comin’.
It’s a little thing, but I really like Ock being the 2nd person to say this is the biggest thing since the Hulk, but Fury said it was the worst thing since and Ock says it’s the best thing since. Just a nice bit of business.
The Peters all start dog piling on Ock, but when Peter gets his chance, a huge slab of metal smashes into him, as Ock says he didn’t want to bring it to this level.
This particular twist doesn’t quite work for me. Doc Ock as a Magneto who can’t think bigger than making big weird tentacles with his power seems king of silly. On the other hand, they had to get some arms on him for the big finale somehow. And that’s next time.