{"id":13719,"date":"2022-07-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=13719"},"modified":"2024-01-30T10:14:01","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T14:14:01","slug":"asm-406","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/07\/08\/asm-406\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 406"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Oh, sure, this\u2019ll hold up. No way the real Doc Ock won\u2019t inevitably come back and replace this one. With purple hair, even. 1995! Can\u2019t wait to see this issue\u2019s Overpower cards. Will it be 2 of the same one again? Seems likely. JM DeMatteis actually writes this one in full, no scripter, for the first time in a few months, Angel Medina provides guest pencils, Randy Emberlin & Larry Mahlstedt ink and Bob Sharen colors. In this era, \u201ccyberspace\u201d began to creep into comics. Like any other emerging technology, it was quickly turned into a gimmick by people who had literally no idea what it was or how it worked (A trend going back at least to atomic radiation making all these heroes in the first place). I read a lot of really dopey comics about \u201ccyberspace\u201d back then, but none stupider than the type of thing beginning this issue as\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I am far more willing to believe a man can stick to walls than I am\u2026 whatever this is. \u201cFire the probe at that cyber-door! See if you can rescue the princess while you\u2019re there!\u201d Sheesh, man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ben very nearly gets \u201clost in cyberspace,\u201d but Seward is able to pull him out. These guys are treating AOL like it\u2019s Neal Stephenson\u2019s Snowcrash. The whole system overloads and explodes, Ben barely diving Seward out of the way. Then we cut to Spider-Man recapping how he almost killed his wife over the last 2 issues when he\u2019s interrupted by said wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Medina\u2019s relatively new on the scene here, as far as I know. He\u2019s gonna wind up working on various things, including Todd McFarlane\u2019s Spawn, before winding up the regular penciler of a Spider-Man title in 2007. Ya never know where life\u2019s gonna take you. Anyway, as Spider-Man irresponsibly swings his pregnant wife around, The New Doctor Octopus wanders around her homebase singing \u201cThe Itsy Bitsy Spider,\u201d  which surprises and slightly unnerves her henchmen. No typical goons, these, her guys are scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s one long human body. She must be 15 feet tall! Compared to a lot of guys in this era, Medina\u2019s a pretty solid cartoonist, but that perspective gag didn\u2019t work too well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Boy oh boy. \u201cI\u2019m downloading a shareware version of Commander Keen right into my brain, Brucknerr!\u201d \u201cI\u2019m participating in an AOL chat about punk music with my brain, Brucknerr!\u201d \u201cI\u2019m taking the next half hour to download a 12 second .wav file of a quote from MST3K directly into my brain, Brucknerr!\u201d I may be projecting. Unlike anyone working on this story, I was on the internet in 1995, and several years before, and this all seemed so ridiculous to me, even then. Tell me Superman has powers because he\u2019s an alien, and ok, it\u2019s not like there\u2019s any way to disprove that. Tell people in the 60s radiation can turn a man into a Hulk, and they maybe don\u2019t know enough to protest. Tell me this internet nonsense is happening in 1995 and I just can\u2019t hang. Doc Ock mentions Otto Octavius was her mentor as she tells her lil buddy that their organization must be \u201cthe sole winners in the techno-wars!\u201d Haha, ok. \u201cWe shall control the flow of demo copies of Doom!\u201d Ironically, I may have shared my disdain for this nonsense in the AOL Marvel Comics Chat Room. One time Kurt Busiek was there taking questions about Untold Tales of Spider-Man, it was fun. This is a very distracting issue. Maybe I can keep it to a minimum from here. Back at the other lab, Seward is looking at some of the files they downloaded, and they bear a symbol that looks like an octopus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another very long person! Seward begins probing Peter\u2019s mind for any more trouble, while out in the city, some of Ock\u2019s goons unleash a \u201cvirtual reality bomb\u201d that makes everyone on the street think they\u2019re in \u201cthe Jurassic age.\u201d Man, this is vexing me. But it only lasts a few moments before shorting out. Still, the test is successful, and the goons call home to say they can begin construction of the real bomb. Speaking of bombs, later, Peter & MJ are having a fancy rooftop dinner to celebrate the fact that he\u2019s been declared post-hypnotic-murder-suggestion-free! A medical first, I assume! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For all his love of gloom and misery, DeMatteis was pretty adept at sweet stuff like this. With the whole team convinced they were really bundling Peter & MJ off to live happily ever after, they could afford to really play up how happy and hopeful they are at this point. They\u2019re getting the fairytale ending. Until they\u2019re not. Elsewhere, Trainer is trying to break the encryption on Ock\u2019s files when she just strolls into his office. Scarlet Spider was hiding above, apparently waiting for this, but she knows he\u2019s coming and activates a personal force field he can\u2019t get through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not exactly \u201cThe Green Goblin is my best friend\u2019s dad,\u201d but I guess that\u2019s the sort of thing they were shooting for. \u201cRemember that classic villain you loved that we needlessly killed? Well, I\u2019m WAY better than him!\u201d Just what everyone wanted. A permanent change, yessir. Otto Octavius is never coming back. And that, rather unceremoniously, is it for JM DeMatteis\u2019 time on ASM. After a few months only plotting, he comes back to try to make up for the terrible decision to kill Doc Ock with this jobber replacement, and he\u2019s out. For a few years, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh, sure, this\u2019ll hold up. No way the real Doc Ock won\u2019t inevitably come back and replace this one. With purple hair, even. 1995! Can\u2019t wait to see this issue\u2019s Overpower cards….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[9,1225,455,253,496,125,461,21,432,599,494,2],"class_list":["post-13719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-angel-medina","tag-ben-reilly","tag-bob-sharen","tag-carolyn-trainer","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-larry-mahlstedt","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-randy-emberlin","tag-scarlet-spider","tag-seward-trainer","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13719"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28977,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13719\/revisions\/28977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}