Customer Reviews

Spectacular Spider-Man Vol. 2: Countdown

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This second trade paperback volume collects issues #6-10 of "The Spectacular Spider-Man," written by Paul Jenkins, distinctively penciled by Humberto Ramos, and inked by Wayne Faucher. The five-part "Countdown" story features Doctor Octopus as the villain, which is not suprising because since he was in the summer blockbuster film "Spider-Man 2" last summer Marvel had Doc Ock story lines in all of their Spider-Man titles, along with a couple of mini-series as well. "Countdown" is not quite as enjoyable as the "Amazing Spider-Man" story arc with the old Doc Ock tangling with the new Doc Ock, but also just that much better than the "Ultimate Spider-Man" storyline regarding the making of the Spider-Man movie.

Spider-Man has not yet encountered from his battles with Venom (see "Spectacular Spider-Man Volume 1: The Hunger") when he is confronted once again by Doctor Octopus, who has been spending his copious free time enhancing the abilities of his metal arms. In fact, in their first battle Doc Ock defeats Spider-Man easily, dislocating the webhead's shoulder again for Mary Jane to fix when her battered husband gets home. But instead of finishing the superhero off when he has him dead to rights, Doctor Octopus makes Spider-Man an offer: go to Time Square and reveal your identity to the world or face certain death. Spidey refuses, and escapes into the river to try and figure out what to do next.

Meanwhile, Peter Parker is still dealing with the guilt of what happened to his longtime friend, Flash Thompson. Flash, now confined to a wheelchair having suffered a devastating brain injury thanks to the Green Goblin, has been moved into the Parkers' apartment complex as a daily reminder that there are some tragedies that Spider-Man cannot prevent. However, Doctor Octopus has broken into the Central Museum of Antiquities and in turns out that he has another plan besides getting Spider-Man that involves Hayyan Zarour, the Palestinian Ambassador, so the battle continues.

Fortunately Spider-Man does not have to rely on just the New York City Police and the Israeli Secret Service to help with this one, because he also has Peter Parker's next-door neighbor, Big John Anderson. The only real problem with the "Countdown" story line is that it requires the villain to decide there is something he wants to do other than killing his opponent (remember the old "Saturday Night Live" skit with all the James Bond villains having a roundtable where the lessons is to kill the hero right away, do not spend time gloating or describing your grand plans, just get him and kill him). Spider-Man's solution to meeting Doc Ock's is definitely a hit or miss proposition with fans, and while I like the gravity of Spider-Man's final battle with Doctor Octopus in art 5, it is undercut by quickly being followed up by a joke ending. The result is not a great Doctor Octopus story for Spider-Man, but one that is clearly above average.

I love Humberto Ramos's artwork, I love Spider-Man, and I'd seen some positive reviews for the writing of Mr. Jenkins, so I was hoping to like this book more than I did.

Unfortunately, this just doesn't hold together. I realize that this is just supposed to be good, innocent Spider-Man fun, and I shouldn't expect Anna Karenina or Watchmen or something, but even by low standards this book is simply a retread of past stories, inflated with an overblown plot and a lot of fake nonsense about international politics. Dr. Octopus decides to start an international incident by kidnapping the Palestinian prime minister, simply to get Spider-Man to remove his mask? That's an overblown crime for a pretty lame goal.

Another problem is the pacing and overall length. The build-up is way too long, and the payoff is way too easy. This story would have been worth one or two issues back in the day, but here it is stretched into five or six issues in which nothing much happens except Peter's usual moaning a groaning about how he's going to resolve everything while keeping Aunt May and MJ safe. If the scripting was good, that stretched-out length might be worth something, but it is mediocre at best, and terribly cheesy at worst. At one point, Peter actually says to Mary Jane (as she's fretting as usual): "This too shall pass." UGH.

The character of Dr. Octopus was written incredibly poorly. His speechifying is long, pointless, annoying, and not credible as a character study...it's all simply a cliche of menacing bad-guy blather.

All in all, I know you can pick this book up for cheap, but you may not want to. There's nothing here we haven't seen before, and we've seen it done better.