Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #681

Background

Doc Ock has taken control of Horizon Labs Apogee 1 space shuttle and it's crew, which John Jameson is a part of. Spidey and Johnny Storm arrive to save the day.

Story Details

Spidey, Johnny and Col. John Jameson are all surrounded by the octo-zombiefied Apogee 1 Space Station crew. Flaming on, Johnny grabs both Spidey and Jameson and flies them to safety, but Spidey tells him to douse his flames so as not to burn up all the space station's remaining oxygen. Spidey decides to get the three of them out of there on Johnny's "pogo plane" that they arrived in, and bring the Avengers to deal with the crew. As they approach it, the plane explodes in a fireball.

Back on the ground, at Horizon Labs, Mayor J. Jonah Jameson, Max Modell and Juergen watch onscreen as the pogo plane explodes. Juergen says the Apogee is losing orbit quickly. Jonah tells Max to get his son off of the station. Johnny, Jameson and Spidey approach the Apogee's escape shuttle, but before they can board, it too explodes. Just then, Ock's octobots take control of some orbiting satellites.

Spidey comes up with the idea to cut the air on the station and pass out the zombie-fied crew. Johnny calls Max Modell on his Reed Richards-designed smart phone (the fantastic-phone?). When Jonah sees Spider-man on Modell's phone, he of course rages at him. Spidey tells Juergen about the plan to cut the oxygen.

At Ock's secret undersea headquarters, Ock and Mysterio figure out via a visual uplink to Apogee that Spider-man is aboard. With the touch of a button, Ock sends the Apogee plunging back into Earth's orbit. Spidey says they're going ahead with their own plan, and switches his webbing to the magnetic webbing style he developed at Horizon as Peter Parker. He covers the passed-out crew in the webbing, which attaches to the octobots, and gathers them all up in a big web net. The magnetic webbing blocks the signal Doc Ock was sending to them.

The Apogee explodes upon re-entry to Earth's atmosphere, but Spidey, Johnny, Jameson and the crew are all safe aboard the station's "Deep Space Sensory Deprivation Chamber". Johnny absorbs the flames upon re-entry, and explodes a "super nova fist" to give the chamber some "downward thrust". They land in the water, everyone's fine. Spidey asks if he landed them in Daytona Beach during Spring Break on purpose? Johnny says "Don't ya just love a happy ending?".

Back at Ock's lair, he has the Sinister Six gathered around, and says it's time to implement his master plan: his last master plan.

General Comments

A satisfying-enough conclusion to the two-parter. Slott and Yost seem to be having a blast sharing writing duties on these issues. John Jameson's "girls, I hate to interrupt.." line to a bickering Spider-man and Johnny was quite funny. Camuncoli's and Janson's art is a bit choppier this issue, but it more than gets the job done. I have to mention Frank D' Armata's perfect coloring job this issue, who frequently manages to inject splashes of color among the many drab greys of the space station scenes.

Overall Rating

This was a fun story. It wraps up the "Doc Ock is messing around with the Apogee space station" plot that's been simmering for about 30 issues, and clears the decks for Doc's master plan and the Ends Of The Earth storyline.

Footnote

Spidey first used the magnetic webbing trick while protecting hostages against the villain Massacre in ASM #656.