In every Look Back, we examine a comic book issue from 10/25/50 years ago (plus a wild card every month with a fifth week in it). This time around, a little bit, we head to October 2015 to see a bold new era for Spider-Man as Peter Parker finally has some success.
One of the interesting things about the Superior Spider-Man era was that Otto Octavius taking over Peter Parker’s body was, while a terrible thing for Peter on a personal level (and also in his relations with his family and friends), Octavius’ view of being “superior” to Peter was actually pretty on point when it came to Otto’s success as both a scientist and as a businessman, as he quickly took over the company that Peter had been working on for Dan Slott’s solo run on the series, Horizon Labs, where each of the scientists were given their own lab where they were allowed to work on their own projects. Peter Parker worked on new technology for Spider-Man, and once Octavius took over Peter’s body, Otto ruined the company, and it was taken over by Alchemex. Otto then created Parker Industries.
When Peter took back control of his body, he couldn’t very well shut Parker Industries down, and so he continued it, and it slowly began to do better and better, and in October 2015, a new Amazing Spider-Man volume launched with Parker Industries now doing so well that it has gone INTERNATIONAL! The issue was written by Dan Slott, penciled by Giuseppe Camuncoli, inked by Cam Smith, colored by Marte Gracia, and lettered by Joe Caramagna.
How Peter Parker took the world by storm
The main product that Parker Industries was selling was Webware, a smartwatch that allowed affordable internet access with unlimited data…
Image via Marvel
However, Parker Industries also created a great deal of other pieces of technology, and was actually even working for S.H.I.E.L.D, developing devices for the spy agency. As a result of that connection, Mockingbird was now assigned to be a liaison between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Parker Industries to help work as security, and that was helpful, because the villainous Zodiac kept trying to steal the technology behind Webware…
Image via Marvel
How cool is Spider-Man’s new Spider-Mobile? Spider-Man is now officially working for Parker Industries as Peter Parker’s bodyguard, and the spokesman for Parker Industries. He then shows off his brand-new, hi-tech costume (which I assume Alex Ross designed? I could easily look it up, but I like my strategy ot just kind of guessing)…
Image via Marvel
They foil the plot of the Zodiac, but there is an interesting bit where Nick Fury was totally prepared to steal the tech for S.H.I.E.L.D. if it came to that (this is very much like what the vibe was between Tony Stark and Fury’s father back in the day).
How did Peter get back in good with his old workmates?
Peter makes a major announcement, that he is forming a charitable organization, and he also notes that he will only get paid as a junior level executive. There’s a good bit where people note that the current setup that Spider-Man has with Parker Industries is basically just the one Iron Man had with Stark Industries back in the day (and just like now, Tony obviously WAS Iron Man)…
Image via Marvel
Peter is also paying Hobie Brown to pretend to be Spider-Man, as well, so that people won’t guess that Peter IS Spider-Man.
We learn that Peter has finally apologized enough to his old friends at Horizon Labs that he was able to be invited to the wedding of the labs’ founder, Max Modell, and after the wedding, Peter is able to surprise Max and his husband with the fact that Peter has hired Max, AND bought the name, Horizon, back from Alchemex for Max….
Image via Marvel
However, Zodiac attacks the wedding, and Hobie is there as Spider-Man, but obviously he can’t help that much, because he doesn’t have Spider-Man’s powers. Peter also confronts his partner, Sajani Jaffrey, who has been working behind his back for quite awhile.
However, we also learn that Sajani’s robot assistant, The Living Brain, is possessed by Otto Octavius, and he is actually working on SOME sort of plan, and it can’t be good (as it turns out, Otto was behind Parker Industries’ big growth through insider training, but he also is helping Anna-Marie Marconi, the scientist he loves).
Image via Marvel
There were also a number of backup stories, mostly promoting other new Spider-Man-related series, but also a little bit of a promo for future issues of Amazing Spider-Man, which set up a villain named Regent, who is in charge of a prison where he steals the powers from the supervillains that are under his control.
If you folks have any suggestions for November (or any other later months) 2015, 2000, 1975 and 1950 comic books for me to spotlight, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com! Here is the guide, though, for the cover dates of books so that you can make suggestions for books that actually came out in the correct month. Generally speaking, the traditional amount of time between the cover date and the release date of a comic book throughout most of comic history has been two months (it was three months at times, but not during the times we’re discussing here). So the comic books will have a cover date that is two months ahead of the actual release date (so October for a book that came out in August). Obviously, it is easier to tell when a book from 10 years ago was released, since there was internet coverage of books back then.