“Weird.
Not a spoiler because it’s how the volume begins, but what you should know is that Doctor Octopus has put his mind into the body of Peter Parker, Spider-Man.
It’s one of those nightmare scenarios, where you’re watching Doc Ock (yeah, wer’re tight, I call him Ock) ruin Peter Parker’s life because he comes at it the way he does his own. The thing is, Ock is really smart and kind of an asshole. Peter Parker is really smart, but absolutely not an asshole.
It’s a book that tackles that old question. Haven’t you always wondered if your life would be better if you were 10% more of an asshole? If you just cared a little less about what people thought and instead just did things because you felt like it? Because Ock isn’t necessarily TRYING to ruin Peter Parker’s life. It’s not one of these situations where he’s impersonating Spider-Man so that people will continue to call him a Menace. Or a Dennis. Or a…well, you can do the math on combining those terms. No, Ock is planning to remain as Peter Parker forever. He’s in it for the long haul.
The experiment is interesting. Is there something essential to the characters that made them who they are, or could anyone be Spider-Man given some web shooters and a rad pair of pajamas?
Either way, between this and Brand New Day and Spider Island, for better or worse, I have to admit that I appreciate the people at Marvel being up for experimenting and trying some wild ideas with this character. Most of them, on paper, don’t actually work. I mean, mind swap? This is the ultimate soap opera nuttiness. As is having a clone. Or secret agent parents. Hmm…
But really, even though the ideas sound pretty stupid, I end up enjoying where they go with them. Rather than take a big story (X-Men fighting the Avengers!? WHAAAAAT?!!!) and have the one-sentence premise BE the entirety of the story, the spider books do a good job of making the premise nothing more than a platform and letting the story go from there.”