Amazing Spider-Man #693

Hmm, it's been a while since I actually did a post...  Let's see if I remember how I'm supposed to do this.  Okay, intro first.  The last issue of this comic ruled in ways I'd forgotten comic books can rule.  The character Alpha, who was introduced last issue, was fantastic.  Speaking of fantastic, this issue's cover rules pretty damn hard, but then a lot of the covers from the books I picked up this week are damn good(I'm looking at YOU, Deadpool #60!).  So yeah, if I had scored last issue, it would have come away with an EASY 10.  Let's take a gander at this issue and hope it lives up to my crazy hype.

Amazing Spider-Man #693:

Summary: So Alpha managed to singlehandedly take down Giganto last issue, no thanks to his "sidekick" Spider-Man, who the media figures was there to add color and moral support...  HA!!  *sigh* I've missed that "HA!!"...  Anyway, being the greatest hero ever(in his mind at least), Alpha leaves the lesser heroes, you know, Spidey and the FF, to clean up Giganto while he heads home.  Mr. Fantastic reiterates to Spidey that Alpha is Spidey's responsibility, which leads to a depressed Spidey(as Peter Parker, naturally) heading to Mary Jane's club.  MJ tries to cheer Spidey up, since, in Spidey's mind, Alpha is what he could have been had Uncle Ben's death not shaped him into the hero he is today.  While talking to MJ though, Spidey realizes that Alpha's identity is public and rushes off...  At Alpha's house, his girlfriend catches him making out with a cheerleader and storms off, even though Alpha tries to explain that he had no choice, since she WAS a cheerleader...  Again, HA!!  At this point, Jackal and one of his Spiderzons show up at Alpha's house, thus upping the awesomeness quotient of this issue tenfold.  Well aware of Alpha's inability to use more than one power at a time, the Spiderzon defeats Alpha, and Jackal kidnaps him, the cheerleader, Alpha's parents AND his agent.  Spidey arrives on the scene too late and rushes back to Horizon Labs, where Max Modell helps Spidey(as Peter again) create a device that could hone in on Alpha.  Spidey heads to an abandoned schoolhouse and is jumped by a mess of Spiderzons and is defeated.  The Spiderzons take Spidey to Jackal, who is his regular hilarious self, telling Spidey that Spidey had "out-mad-scienced" Jackal when Spidey created Alpha, and as such Jackal wanted to clone Alpha and create an army of Alpha clones that would do his bidding.  With that, Spidey reveals that he had faked his defeat at the hands of the Spiderzons to get closer to Jackal and attacks Jackal, destroying Jackal's body with one punch...  But wait, that was a clone, and another Jackal walks into the room, releasing the Alpha clones from their tanks, telling them to destroy Spidey.  Unfortunately for Jackal, the Alpha clones don't have Alpha's powers since the Parker Particles didn't alter Alpha's DNA.  With that plan a bust, Jackal goes to Plan B, steal Alpha's powers.  Jackal heads to a computer, and to distract Spidey tells one of the Spiderzons to kill his hostages.  With Spidey distracted, Jackal goes about draining Alpha of his powers, even though that would kill Alpha.  Spidey tells Alpha to fight out of his bonds to save his family, and Alpha does end up freeing himself, but not for his family, for himself and his fear of losing his powers.  Now free, Alpha destroys his clones, so Jackal turns to Plan C, press the big red button, which destroys Jackal and all of his Spiderzons, leaving no trace of where the real Jackal was holed up.  You can't say Jackal didn't come into this with plenty of plans.  With that, Alpha realizes that he still has a lot to learn, which cheers Spidey up...  Until Spidey realizes Alpha was talking to his agent.  Alpha's agent ends up getting him emancipated from his parents and sets him up in a penthouse, where he spends his time drinking and fooling around with models.  This issue ends with Spidey hard at work at Horizon Labs, doing everything he possibly could to come up with a way to strip Alpha of his powers since he was, to Spidey, not worthy of them.

Thoughts: Come on, it was Alpha AND Jackal...  In the same comic!  How couldn't I love it?!  Alpha continued being self-absorbed and an all-around jerk, while Jackal was his regular crazy, funny self.  I will admit that I was a tiny bit let down by the end of this one when Alpha blew Spidey off and didn't take Spidey up on his offer of more training, but to be honest, that kind of fit Alpha's whole deal.  He was a regular kid who gained insane power.  After being ignored by his schoolmates, his own parents and girls, he now had everybody throwing themselves at him.  What does he do?  He goes with it.  In a way it's more realistic than your usual superhero origin(starts out as regular guy, gains powers, becomes selfless), which is probably what I'm enjoying about the whole Alpha thing.  If I was in his place and gained those powers would I become Spidey or Alpha?  If I'm being honest with myself, I'd almost definitely become Alpha.  As for this storyline going forward, there are still a couple of different ways Dan Slott can go...  Alpha DOES become the responsible hero Spidey wants him to be.  Spidey does manage to drain Alpha's powers, leaving him normal again.  Spidey tries and fails to drain Alpha's powers, turning Alpha into a super-villain in the process.  Spidey does drain Alpha's powers, leading to him siding with one of Spidey's enemies(Jackal?) to get revenge.  Alpha ends up just becoming his own kind of hero, regardless of what Spidey wants.  Or of course something else altogether.  But needless to say, there are tons of ways this story can go, and you know I'll be eager to find out what happens next...  Man, this review was way longer than I anticipated it being...  Methinks I'm gonna have to try to tone down the verbiage going forward...

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.

I'd forgotten how awesome Jackal is...