Grade "Go Down Swinging!"

[blackspidey2099]

Curious as to your reasons for disliking #800 so much. What was it that put you off, after enjoying all the other issues?

Well, so many plot points were unsatisfactorily concluded IMO.

- In ASM 798, Peter says Spider-Man may be out of the fight, but Peter on his own is even more dangerous. This led me to think Peter would be the one to stop Osborn, using his skills and intelligence. Instead, what happened is that Flash basically did all the work saving everyone, and then Peter was gifted the symbiote out of nowhere. So it was a complete cop-out.
- The entire thing with Harry's mom being alive. First of all, it made no sense that Osborn tried to kill her, since it was usually showed that he still loved her. Her entire presence seemed like a deus ex machina to give Normie a reason to turn on Norman. Like she literally did nothing in the book, and no explanation was offered for where she was all this time.
- The entire symbiote plot. Eddie coming out of nowhere was just bad writing IMO, despite being cool in the moment. There was also the completely OOC moment where Peter didn't give Flash the symbiote to save his life - what happened to "No One Dies"? And I know Peter said that was an unrealistic goal, but that doesn't mean he won't at least try to save Flash. The BS excuse that the symbiote would die from saving Flash from being electrocuted was utter BS since it has healed Flash from far worse like his head being blown off. The other thing was that Venom has never been a match for Carnage, and I don't know why Peter thought that would change today (not to mention the fact that Slott apparently forgot that the symbiote never enhanced Peter's strength in the first place). They acted like it was such a huge edge that Peter needed but it ended up being a complete waste of time, and even if they had used it, it would have been bad writing since Venom was never that strong. Anyways, this was just a complete waste of so many pages in an already bloated anniversary issue.
- Flash's death. It happened so abruptly and for no reason. Never was it explained why Flash was even there to give an exposition dump, and it made no sense either - how did Flash even know where they were? And why couldn't Flash have just called Peter and given him the news instead of going there? And why did the Anti-Venom get used up so quickly? Back when Eddie was Anti-Venom, he cured the entire city before running out. How can Flash run out so quickly? Slott also made the moment where Flash finds Peter's identity, something built up for nearly a decade, into a quick throwaway line to cheaply increase them impact of a death that was completely unearned. To be fair, I did like the funeral scene, but it doesn't make up for all the bad writing which came before.
- The final battle with Red Goblin. Sure, Norman is kinda full of himself, but his ego was never a weakness until now. Basically, Slott just wrote himself into a corner and needed to come up with some BS reason for Spidey to win, so he stole a weakness from his pet character, Doc Ock, which Spidey could exploit. It also made no sense for the Carnage symbiote to die so easily, even on its own. Carnage has always been pretty resistant to flames and heat.
- The entire Doc Ock plot. It seemed like Slott just included him in this issue just as something to check off on his bucket list. There was no reason for Doc Ock to pop upas a deus ex machina. The "post-credits" scene was also so infuriating - Doc Ock, after getting the much smarter Peter fired from his job at Horizon Labs, and then tearing down the company that Peter built, gets a great job at the university Peter founded while Peter is stuck with a shitty job at Bugle which doesn’t even give him enough money to pay rent... If that's not complete unfair BS then I don't know what is.
- The fact that this entire story would have been solved if Peter had just spent a few hours, when he was hiding out at Oscorp Labs, whipping up some Anti-Venom instead of just hiding and doing nothing.

[oldschool]

Wow....pretty impressive that a full 70% in this poll voted the story an "A" or "B"; I realize this is still a relatively small sample that votes here but this may be the most universally praised Spidey tale in years, at least on these boards. If Slott wanted to exit on a high note, it appears he is doing so....