Amazing Spider-Man 74 - Preview - LET'S GOOO!

[classicgmer]

The run after Beyond might be for you, I mean don't get your hopes high but we know a massive mephisto event is coming and they might just save the reveals for that.Although I feel Spider-man will get sidelined, heck they didn't even include the web in Aaron's Avengers primal forces thing.

It's not a high chance but after Beyond could be like Pre-OMD

I'm convinced now more then ever that if they don't address OMD in a major way during Aaron's big Mephisto story he's cooking up then they never will. It's all but guaranteed that the Mephisto thing over in Avengers will be a major linewwide event with tie-ins galore and probably the biggest spotlight Mephisto has ever had.

[FFJamie94]

So, Marvel is Mephisto trying to make sure the Marriage never comes, Spencer is Doctor Strange telling Mephisto that's messed up and it'll just make their love stronger (even the names line up, M-M, S-S)

All Mephisto has to do is kick Peter in the balls enough times so he doesn't produce any sperm.

[NC_Yankee]

I think the issue is it got to a point where, after everything they'd gone through, the marriage was too rock solid to break up save for a hail mary like Mephisto.

Canon actually proves that is NOT the case. Dan Slott created a character I absolutely loathe in Silk with the hormonal sex scenes. It is not hard to picture a scenario where the hormones kick in and MJ sees him banging Cindy. There goes the marriage. Another scenario:,Peter catches MJ on the “Casting Couch. As for OMD, There is absolutely no justification for that story to be continuing on for 13 years and counting, and I am waiting for Lowe or someone at Marvel to justify it beyond fear of losing readers. As for the future I said it before and I will say it again: I do not see OMD going away or even addressed before ASM 1000 at the absolute earliest.

[your_name_here]

I just want to hear something from Spencer. There MUST be something on his part that’s not being spoken. I was a big supporter of Last Remains despite people not really liking that. You can just tell this isn’t the original story from a country mile. Kindred was supposed to be Harry.
Hell, maybe the Norman and Mephisto stuff was always one twist, but OMD was certainly going to be addressed.

In the interview posted here, Spencer literally outright says it is/Kindred is all about all the stuff Pete has managed to “put under the rug” over the years coming to light.

Gahhhh, it’s just such a shame.

[Dasklein83]

I just want to hear something from Spencer. There MUST be something on his part that’s not being spoken. I was a big supporter of Last Remains despite people not really liking that. You can just tell this isn’t the original story from a country mile. Kindred was supposed to be Harry.
Hell, maybe the Norman and Mephisto stuff was always one twist, but OMD was certainly going to be addressed.

In the interview posted here, Spencer literally outright says it is/Kindred is all about all the stuff Pete has managed to “put under the rug” over the years coming to light.

Gahhhh, it’s just such a shame.

Spencer has to speak to this at some point. I re-read the whole run before reading 74 today, and I came away with the following major observations, especially when you consider all of Kindred’s internal monologues leading up to and including Last Remains.

1) Kindred was always meant by Spencer to be pre-OMD Harry. There is literally no other way to reconcile the overall narrative.

2) The “sin” Kindred wanted Peter to confess is that Peter was no better than Norman, insofar as Peter and Norman both made deals with Mephisto. It’s also heavily implied that MJ remembers the deal in Last Remains. I do think Norman selling Harry’s soul was always part of Spencer’s original plan. I do not believe it was always his intent to address Sins Past.

3) The story was probably meant to end with them remembering and acknowledging the deal, and freeing Harry’s soul, with Peter and MJ now free to write their own destinies. Strange specifically asked Mephisto what was wrong with Peter’s soul, and it is never again addressed or followed up on, outside of the ambiguous gambling scenes at the Casino. I suppose you could argue that when Strange bet on Peter during Sinister War, that Peter surviving somehow meant that the damage to his soul was undone. However, I think that’s a generous reading at best.

4) I suspect Spencer’s original plans were all approved on the front end, and then Marvel got cold feet after Last Remains and put the kibosh on it. Spencer probably then decided to fix Sins Past if he wasn’t going to be allowed to address OMD directly. When you go back and look at all of Kindred’s internal monologues, yon just can’t reconcile Last Remains with this ending. Even if you want to say A.I. Harry was controlling the twins, and Mephisto was controlling A.I. Harry, you still have a problem. A.I. Harry wouldn’t have remembered dying in the ambulance. Moreover, the twins being in Hell makes zero sense. What did they do before Sins Past to deserve that fate? Remember, Kindred was already in Hell long before Mysterio killed himself in Guardian Devil, and that was in the late 90s. Harry died in 1993, so that clearly works.

[Krec99]

This is the second time Harry was cloned and nothing done with his character it’s a shame basically

Spencer fixed

Peter and Mj back together
Killed kraven
Fixed sins pasted
Fixed Harry back to being dead from Spec SM #200

[The Twilight Mexican]

3) The story was probably meant to end with them remembering and acknowledging the deal, and freeing Harry’s soul, with Peter and MJ now free to write their own destinies. Strange specifically asked Mephisto what was wrong with Peter’s soul, and it is never again addressed or followed up on, outside of the ambiguous gambling scenes at the Casino.

I would argue even those scenes aren't ambiguous:

https://i.ibb.co/dp6s6rW/RCO002-w-1626279083.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/D4GP44m/RCO031-1626279083.jpg

Strange is explicitly talking about Pete: "Peter Parker would never --" would never what, Doc? Make the deal for Harry's soul that someone else made? He didn't. What does that have to do with anything relevant?

[t-spider]

I'm confused about one thing... and I'm only going off pics I've seen on BC today, and not having read the issue...

spoilers:

Did they explain Kindreds powers? It seemed every time the twins died, they went to Hell, got tortured, and it was to 'condition' them for some Mephisto purpose. He also had a hand in controlling the Harry A. I., it seemed... did he give the twins their powers too, so they could get their revenge? That's why they never suffered any permanent damage from any blows and could kill and bring Peter back to life all those times?

end of spoilers

[Dasklein83]

I would argue even those scenes aren't ambiguous:

https://i.ibb.co/dp6s6rW/RCO002-w-1626279083.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/D4GP44m/RCO031-1626279083.jpg

Strange is explicitly talking about Pete: "Peter Parker would never --" would never what, Doc? Make the deal for Harry's soul that someone else made? He didn't. What does that have to do with anything relevant?

I think you’ve made a good point. It’s more “implied” than “ambiguous” but that can definitely be read to suggest that Mephisto no longer has any hold on his soul.

[Frontier]

Canon actually proves that is NOT the case. Dan Slott created a character I absolutely loathe in Silk with the hormonal sex scenes. It is not hard to picture a scenario where the hormones kick in and MJ sees him banging Cindy. There goes the marriage. Another scenario:,Peter catches MJ on the “Casting Couch. As for OMD, There is absolutely no justification for that story to be continuing on for 13 years and counting, and I am waiting for Lowe or someone at Marvel to justify it beyond fear of losing readers. As for the future I said it before and I will say it again: I do not see OMD going away or even addressed before ASM 1000 at the absolute earliest.

That would have been as controversial and OOC as OMD in my opinion.

This is the second time Harry was cloned and nothing done with his character it’s a shame basically

Spencer fixed

Peter and Mj back together
Killed kraven
Fixed sins pasted
Fixed Harry back to being dead from Spec SM #200

Did a lot of people really want Harry dead again?

[RJT]

Admittedly, the end of this run felt rushed and the art was inconsistent at best, but I feel like this was a solid ending for the run, especially if you don’t focus on what you *wished* was going to happen and instead look at what actually did happen.
The main takeaway from me—aside from the “fixing” of Sins Past and providing a viable in-story reason for Mephisto’s involvement with Peter and MJ (and those are two huge developments that I think most people here would be lauding if they hadn’t sold themselves on the idea that Spencer was going to undo OMD)—but the other takeaway is that Spencer really, really, really liked JM DeMatteis’s work on Spider-Man.
JMD is my favorite Spidey writer, so I’m partial, but I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn to say that is undoubtedly one of the most important writers on the book, whose work has been lauded (outside the Ditko stuff, is there a Spider-Man story that has been in-print more consistently than Kraven’s Last Hunt?) but also the victim of continuity muck-ups. Spencer seemed to methodically go through and “reaffirm” two of the three biggest JMD stories (Amazing 400 is probably incapable of being properly brought back in a meaningful way, since I don’t think they’ll ever go down the “Aunt May knows Peter is Spider-Man” path again) Spencer addressed all the post -KLH Kraven shenanigans in “Hunted” and put the conclusion Spectacular 200 back into continuity. His run even hinged on JMD’s conclusion to the “Pursuit” storyline which tied the Chameleon’s scheme to “resurrect” Peter’s parents to Harry.
I still think Spencer’s run is pretty average overall—it was a mix of solid stories, some middle of the road stories and a couple of real stinkers—but it will tip into above average for me because of how much Spencer utilized and highlighted JMD’s work on the character.

[Jness]

My guess as to what happens errs more on the simple side:

Spencer gets an offer from Substack

Once he makes it known to Marvel this is happening, there's a rush to figure out how to get everything out the door and plotlines planned for a long time to be set up early

They come up with Beyond as a response as well, so that they don't need to immediately bridge a gap on short notice

The lesson here: don't buy mainstream comics expecting natural conclusions, which are exceptions rather than the rules

[your_name_here]

Did we ever get a decent enough explanation about how this tied back to Kingpin?

[Dzika_Sowa]

So, the "Confess! Confess!" line didn't go anywhere?

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

So, the "Confess! Confess!" line didn't go anywhere?

Nope. They don't even try a swerve like "Confess you didn't even remember we actually exist, Peter!"