Spider-Man detractor-turned-ally J. Jonah Jameson has had ties to Spidey’s rogues gallery before, but in The Amazing Spider-Man, it’s Jonah himself who gets armed by one of the web spinner’s most notorious foes — literally.
The Amazing Spider-Man #6 — the series’ 900th legacy issue by writer Zeb Wells, Ed McGuinness, inkers McGuinness, Mark Morales, Wade Von Grawbadger and Cliff Rathburn, colorists Marcio Menyz, Dijjo Lima and Erick Arciniega and letterer VC’s Joe Caramagna — features Jonah adorned with the four tentacled appendages of none other than Otto Octavius, aka Doctor Octopus. Jonah is first seen appearing to use Octavius’ arms to crash through the wall, screaming Peter Parker’s name. But as Peter’s friends and colleagues gather for Peter’s birthday, it becomes apparent Jonah isn’t attacking him — instead, he’s asking for Peter’s help to free himself from Doc Ock’s artificial limbs. Or more precisely, Spider-Man’s help.
Why is Jonah Ock’d Up?
Felicia Hardy and Bobbi Morse’s intervention inadvertently sends the tentacled Jonah plummeting back through the hole in the wall towards the street. Ock’s arms break his fall, but it’s Spider-Man who prevents a potentially greater tragedy involving passing traffic below. With the situation stable, Ock’s arms release Jonah, but now affix themselves to Spidey, and scratch a simple message into the side of a nearby building: “Help.”
That plea is coming from Octavius himself, who is being held captive by a new iteration of The Living Brain, created by the son of the original Living Brain’s creator. Octavius’ predicament was first shown in issue #1. The new Living Brain has not only captured Octavius, but also Kraven, Mysterio, Electro, Sandman and Vulture — the original Sinister Six. The villain is using their abilities to power a Super-Adaptoid — called the Sinister Adaptoid — to battle Spider-Man, as a means to answer the question first posed by The Living Brain’s first incarnation: “Who is Spider-Man?”
Spider-Man and the Sinister Six unite to defeat the Adaptoid, and when Spider-Man defends the new Living Brain after the Six in turn seek to kill him, he infers an answer derived from Spidey’s actions: Spider-Man is a hero.
It’s not the first time Ock has had a connection to the original Living Brain — Ock’s mind secretly resided in the robot in the wake of Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Man story arc. And Jonah previously had his own connections to Spidey’s villains back in days of his anti-Spider-Man crusade — Jonah had scientist Spencer Smythe construct his Spider-Slayers, and also had a hand in turning private eye Mac Gargan into the Scorpion.
The Amazing Spider-Man #6 is on sale now from Marvel.
Source: Marvel