Synopsis:
In the city of Nueva York, in the year 2099, the Public Eye order everyone within the vicinity of the headquarters of mega-corp Alchemax to evacuate immediately. Miguel O'Hara disembarks from a nearby "mag-lev" and suits up as Spider-Man 2099 to investigate.It turns out that the Public Eye are trying to contain several biplanes and a T-Rex that have emerged as a result of temporal energy distortions. After assisting them in their endeavour, Spider-Man breaks into Alchemax headquarters, suspecting the corporation of causing the distortions in the first place. Instead, he discovers that the CEO of Alchemax, Tyler Stone (Hmm, that surname sounds familiar?) is being slowly erased from history by some unknown force from the past. Unfortunately for Miguel, Stone is his biological father, which means that he'll also be erased if he doesn't prevent whatever's causing the problem, which is pinpointed to the year 2013. He's forced to go anyway as he's recorded as appearing there already (As a Time Lord once said, Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.).
In the present day (2013) Otto Octavius is taking part in a company softball game at Horizon Labs. After hitting a home run and being a complete arse about it, the game is suddenly interrupted by several federal agents, who arrest Max Modell on the spot and take him away, shocking Otto (trust me, no pun intended there.), whilst the devious Tiberius Stone looks on from the distance, musing that this is only the start of a very long fall for Modell.
As the news spreads of Max's arrest, Horizon's stock prices plummet, and an "anonymous" individual begins leaking classified documents of theirs onto the internet. The Daily Bugle reports about the leaks, but not the footage of Modell's arrest since Robbie believes that this insider is trying to manipulate them all like pieces on a chess board.
Meanwhile, in the Goblin Underground, Phil Urich is whining at the Goblin King to let him go and challenge "Spider-Man" for a rematch, saying he was unprepared before (yeah right). Naturally the Goblin King kicks his arse whilst reminding him of how he nearly led "Spidey" to uncover the Goblin Protocols, though he suddenly stops and giggles to himself, saying that Urich has given him an idea.
Back at Horizon, "Peter" is being reminded of all the questionable actions Horizon has taken, replying that his memories been fuzzy lately (and whose fault it that?). The group then receive visitors in the form of Liz Allan (and her son Normie), who has just become the majority shareholder of Horizon. She's also brought along her choice for the sites new supervisor...Stone, who informs everyone that every unpatented idea they've worked on is now the intellectual property of "Al Chem" (Al Chem, Alchemax...why didn't I think of that?), which includes all of the technology that Peter & Otto built for Spider-Man!As they leave, Grady gets the idea to use his time door to go back in time and gather evidence of Stone's wrongdoing's, but "Peter" has already decided to solve this problem as "the Superior Spider-Man" and pursues the Al Chem limousines . As Grady goes to activate the time door, it activates by itself and O'Hara comes bursting through! After clarifying what year it is, he takes off to find and prevent the anomaly, noting the name Horizon as he goes.
Outside, Otto lands in front of the limos and demands that the occupants exit them. Liz trusts him as she considers Spider-Man an old friend much like Peter, but Normie creepily says that he knows who "Spidey" really is and that someone should do something about him (All he needs to do now is enunciate "Redrum"!). Stone takes pleasure in telling SpOck that everything he's doing is aboveboard, meaning he's supposedly untouchable. That doesn't stop Otto from trying to knock his block off with his bare fist, but Miguel stops him with a webline. The two Spider-Men confront each other, with Miguel declaring that he's "the Spider-Man of tommorow, here to save today!" (As well as his own "shocking" grandfather.)...
Thoughts:
This issue gets things of to a "shocking" good start. Dan Slott invests a great deal more focus than he has in previous story arcs, which is probably why they were so unfocused in the first place, and delivers a satisfactory first part.Within seconds of reading the opening scenes in 2099, you can tell that Slott has a real reverence for the character of Miguel O'Hara and his voice for the character is really consistent with Peter David's. Miguel is very distinct from Otto and his motivations are nicely complicated to go along with the Doctor Who-style time-travel.
What's also impressive is how Slott ties 2099 to the present day Marvel U. The reappearance of Liz Allen was a nice surprise and I never suspected that Alchemax could be a future version of Al Chem merged with Horizon Labs. It's good to see Otto express concern over Max Modell's arrest and speak highly of him for once, I was getting tired of hearing him insult everything that moves. There's some good jokes here too, the gag of the Horizon staff being divided into everyone who got turned into a spider versus everyone who got turned into a lizard is pure genius!
Ryan Stegman returns for art duties this issue and he does a great job, with the exception of some of the scenes set in 2099 which are a little hard to follow, though Miguel looks like a total badass in every panel he features. Overall, very promising...
