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The Amazing Spider-Man #682 - Ends of the Earth, Part One: My World On Fire

5

Doc Ock has a plan to destroy the whole planet. Will he succeed or will Spider-Man stop him?

It's time for these two scientific minds to go head-to-head, Peter and Doc Ock that is.

The Good

I love me a good Sinister Six story, and while this focuses mainly on Ock more than anything else, it's still a dynamite issue. I loved the storyline of Doc Ock showing the world he has the capability to destroy it any time he wants, yet he was to use his power to heal it. It's a classic dilemma. The bad guy seems to be doing some good, but the good guy doesn't believe the bad guy's intentions are true.

While it is a bit of a bummer to not see Humberto Ramos' art on this issue, I quickly fell in love with Stefano Caselli's art in this latest ASM. His style is a lot more traditional that artist in the past, and that's probably what I like most about it. There's a deep sense of realism to the art, even from the little wrinkles in Spider-Man's outfit that most artists avoid. By far, the best is the two page splash of people dying because of Doc's evil plan, and no, it's not just because it's of Chicago. The amount of pain in the man's face is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

A few of the characters have been changed up more recently, and none of them stray too far from the original, except for Ock. Mysterio may be the best of the redesigns followed by Electro. Both characters are updated so they don't look silly, and Mysterio no longer looks giant and bulky, which I actually like about him. Electro no longer has the silly mask on, and Chameleon is in a bath robe? Still looks good, so I don't care. I almost forgot to mention that I think Spider-Man's costume looks pretty cool in a 90s-retro kind of way.

The Bad

My biggest problem, as I've said with ASM before is that I don't like the Doc Ock design. I love where they've taken the character, but I prefer the something in between this version and the dude with the dumb bowl cut.

The Verdict

This is the point you want to jump in on if you've been waiting to read Amazing Spider-Man! The last two issues were a bit lackluster, but this one was great! I love the story line thus far, and Stefano Caselli's art is very good. Even some of the redsesigns of the classic Spider-Man villains were pretty cool. My only problem with this issue is that I still don't like the current Doc Ock character design. For me, it's just was too far from the original. Overall, you need to pick this book up! It was an insane amount of fun!