Amazing Spider-Man: Ends of the Earth Part 1

The past few years, writer Dan Slott has marked his tenure on Amazing Spider-Man with yearly events during the summer. Last year's Spider Island was extremely silly, but it was well received and helped set up the new status quo for 2011-12 of Peter Parker yet again being single due to his trust issues with women, but becoming well known at Horizon for curing the Spider Island epidemic (even though it was his own damn fault) as well as inventing many other things.


This year's event, Ends of the Earth, begins with Spidey battling the Thermodynamic Man, but inadvertently freezes a firefighter's foot to the point that his foot is amputated cleanly and has to be sent to the hospital. Thankfully, the firefighter's foot will be able to be safely reattached because of an invention Peter created, originally to battle Hydro Man, but now used in hospitals to transport organs with more time to spare. Peter goes on a seemingly normal day to have lunch with Mary Jane, noticing people using the inventions he has made at Horizon, most of them reverse engineered from tools he has made to fight super-villains.


His normal day will be ruined however, thanks to Doctor Octopus and the Sinister Six wreaking havoc on the entire western hemisphere by speeding up the global warming process... and then immediately afterwards claiming that Doc Ock can fix global warming, going so far as to publicly demonstrate his mathematics. Doc Ock seemingly wishes to do a good deed for the world since he will die very soon. The scientists at Horizon seem to verify Ock's math and theories, but they are interrupted by mayor J. Jonah Jameson threatening to shut down the entire company because they were "responsible" for his son almost losing his life in space in the previous 2 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Peter Parker gathers together a new battle armor specifically designed to combat the Sinister Six and heads to the HQ of the Avengers, calling for their help because Spidey knows Doc Ock would never cure global warming without some type of catch.


Dan Slott has proved himself over the last few years to be the definitive writer of Spider-Man since the departure of J. Michael Straczynski. Ever since JMS left, Spidey had been lifeless and full of retcon after retcon, removing Spider-Man's new mystical origin, enhanced superpowers, and stronger relationship with Mary Jane in favor of making him unemployed, single due to retcon, and back with his original origin and powers. Slott reinvigorated interest in Spidey after Joe Quesada appeared to be doing his best to make people hate Spider-Man, by simply writing better and giving Peter Parker a steady job that allows him to work unusual hours, taking into advantage his genius. The art work in this issue is also fantastic, drawn by Stefano Caselli, finally ending the reign of Humberto Ramos, one of the worst artists on Marvel's payroll.


Ends of the Earth will end at the end of the summer, so check out this series!