Dan Slott’s version of The Amazing Spider-Man has reached a peculiar point in history — Peter Parker’s “spider-sense” allows him to know that a car falling off a skyscraper will be okay because teleporting “friends” are nearby, but yet there were no warnings to be had with his “very close” girlfriend who a.) worked with a terrorist organization to destroy his company, and b.) was plotting to kill him.
The absurdity of the issue is summed up when the wall-crawler says, “My girlfriend. In a spider-mobile. Trying to murder me. Okay, gotta admit, did not see that coming.”
Lian Tang, the woman who hand-feeds Peter Parker pork dumplings on the roof of Parker Industries, never mentioned to her “very close” boyfriend that her mother was sick with cancer. She never thought to ask the guy with a multi-billion dollar tech company if he could help or put her in contact with someone who could. Nope. Instead, she decided to work for an international terrorist group and then make a deal for experimental drugs in exchange for Spider-Man’s life.
When it all went sour, writer Dan Slott wrote the following exchange with the expectation that fans would take it seriously:
Lian Tang: What happens now? I’m fired? Going to jail? What? Just tell me my mother will be —”
Spider-Man: Lian, stop.
Lian Tang: I gave Zodiac our security codes. I tried to KILL you.”
Spider-Man: I understand. I know what it means to risk everything to help family. So does Peter. We’d be hypocrites if we didn’t give you a chance to work with us.
Writer Dan Slott’s idea of personal responsibility (in a Spider-Man book, no less), is just saying “sorry” for attempted murder, or promising not to try and destroy Parker Industries a second time.
Question for long-time Spider-Man fans: Did Peter Parker ever try to kill an innocent man in his attempts to save Aunt May or Mary Jane over the years? I can recall a really embarrassing deal with the devil (for all intents and purposes), but I don’t remember him, say, cooking up a scheme to kill “Robbie” Robertson. Perhaps I’m wrong.
Long story short, Lian’s actions came at the most inopportune of times. Peter was going to bestow a humanitarian award on “China’s favorite son,” Shen Quinghao, while simultaneously setting a trap for Mr. Negative. Instead of drugging the award recipient on live television as Mr. Negative instructed Peter to do, Quinghao was left alone. Enraged, the villain teleported himself right into an ambush by Spider-Man and law enforcement personnel. It was Lian’s actions, however, that allowed Mr. Negative to escape.
Writer Dan Slott, speaking through our hero, wants readers to know Peter would somehow be a “hypocrite” if the woman who tried to murder him, gave away his company’s most important secrets, and put countless lives in jeopardy were to be held responsible for her actions.
Welcome to The Amazing Spider-Man in 2016.
Exit Question:
How many issues in a row can Dan Slott introduce the perfect technology needed to get Peter out of a jam? This issue it’s “homing” darts that can track teleporters, providing they have been tagged with the “micro-tracers” revealed in ASM #7.
Side note: Dan Slott gave Spider-Man “Quick-drying web-cement” in ASM #6 and it was used to temporarily hold up an entire building, but yet that same webbing could not be used to attach the Spider-mobile to the side of skyscaper. Interesting.
Also, what is the point of having a Spider-mobile that can go up the side of the building if any accident would result in it falling 50 stories onto the population below? I thought Lian was a better engineer than that…
Douglas Ernst Blog 