The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol 7: Armed and Dangerous

The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) (Collected Editions)

by Zeb Wells, Ed McGuinness (Penciler), John Romita Jr. (Penciler)

Has Spidey finally met a superior foe? Spider-Man is grief-stricken after a shocking death - but there's no shortage of super villains lining up to put him in the grave, as well! First a revitalized and upgraded Doctor Octopus! As Otto takes his deadlier-than-ever tentacles on a rampage through Oscorp, can Spidey clean Doc Ock's clock? With his back against the wall, perhaps a surprising ally can swing things in the wall-crawler's favor! Then, wedding bells are ringing, and Peter Parker has to make it to the church on time - because he's the best man! Janice Lincoln and Randy Robertson are tying the knot, and there's no way that all the crime bosses in NYC aren't seeing this as an opportunity to knock off the father of the the whispering menace Tombstone! Collecting AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2022) #27-31.

Genres: Comics, Spider Man, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Superheroes, Fiction

184 pages, Paperback

Published November 14, 2023

About the author

Zeb Wells is an American comic book writer known for his work at Marvel Comics, as well as his work on the animated TV series Robot Chicken.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half this volume covers another Doc Ock on the rampage story in which a grieving Spidey after the loss in the previous volume, which is a fair to middling Two Star read. But a bright spot is the second half of this volume covering the 84 paged(!) Amazing Spider-Man (2022-2025) #31 (Amazing Spider-Man, which is basically an upcoming attractions vehicle added to the wedding of The Beetle (Tombstone's daughter) to a major supporting character. This book is so much better than previous Spidey work, with great banter, Superior (woo woo), MJ, Black Cat and most of all Spider-Woman with interesting times ahead. Can I just add how much I loathe the Spider-Boy character. One word, Why? Overall this balanced out as a Three Star, 6 out of 12 webslinger.

2025 read

[Anna Quilter · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Entertaining if you don't think about it too much.

Doc.Octopus is back...and his tentacles have bonded with J.Jonah(!)
Interesting part here is when Peter puts them on ..DOLT!!..Which could be the basis of a darker more serious story someday.

A wedding!....and when do they ever go to plan in Marvel?

Plus ..Rabbit needs a mini series❤️

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This wasn’t bad. Best volume since the first one. Doc Oc has some new tentacles and is coming after Osborn. Ran up into Oscorp and hemmed him up. Spidey, with some unlikely help, comes to the rescue. Then we have the wedding of Janice Lincoln ( The Beetle ) and Randy Robertson. Tombstone invited all his criminal friends and of course someone attacks Tombstone during the ceremony and manages yto pierce his skin. Ah damn, what’s up with that?? Curious to see there that goes.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Talk about setup for future Spidey-verse storylines! WOW
Highlights:
- Still reeling from the death of Ms Marvel, Peter isn't doing so well. What a perfect time for Doc Ock to strike! His first target? His old belt with the 4 legs, who has been helping Jonah.
- As Peter fixes the legs, Ock reveals his new, smarter legs, the Ocktoids, capable of dividing into many different parts and accomplishing things on their own.
- It takes Peter attaching the repaired legs to himself ("Octopi aren't the only eight-legged animal!" Plus, he looks so cool!) and using it to fight and defeat Ock, with a slight assist from Gold Goblin
- Rekrap makes a reappearance, and while he is funny, I think they are just trying to keep him from fading away from current memory.
- Randy Robertson is getting married to Janice, daughter of Tombstone. The bachelorette party goes well, lots of partying, but many of the guys cancel for the bachelor party.
- The next morning, Felicia confronts Peter and they have a serious discussion (He isn't trying to get her to stop stealing, and she's not trying to corrupt him...) and they decide to break up.
- At the wedding, a gunman on a motorcycle tries to stop the wedding. Spidey is able to stop him, but not before 1) Tombstone is hit with bullets he can't block, 2) Madame Masque's limo explodes, probably killing her inside, and 3) Randy doesn't try to save Janice, and instead saves himself and his parents.
- Peter reveals his secret identity to Ms Marvel, recently resurrected as a mutant.
- Doc Ock realizes that the only time he ever knew how to beat Peter was when he was the Superior Spider-Man. He vows to become that persona again.
- Felicia brings Mary Jane a gift, a super suit for her Jackpot persona. (I really need to read MJ&BC!)
- Spider-Woman is angry! Having lost her baby, she is willing to do anything to find him, including call out and beat the hell out of Taskmaster.
- Spidey meets Perry Thomas, a man addicted to being rescued, and needs some help from Human Torch to get rid of the stalker.
- Kraven and the Goblin Queen are hooking up!
- Who is Spider-Boy?
- In a final story, we see the return of the "Reign" universe and an old Spider-Man prepares to fight a resurrected Kingpin.

Overall, an amazing Volume. Lots of room for new stuff to happen. Looking forward to it.
Recommend!

[Frédéric · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the disastrous last 2 volumes, this one is fortunately a little better.

The Octopus arc is resolutely comic in tone, well served by an excellent Ed McGuiness who uses his cartoony style to the benefit of the plot.

This is followed by a big issue telling the story of Robertson son's marriage to the Tombstone daughter - surprisingly not as catastrophic as I expected - and a series of short stories - mostly teasers - not particularly interesting but a good opportunity to increase the sale price of the single issue I suppose.

[Vaughn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn't as bad as the last two volumes, and actually has some cool moments in it. However, there is still more bad than good overall which prevents me from giving it more then 2 stars.

This story brings back Dr. Octopus with his new arms. I actually really liked his upgraded arms. They're made up on tiny robots called Ocktoids who can act independently as well as part of his arms, and also give Doc Ock a variety of new abilities. These Ocktoids have a lot of personality and are actually quite fun. Ock tests out his new arms by going after Peter and Norman Osborn due to past transgressions.

A pet peeve I've had with Wells writing Doc Ock is that he's written his old arms as sentient, acting like a pet. This is just such a silly idea that came out of nowhere. It's even worse having Jonah Jameson being so attached to them. It's ridiculous.

The main problems I have with this volume are from the oversized issue 31. The main story is good enough, with the wedding between Randy Roberton and Tombstone's daughter, Janice. Understandably, the wedding gets interrupted by Gang Shenanigans, and I do like gang-related stories in Spider-Man.

Unfortunately, there are also a couple moments which really highlight a weakness in Zeb Wells writing which I find really frustrating. Firstly, there is the breakup of Peter and the Black Cat. Wells introduced this relationship early in his run but never really showed anything happening with the relationship, which fans of Peter/Felicia would have really liked to have seen and could have been a highlight of his run. The breakup was badly written, as it his Felicia upset because....they're not trying to change each other which apparently proves they don't care enough about each other. What!?!?! It's been obvious throughout the years how much they care about each other. The fact that they got over trying to change each other should be a good thing, as that's been their problem in the past. The fact that they're not trying to change each other should show growth of the relationship. It's just out of character and contrived.

Another of these moments was when Peter revealed his identity to Ms Marvel. Again, Wells is telling us that Peter and Kamala have grown close, but it was never really shown. It's out of the blue and seems to be a shallow attempt to promote how much the other heroes respect Ms Marvel. But again, this wasn't shown and is a cheap attempt to push Ms Marvel without having to put in the work.

The book ends with a series of stories previewing upcoming stories and titles relating to Spider-Man. Spider-Man is in such a bad state at the moment so a lot of these were uninteresting at best. Unsurprisingly, the worst of these was the MJ story. It showed her infuriating relationship with Paul which everyone hates, and ends up with her becoming the superhero Jackpot. A don't like the idea of MJ being Jackpot, but the character is so broken at the moment that I'm really indifferent to these changes. It's just adding more to the mess.

Overall:
Issues 27-30 - 3 stars
Issue 31 - 1 star

[Sam Quixote · Rating 1 out of 5]

Doc Ock wants to mess up Norman Osborn’s good streak - but Normy don’t wanna be baaad! Spider-Man gets astoopid agin for anuvver book!

Be careful what you wish for I guess - I griped that there wasn’t enough Zebby in the last volume and, even though he writes pretty much the whole of Volume 7: Armed and Dangerous, this was definitely the crappiest book in the series so far.

The main story is so boring and pointless. Otto’s arms get an upgrade (hence the subtitle) which I thought was ok - the new arms look more versatile with more personality. Otto, Norman and Spidey fight yet again and things play out as they always do. Yawners.

Then we get an extra-long, extra-snorey issue where we get to see Some Guy marry Tombstone’s daughter, because that was the most compelling aspect of the Spidey/Tombstone storyline from the first book: two nobodies getting hitched. Boooooo!

This part of the volume is extra-long because of all the teaser trailers for upcoming Marvel titles you won’t be buying padding it out. Easily the funniest is finding out Kamala Khan’s back! So she didn’t even stay “dead” for one book. Oh superhero comics, you are so tediously predictable, you’ve become a parody of yourselves.

Marvel’s out of ideas so they’re bringing back Superior Spider-Man and Kaare Andrews’ Dark Knight Returns knock-off Spider-Man: Reign is getting a sequel. They also don’t know what to do with MJ anymore so she’s suddenly got “jackpot powers” so she can apparently fly and fruit machine symbols follow her around?! What a mess.

I feel like the absurd publishing schedule for this title is, also predictably, causing a quality drop in Zeb Wells’ writing because seven volumes in and Amazing Spider-Man is back to being as dull as it was pre-Zeb. Hopefully it gets better but my expectations for this series continue to drop lower and lower by the volume - Armed and Dangerous is easily the least inspired entry in Wells’ run so far.

[Subham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was actually a pretty fun volume and I like how it balanced so many stories and teased so many ones more to come. Like from the start with the battle vs Dr Octopus and how he is after Norman to destroy him for torturing him, and well Norman suffering through what happened after last volume after killing Queen Goblin and with the death of Kamala, and well the nightmare there and now he is being forced to become GG again and also Pete has to use the former spinal-cord-hands extension of Doc Ock and its a battle of the arms between them.. yeah that was a bad joke but the battle between them is fun and you see Pete and Norman working together to defeat Doc Ock and he will return in a big way in SSM, and this was a fun reset of Doc Ock especially after all that he had been through these last few years.

Then Randy getting married to Tombstone daughters and the bachelors party and the focus on Janice too and the thing with Gang war being set up here, it leads to dramatic moments but actually sets up a lot of things that are to come in the future and it shows how its all heating up and then the no. of short stories setting up other books and spin-offs and I kind of wanna read them and see how they are, plus setting Kraven for the next arc which is kinda cool and something Wells does really well here.

So, yeah overall fun volume showing how different and crazy and messy Pete's life is and its one hell of a roller coaster ride!

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Off the back of the...not fantastic Dead Language, it seems Wells' Spider-Man is back on the quality upswing with this Doctor Octopus focused arc. While I'm not the biggest fan of Ock's return to villainy lately, Wells capitalises on that nicely while also pulling from his time as the Superior Spider-Man to tell a story that keeps Spidey and Norman Osborn in the spotlight while also dragging in J. Jonah Jameson whether he likes it or not.

Also included is the extra-sized issue 31, the 'wedding' of Randy Robertson and Janice Lincoln, which is more like a Gang War prelude issue than anything else. I do like that this whole gang-land plotline, which started off the series, is simmering neatly in the background until it's ready to boil over. There's some back-ups here too which set up some stuff in other books like Spider-Boy, as well as teasing the upcoming Kraven arc as well.

Art-wise, the Ock arc is drawn by Ed McGuinness, and John Romita Jr. takes on the main story in the wedding issue. They're not the most cohesive of rotating artists, but you can't deny that they're some of Marvel's biggest talents.

A step back in the right direction - I'm excited by Amazing Spider-Man again!

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sufficient amount of Dolt-ing commenced.

Otto is back, with an unexpected grade to his arms - and a serious grudge against both Norman and Spidey!

Is there anything better than a classic Spidey villain, getting his ass kicked in pursuit of a better solution (cause Peter can’t ever do heroing on Easy Mode)?

Unfortunate that the Kamala death (and inevitable rebirth) was shoehorned in here. Not that Spidey tales can’t do serious matters - but because I seriously don’t remember Kamala being an ongoing guest star in this book before now. (Probably would help if I read the preceding stories something *this* year.)

The wedding issue was fine - a little zany, a little touching, not over the top. Then filled with ads for Nick Lowe’s other books, disguised as an 86-page issue “with lots of bonus stories”. I hate that even the Spider-man line editor can’t help but cross-promote such that an oversized issue was just a regular issue with stuff I’d probably see on Reddit anyway (if it was worth reading).

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty fun, entertaining and good book! The art is pretty strong throughout (particularly Doctor Octopus), however I felt the pencils done by John Romita Jr (whose art I love) was sort of ruined by whoever added the colours.
The story is nothing deep or mind blowing, but it’s exciting enough to keep you reading. In fact I read the whole book in one sitting.
There’s plenty of action and it’s fairly well-written. I enjoyed the Doc Ock story the most, which was followed up by a decent Tombstone story. At times however, throughout the book there were lots of references to things that clearly happened in previous volumes which I knew nothing about. Usually I don’t mind this, but for some reason it eventually got on my nerves (as did the girls Bachelorette party).
However, the book ends with about 5-7 short bits that mostly ended with “to be continued”. I found these unnecessary….
Overall, really enjoyed this one and would recommend to any Spidey fan! Just don’t think too much about it and don’t take it too seriously; you’ll enjoy it.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, I was excited when I heard Zeb Wells was taking over Spider-Man. These days, not so much. This insane publishing schedule is really hurting the books. Doc Ock returns and it's terrible. He gets some new arms because his old arms have went traitor on him. Then in the final oversized issue, the wedding of Tombstone's daughter and Robbie Robertson is finally happening. It's all just a lead in to Gang War and then little teasers for the gazillion Spider-related spinoff books. Marvel is going to milk Spider-Man straight into the ground with the way they are overusing him and all his spinoffs. Sony should be happy though with all the additional characters they can make awful movies of though.

[Myles Gerber · Rating 4 out of 5]

A VERY nice palate cleanser from whatever the heck happened in the last two volumes. This volume has a fun adventure with Doc Oc trying to re-goblin-ify Norman Osborn as revenge for everything Norman did to him in the past. There’s some cool new tech used by the Doc, some fun bits with Jonah and Doc Oc’s old arms, good jokes, great art and a satisfying resolution! Overall a very good arc! This volume is only bogged down by the issue that concludes it, involving the long awaited wedding between Tombstone’s daughter and Randy Robertson. Stuff goes haywire when an attack breaks out and Spider-Man has to be there to save the day. It was fine, I guess, but I wasn’t too interested and I think it drags down the score of the volume overall. Despite this I still really enjoyed this volume!

[Mr. Stick · Rating 3 out of 5]

"'EX-MAYOR RAMPAGES'?! IT WAS A PRIVATE WARDROBE MALFUNCTION! YOU EXPLOITED A TRAGEDY TO SELL PAPERS! HOW DO I KNOW? BECAUSE I USED TO DO IT ALL THE TIME!"
- JJ Jameson on the phone with the editor of the New York Bulletin after seeing himself on their front page wearing Doc Ock's mechanical arms.

Doc Ock makes some new legs and uses them to beat up his old legs, which have now become JJ's pet. Did that sentence make any sense? It's a decent story.
Pete and company attend Randy's wedding. I love the stories that show our bigger-than-life heroes doing ordinary things. Weddings, dates, general socializing. People stuff. Good story.
The numerous side stories at the end were hit and miss.
Overall, this was pretty good. Three stars.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collects AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2022) issues #27-31, and material from Free Comic Book Day 2023: Spider-Man/Venom

Overall, I enjoyed this collection that had follow-up to various stories being told over the years. Aspects of the Doctor Octopus story touched on the "Superior Spider-Man" run, and there is a tease of more coming in the future. We are heading towards a wedding between Randy Robertson and Janice Lincoln, and that relationship has been a plot point for multiple years now. The end of the collection has various short stories that are planting seeds for future stories and series.

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 5 out of 5]

SPIDER-MAN: ARMED AND DANGEROUS is a nice return to form after the awful fridging of Ms. Marvel that primarily existed in the previous volume to make Peter Parker feel bad for her heroically saving his (ex?) wife, Mary Jane. This volume is divided into two parts with the return of Doctor Octopus to seek revenge on Norman Osborn, which fails because LET HIM. I like Doctor Octopus and hate Norman Osborn as do most readers. Normans not even redeemed, he's just been magically brainwashed into being good. The other half is better with Tombstone, Janice, and Randy Robertson trying to have a wedding. It doesn't go well but I really like Janice AKA The Beetle.

[Dean · Rating 2 out of 5]

this felt like it dragged on longer than need be.
I like that this positions doc ock as Spider-Man's number one Enemy with Osborn now trying to be good.

mcguinness' art is different to here to what I'm used to. I like it though.
story felt a bit too goofy to me. I reckon this would have been better in a spectacular or spin off title rather than amazing. maybe that would alleviate most of my problems with this, if it weren't In the main title.

has am oversized annual at the end which mostly sets up spin off series'

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a big improvement over the last volume, though the Ed McGuiness artwork is way over-the-top and too cartoony for my tastes. Good story about Dr. Octopus trying to get revenge on Norman Osborn, even pushing him back to the dark side. I also enjoyed most of the special wedding issue, except for all the short little stories that round out the book, setting up countless plotlines in other Spider-series.

[Justin Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, I thought this volume was INSANELY good. Just hit after hit. The Otto fight, the surprisingly powerful “good is more interesting than evil” speech from Norman, the resolutions with Black Cat and Ms. Marvel, the wedding…then the introduction of about twelve new plot threads that I’m incredibly excited about. Seriously: Reign? Spider-Woman?! Spider-Boy?? So cool. One of the best in a long time.

[Jean Gonzalez-Saenz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A the beginning doc ock is taking out is anger and revenge on spidey like usual but I like how the golden goblin comes and try’s to help petter but it works out when petter gets robot arms too. I didn’t really like the end were they focused on other hero’s but I like how taskmaster and tombstone were amazing characters against the spiders

[Néstor Vargas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Doc Ock arc felt very childish for me. It’s okay to make stories for younger readers to jump in, but I just don’t enjoy them that much. I like the new arms, though; interesting design. The wedding issue was very interesting; we went back to these grounded conflicts, and I can see the beginning of Gang Wars. The backup issues were entertaining.

[Jordan Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not necessarily bad… Just weird, and mostly just set up for future storylines to come. I enjoyed the oversized wedding issue more than I thought I would. However, the whole storyline with Dr. octopus was weird, I do like the new tentacles though.

[Ian Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's Doc Ock v Spider-Man, with Norman Osborn in the middle and it's a lot more fun than the more recent volumes. Ed McGuinness is clearly having fun with the slightly silly storyline, and there's plenty of action, twists and humour. It's above-average Spidey.

[Belfry · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like a 2.75

[Dominic Fabrizio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Need them to bring in tombstone and his daughter in the mcu I’m begging

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wrote a review, but it's on the Kindle listing?

[Kris Shaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

The wheels have fallen off of this run. It started out strong and promising and has devolved into regurgitating the worst aspects of Dan Slott's run. What a shame.

[Rachel E. Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. The stories were all over the place and hard to follow. I like when I can at least get something from a comic book without having read the others.

[Sem · Rating 2 out of 5]

masochism is when you keep reading ASM despite its poor quality
insanity is when you keep reading ASM and expect it to get better

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

4
Fun little collection of stories. I think that's a generally good descriptor of Zeb's run.