Spoilers ahead for Amazing Spider-Man #1000.
RCG reported this morning that Amazing Spider-Man #1000 hit shelves early for Local Comic Shop Day, and now that readers have it, the milestone issue’s biggest surprises are out. Bleeding Cool has broken down the main reveals, starting with who Ravage really is.
Cormac Crane is Ravage
Joe Kelly and Pepe Larraz’s lead story centers on Cormac Crane, who turns out to be Peter Parker’s cousin: the biological son of Uncle Ben and Aunt May, raised by a wealthy family. When May is admitted to hospital after what seems to be a stroke, Cormac beats Peter to her bedside. May has forgotten Peter, but she remembers Cormac.
According to Bleeding Cool, it’s something more sinister than a stroke. Cormac is Ravage, the new villain Marvel has been teasing, dressed in raven feathers and wearing a Black Knight helmet. His power appears to be taking people’s memories and turning them into weapons, which gives the issue a way to revisit decades of Spider-Man history. The name fits the look, too: Bleeding Cool points out that “Cormac” is Gaelic for “son of a raven.” It sees no sign of a connection to Ravage 2099, and the issue kicks off an ongoing fight between Spider-Man and Ravage.
Uncle Ben’s killer gets a nickname
Dan Slott and Marcos Martin’s story, “I Can Never Rest,” goes back to the night Uncle Ben died and tells it from the point of view of the security guard who tried to stop the burglar Spider-Man let run past him. That burglar has never been named, not in Amazing Fantasy #15 and not in any story since. Amazing Spider-Man #1000 still doesn’t give him a real name, but Bleeding Cool reports that it does give him a nickname: the “Five Boroughs Burglar.” The guard, still working as a cop years later, had been tracking him over a string of deaths.
That night shows up in the lead story as well. Ravage “tastes” Peter’s memories of it, and per Bleeding Cool, it doesn’t sit well with him. Peter took a lesson about responsibility from that night, but Ravage got a very different message, something along the lines of “grab what you can.”
What else is in the issue
The 104-page anniversary issue has plenty more. Paul “Triple H” Levesque, Rob Fee and Ed McGuinness tell a story of young Peter and Uncle Ben in “The Big Night.” Larry Lieber and Giuseppe Camuncoli’s “Of Webs and Six-Guns” calls back to a 1960 Rawhide Kid story that had an Uncle Ben of its own, who also died and left a lesson behind.
Frank Miller and Peach Momoko’s “Tears of the Spider-Queen” is a battle with the Hand. Noah Hawley makes his comics debut with Patrick Gleason on “Still Standing,” which features an older Peter. According to Bleeding Cool and a Marvel-provided preview published by ComicBook.com, the older Peter lives in a Forest Hills nursing home and has a son named Miles. Bleeding Cool reports the son was named after Miles Morales, and that it’s Peter’s unnamed grandson who suits up. J.M. DeMatteis and Humberto Ramos contribute “Requiem for a Goblin,” and Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen reunite for “The Gesture.” The issue also includes an interview with Tom Holland and Spider-Man: Brand New Day director Destin Daniel Cretton.
When you can get it
Participating Local Comic Shop Day stores are selling the Skan variant today. Everyone else can pick up Amazing Spider-Man #1000 on Wednesday, September 30, in comic shops and digitally. Penguin Random House Comics lists it at $9.99 US ($12.50 CAN), and second-printing variants from John Romita Jr. and Pepe Larraz follow on October 28.
