Rest in peace, Harry Osborn.
Moments pages are Spoilers Off; beware unmarked spoilers!
- Issue 1, for Captain America. Steve Rogers is loyal to nothing but the Dream and this comic shows him agonized and torn by what the full extent of that means. This is a man who loved America and his defining honor is putting his life on line for it, and yet The Vietnam War and his conscience ultimately made him outlaw and renegade, costing him a good deal of his stature and standing among Americans even if in his mind he's doing the right thing. Being Good Sucks doesn't begin to cover it.
- Issue 2 opens with a Wham Shot that Flash Thompson died in Vietnam. It's clear that Peter and Mary Jane especially haven't recovered from the loss of their close friend. With Peter continuing to visit him every year after his death in 1974 (the story being set in 1977) and Mary Jane bitterly lashing out at Peter for not stopping Flash from going to Vietnam and telling him, as both Peter and Spider-Man (who Flash saw as a hero), that the war was a mistake.
- It ends on a very tragic note. It's revealed that Miles Warren had been contacted by Norman Osborn to create a clone of Norman to pin his Green Goblin crimes on and a clone of Peter so he can have a worthy heir. Peter, Harry and Gwen find them along with a Gwen clone and are horrified. After Peter snaps Harry out of his insanity, the latter decides to bomb the clones while Peter is begged by Gwen to save them. Peter can only save his clone, only to learn to everyone's horror that the Gwen clone isn't a clone, but the real thing! The issue ends with the Peter and Gwen clones moving away and a heartbroken Peter clinging to Mary Jane now that he lost everything.
- The reason Harry decides to destroy the lab is blind rage and grief after realizing that the fact Norman had a Peter clone made means that all his talk of wanting to reconnect with Harry was bullshit. Norman actually always saw Harry as a "failure" and Peter as someone who could be groomed into a more worthy heir. It breaks the poor guy to realize that nothing he ever does will make his dad care about him as anything more than a pawn to get at Peter, and when his actions subsequently cause Gwen's death, he's broken just that little bit more, crying uncontrollably as he flies away on his glider.
- The fact that Reed Richards and Susan Storm divorced and Sue left him for Namor is sad. Peter landing a cheap blow by bringing it up enrages Reed into slapping him, ending their friendship. Peter immediately regrets saying those things, noting that his Spider-Sense warned him about the punch in time that he could dodge it but he chose to take it to allow Reed that much at least. After the slap, both Peter and Reed are ashamed of what happened. Reed for allowing Peter’s words to get to him, and Peter for taking out his own frustrations over whether or not he's doing enough on Reed.
- Issue 3 opens with Aunt May and a pregnant Mary Jane wondering where Peter is; he's off on Battleworld, and is desperate to win and get home to his loved ones and future children.
- Even worse, it’s obvious that Aunt May's dementia is severe and she's mistaken MJ for Gwen several times. MJ is pregnant and in the hospital yet she has to take care of May who’s lost in her own hazy memories most of the time, a far cry from the sweet and well-meaning Aunt many have grown to love.
- MJ is revealed to suffer from no small degree of self-esteem problems due to being made to feel as if she was just "the runner-up" that Peter settled for because "perfect Gwen Stacy" isn't there anymore. This is revealed when she admits as much during an especially heated argument between over Peter's refusal to admit May into a rest home despite the undue stress her condition brings to his family and his inability to care for her due to being Spider-Man. Ouch.
- A subtle but notable one; it's around this point in the comic that one will really begin noticing the differences in aging between the non-or-minimally-powered heroes and the superpowered ones. When Peter talks to Thor and Hulk, it becomes downright shocking, as you realize how Peter is visibly aging while the two of them look the same, and Peter himself clearly notices it as well.
- While the big superheroes were off dealing with Secret Wars, the Cold War turned hot when the Soviet Union decided to launch its nukes thanks to the new power vacuum. As the U.S. and Soviet Union exchanged nukes, heroes like the Vision and Invisible Woman were forced to stop nukes heading to the U.S.. Unfortunately, one of the nukes cannot be rendered intangible thanks to the work of the Red Ghost and Vision can only redirect it from Manhattan, its original target. Allentown, Pennsylvania is nuked and the Vision remains on the site intangible and unmoving. Nobody can figure out if it's because the nuke fried him, or he's just broken from his failure and the horror he unintentionally caused.
- By the end of the issue, Peter's life has grown worse as Mary Jane cannot take Peter's neglect of their children, the horror seeing what the symbiote nearly turned him into, and the general stress of being married to a superhero. She leaves him, leaving him with his senile aunt and taking her children with her.
- Kraven's fate in this version. His heart wrenching monologue to his dead mother about how his cancer is destroying him as he prepares to shoot himself are bad enough, but here, Kraven doesn't even get to die; right as he tries, the symbiote tackles and bonds with him, forcibly making him into this continuity's Venom to ensure the Last Hunt never ends.
"But I cannot hunt the sun." - Issue 4:
- it is revealed that Aunt May has died, and had divorced from Otto years ago. As a result from his grief and being unable to take responsibility for any part he had in the failed marriage, the formerly reformed scientist who wanted to change the world with Reed and Peter has returned to supervillainy.
- Peter obviously misses Mary Jane and his kids, and while he has tried to move on by dating Jessica Jones it is increasingly obvious he is miserable without them.
- Tony Stark has basically become the very thing his modern comics interpretation despises: An arms-dealing cold-blooded capitalist who is unable/unwilling to change his ways because his methods won the Russian-United States war. He brings up Mary Jane and the kids to Peter who simply asked him to stop making weapons before a merger as a way to hit Peter below the belt, causing Peter to demand Tony to get the hell out of his office. It is sad to see the superhero known as Iron Man fall so low, and the obvious implication that he has burnt bridges with most of his former friends and colleagues.
- Harry Osborn dies protecting Peter from Otto's attempt to stab both him and Ben, and all Peter can do is hold Harry as the man apologizes for all the things he has done. Despite all the horrible crap that has happened because Harry was desperate for his father's approval, it's obvious that the two of them still saw each other as friends.
- While Norman is giddy at getting another chance to ruin Peter's life after his plan turns out to not work, the thing that makes the smugness come crashing down is the news that Harry died. Despite being a horribly abusive parent and making his distaste of Harry known, Norman is unable to shrug off the grief he feels for Harry's death leading to his fury and eventual heart attack. In spite of all his evil, a small part of Norman still loved Harry. And despite everything, his last words are him spitting his hatred at Peter one final time.
- The fifth issue opens with the death of Ben Reilly because Peter didn't take Ezekiel's warning seriously enough, which quickly becomes a source of regret for him and horror for his family. It gets even worse when Benjy is badly wounded while buying an opening for Claire to kill Morlun, which only happened because Peter listened to Claire's advice to head to New York and stop running.
- Based on a line from Benjy, we see that he and Claire took to calling him "Uncle Ben".
- The changed context of the 9/11 issue. Here, the attack happened right after Peter had briefly returned to New York to attend J. Jonah Jameson's funeral. He's spent the years since lying to MJ that he didn't put the mask back on and break his promise to leave Spider-Man behind him, when he really did to help with relief efforts.
- Peter has the additional bombshell dropped on him that his secret identity has been blown because Ben looking just like him and having his DNA means that everyone thinks his corpse is Peter's. It's bad enough that Peter has to grieve his brother who arguably only died because of his own failure to heed Ezekiel's warnings, but Ben's death throws Peter's stable life into chaos.
- When Peter is thought dead because of Morlun murdering Ben, Tony Stark is shown to be bereaved and genuinely upset. He may not have always gotten along with Peter or Spider-Man but at the end of the day he recognized them as good men and respected them deeply as comrades, if not friends. When he subsequently learns Peter is still alive, he's struck with rage and obviously feels betrayed, with an implication that his ultimatum to try and bully Peter into registering is as much fueled by anger at being lied to by someone he trusted as it is lawfulness. An oddly humanizing sequence for a version of Tony that's otherwise rather unsympathetic.
- The final issue has Peter pulling a Heroic Sacrifice along with the Venom symbiote to save the world from Doctor Doom's last act, saving Miles Morales in the process.
- Benjy's brief appearance shows him walking with a cane; the fight with Morlun left him crippled for life.
- The whole status quo of the final issue. Doctor Doom took advantage of the superhero civil war to launch his biggest plot yet and actually succeeded in taking over the planet. Earth's mightiest heroes failed.
- Doctor Octopus' fate. Remorseful and having lost everything thanks to his own ego and bitterness, he's left to die a slow, excruciating death on life support as his injuries and exposure to toxic chemicals from decades of fighting Spider-Man have destroyed his body. He spends his last days hating himself over the knowledge that he caused his stepson's death and that everything he did was All for Nothing just because he couldn't let go of his supervillain mentality. Being Evil Sucks.
- Relatedly, Miles admits that it took everything in his power to not murder Otto for what he did to Peter. It's heartwarming on one level, as it shows Miles to be a worthy — possibly even superior — successor to Peter and a true Spider-Man. But at the same time, it's obvious Miles is hurting deeply over not being able to save Peter, who will become his "Uncle Ben" figure.
- Peter's last dream: stopping the man who would kill Uncle Ben.Peter: This isn't me beating myself up again, like always. It's different this time. It's a good dream.
- It's not in center focus, but the fact Comic-Book Time is averted means that Death Is Cheap is also averted. By the time of the final issue, the combination of time and Doom's takeover has led to the deaths of most of Marvel's heroes. Sure, legacies like Miles Morales are still fighting, but the core cast we know and love-Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Reed Richards and so on-are all dead and gone. Of the heroes who started the Marvel universe, only Peter himself remains and, as mentioned above, he doesn't survive that issue.
- The annual shows in detail how Jameson's obsessive hatred of Spider-Man ruins his life over the years, with going to jail for creating the Scorpion, his son calling him out for his Selective Obliviousness, and spending so much time hating Spider-Man that when he finally realizes the truth, he's an old man. Despite this, he writes a book about his experiences and how Spider-Man changed him, and finally dons a suit of Powered Armor to make up for bringing the Scorpion into the world. He successfully defeats him... and then dies, with his book being published posthumously.Jameson: I've been spending my time here sorting out what's real in me. Right now, I'm alone in the truth... but I need others to know.
- The whole issue is kicked off by Jonah's feud with Spider-Man becoming worse than ever after Dr. Stilwell's death in the crossfire of Spidey and Scorpion's first battle. Unlike in the original comic, here Jonah is haunted by Stilwell's death and blames himself for it, carrying the guilt for the rest of his life and getting Smythe to make the Spider-Slayer out of a twisted sense of penance.
- As the story goes on, it's made more and more clear that the reason Jonah hates Spider-Man so much is the fact that he projects memories of the masked mugger who killed his wife onto the similarly masked Spider-Man, mixed with implied jealousy that he doesn't have those powers and can't save people like his wife like Spidey can. When confronted about this by Helen during one of his therapy sessions, all of Jonah's bluster instantly disappears and he becomes the frail old man he really is, quietly muttering "don't" before storming out in turmoil over the thoughts of his wife and how he's destroyed what's left of his own family by taking his grief out on a person he barely even knows.
- The one time John visits Jonah in prison goes extremely bad in a heartwrenchingly uncomfortable way. John is trying to reconnect after the Man-Wolf incident (while also being so ashamed of and traumatized by what he became that he can't even bring himself to describe it openly), only for Jonah to devolve into yet another hateful rant against Spider-Man, declaring that the only reason the Wall-Crawler would save John's life is to taunt Jonah. After things explode into an argument and John realizes that Jonah is really just taking out his grief over Joan's death on the hero who saved his life, John storms out without even bothering to say goodbye.
- Jonah has to learn about Gwen's death from Norman Osborn, of all people, who tells him about it to both taunt him and to manipulate him into further hatred of Spider-Man. Jonah fails to realize that and instead takes Gwen's death as validation of his vendetta, so when he subsequently calls Peter to try and express his condolences, it instead disintegrates once again into an anti-Spider-Man rant, leaving Jonah with nothing but yet another burned bridge.
