After last month’s “point one” jumping-on issue in ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ #679.1, this issue begins a new story arc that will have Spider-Man facing off with Doc Ock in space.

As the issue opens, Mayor J. Jonah Jameson is paying a visit to Horizon Labs. The Horizon crew is watching as Jameson’s son, John, is doing some work on the Apogee Space Station. During the mission, communications go down leaving everyone wondering what happened and if John is safe. Not wasting a moment, Peter rushes from Horizon Labs, switches to his red and blue webslinger duds and rushes to The Baxter Building… home to the Fantastic Four! Spidey’s plan is to borrow one of the FF’s rocket ships so that he can head to the space station to check on John. Spider-Man, with Johnny Storm (the Human Torch) in tow, heads to the Apogee. On board the space station, the heroes discover a villainous plot and end up at the mercy of mind-controlled space zombies!

This issue was a great reintroduction of Johnny Storm into the Spider-Man universe after the Torch’s return from the Negative Zone over in the pages of ‘Fantastic Four’. Dan Slott’s scripting of the banter between Spidey and Johnny is pure magic. It gave me quite a few giggles and definitely brought back some fond memories of reading ‘Marvel Team-Up’ as a kid. The space setting gives a nice change of pace to the usual Spider-Man story, even if it does still have lingering flavors of ‘Doctor Who’ that were so strongly mentioned in the last couple of issues’ time-travelling story arc.

The art from Giuseppe Camuncoli and Klaus Janson is terrific but it’s the colors from Frank D’Armata that push this one over the top. The darkness of the space station is wonderfully eerie and highlighted ever more so when the light of the sun or an explosion is tossed into the mix. In that darkness, it is easy to feel the claustrophobic dangers of space. Kudos to the entire art team for pulling that one off with finesse.

Verdict: Buy

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #680
Written by DAN SLOTT and CHRIS YOST
Art by GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI and KLAUS JANSON
Cover by GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI, KLAUS JANSON, and FRANK D’ARMATA