The Amazing Spider-Man #678

History

Issue #678 arrived deep into Dan Slott's tenure as sole writer on Amazing Spider-Man, a position he assumed with issue #648 in November 2010 when Marvel shifted the title to a twice-monthly schedule under the 'Big Time' banner. Slott worked with penciler Humberto Ramos—his frequent 'Big Time' collaborator—along with inker Victor Olazaba, colorist Edgar Delgado, and letterer Joe Caramagna, under editors Ellie Pyle and Stephen Wacker, with Axel Alonso as editor-in-chief. The cover of the standard edition was painted by Michael Del Mundo, while a separate 1:50 incentive variant depicting a symbiote-covered Mary Jane (with no connection whatsoever to the story inside) was produced as part of Marvel's line-wide Venom variant program for that month.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Story title: 'I Killed Tomorrow, Part 1: Schrödinger's Catastrophe,' written by Dan Slott, penciled by Humberto Ramos, inked by Victor Olazaba, colored by Edgar Delgado, lettered by Joe Caramagna; cover by Michael Del Mundo.
• Published January 18, 2012 (cover-dated March 2012), under editor-in-chief Axel Alonso, with editors Ellie Pyle and Stephen Wacker.
• Plot: Fellow Horizon Labs scientist Grady Scraps unveils a 'Break Room of Tomorrow'—a dimensional doorway that transports its user 24 hours into the future as if they had been absent all day. When Peter steps through, he finds New York City in ruins, and must race through a single day to prevent every incident that could cascade into catastrophe.
• No traditional costumed villain anchors the main conflict; the primary antagonist is time itself, with ULTIMATUM's Flag-Smasher and the obscure armored villain F.A.C.A.D.E. appearing as background threats that Spider-Man must dispatch in the course of his frantic day.
• Supporting characters in this issue include Horizon Labs colleagues Max Modell and Uatu Jackson, as well as Madame Web (Julia Carpenter) and Silver Sable, who figures into the newspaper headline from the future that Peter retrieves as his only clue.
• The story's subtitle directly invokes Schrödinger's thought experiment: a reviewer at Spider-Man Crawlspace noted that the central unanswered question—whether Peter's act of observing the ruined future made it real—is never explicitly spelled out in the dialogue, left instead to the reader.
• A 1:50 retailer incentive variant cover exists, depicting Mary Jane Watson covered by a Venom symbiote—part of a line-wide Marvel Venom variant program that month—and has no narrative connection to the story inside.
• The issue falls within Dan Slott's uninterrupted sole-writing run on Amazing Spider-Man from issue #648 through #700, the era that concluded with the controversial mind-swap story leading into The Superior Spider-Man.

Full credits

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Variants (2)