written by Kelly Thompson
drawn by Sara Pichelli
colored by Nolan Woodard
With Ben Reilly/Spider-Man having dispatched the U-Foes off-panel after last issue's conclusion, this new issue finds him training with his colleagues Colleen Wing and Misty Knight, getting a dressing down from one of his handlers at the Beyond Corporation regarding his behavior, and being sent on a new mission to take down an old foe, Morbius the living vampire. In the meantime, Peter remains comatose as Mary Jane and Aunt May watch over him.
It's still too early to give a meaningful assessment of this "Beyond" mega-story arc, but this strategy of two issue mini-arcs could work, especially if Marvel is able to maintain the quality of creators working on the stories. Kelly Thompson takes the baton from Zeb Wells and runs with it pretty well. She captures Ben's inner conflict within a limited number of pages and finally alludes to the Beyond Corporation's sinister, and satirical origins in Warren Ellis and Stuard Immonen's "Nextwave." As someone who collected all twelve of Ellis and Immonen's gloriously irreverent series, I really appreciated mention of the broccoli men, which basically removed any doubt that the Beyond Corporation of this story might not be the same entity as the one Monica Rambeau and her friends faced off against a decade and a half ago. It was just the slightest tease, but I'm grateful to Thompson for having made it. This book just got a whole lot more interesting.
Also, making her long overdue debut on the main Amazing Spider-Man book years after her first real breakthrough ten years ago as the co-creator of Miles Morales, Sara Pichelli brings her A-game to the book. Her art is crisp and dazzling and her storytelling chops are even better than when she first started drawing Ultimate Spider-Man. It's nice of Marvel to lead with such strong artists like with Patrick Gleason and now with Pichelli. There seems to be more method to their approach this time rather than the Frankenstein-ish mix-and-match of different artists within a single story arc, and I am liking this so far.
And I'm still loving these Arthur Adams covers. It may be too much to ask, but I sincerely hope he illustrates at least an annual or one-shot before Marvel wraps up the Beyond story arc for the next big thing. Right now, it's too early to declare that Marvel are dragging this out the way Nick Spencer dragged his stories out, so I remain cautiously optimistic.
8/10
