Racing Against Time: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #4

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by John Romita Jr

inked by Scott Hanna

colored by Marcio Menyz

Having learned of Tombstone's shocking plan to frame Rose for a killing spree, Spider-Man frantically sets out to stop the bloodbath from taking place. He gets help from an unexpected source, and pulls out all the stops to prevent something truly terrible from taking place. Meanwhile, Peter's turn for the worse has gotten an old ally to check in on him, and Tombstone, the architect of Spider-Man's current misery, finally reveals his plans for Joe Robertson.

Though there's one issue left to go in this five-issue story marking the auspicious return of John Romita, Jr.'s art to the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man, it's honestly hard to imagine an issue stronger than this one turned out to be. In terms of pacing, dialogue and just overall storytelling it really is an extraordinary read, especially with JR Jr dialing the action up to 11. This may sound like hyperbole, but I can honestly say that I haven't seen this kind of kinetic power from his art since his Daredevil: The Man Without Fear miniseries with Frank Miller, the one that inspired the bone-crunching fight scenes from the Daredevil Netflix series.  I also give full credit to Wells for helping JR Jr. bring his A-game to this book.  

Thanks to writer and artist working in perfect sync, I really got into the urgency of the issue. This is really classic Spider-Man; pushing himself to the very limit to help people who need him. I also love how Wells pays off something that happened all the way back in the first issue which seemed, at the time at least, like a throwaway moment. This is the beauty of serialized storytelling, and long may it continue.

Though there's only one issue left in this inaugural arc, it's clear that Wells has got some pretty big plans for Tombstone moving forward, and I'm pretty sure I'll stick around for those, but for the meantime I really just want to take the time to applaud Wells and Romita Jr. for this exemplary story, which should really make a solid argument for a single creative team handling storytelling duties moving forward.

9.5/10