Nice, Slick Work: A Review of Daredevil #4

 written by Saladin Ahmed

drawn by German Peralta

colored by Jesus Aburtov

Saladin Ahmed wraps up his first story arc on Daredevil in fine style, and while it's unfortunate that he is not joined by Aaron Kuder, with whom he kicked off this new era for ol' Hornhead, the extremely capable German Peralta fills in on art chores instead. The result is an issue that is highly satisfying, even as it sets up the narrative that is yet to come.

Having discovered that his old friend Ben Urich is behind the libelous stories being spread about St. Nicholas Youth Home, Fr. Matt Murdock decides to get to the bottom of things and confronts Urich himself at his office at the Daily Bugle. Urich no longer recognizes Matt, who, we must recall, has literally been brought back not just from the dead but from Hell itself, and Matt barely recognizes his old friend upon hearing him speak, until he finally gets a glimpse of what's really going on with Ben.

Meanwhile, things appear to be coming to a head with the new gang, the Heat, about to make a move on the heir to Wilson Fisk himself, Butch Pharris. Matt intervenes as Daredevil, and not a moment to soon since Bullseye himself is on the scene, though he is apparently there to serve a bigger purpose. It all comes to a head as old foes clash.

We're still pretty much in the honeymoon period of Ahmed's writing, and he has managed to finish his first mini story arc quite strongly, and that was after he delivered a good, solid, done-in-one first issue that also managed to set up the larger narrative.  The book is off to the strongest start it's had in some time and I'm glad to see it. I know "Father Matt" is the kind of status quo that's destined to change, in much the same way that "Fry Cook Matt" was never going to be a long-term thing, but I want to see how long Ahmed can keep this up because quite frankly, this is the most interesting Matt has been in a while. 

The only shortcoming I perceive with this book is the art, and not because it's bad. Quite the contrary, Aaron Kuder and German Peralta are both extremely talented artists and I wouldn't mind having them rotate on art duties, but I hope each of them is able to finish off a story arc before handing off to the other. For all of my complaints about The Amazing Spider-Man, I dare say their artist rotation strategy is one thing they've gotten right.

Well, one thing I can say for sure is that I'm on board for the immediate future, at least. It's not the firmest decision in the world as comics have gotten notably more expensive of late, but if Ahmed and his art team can keep this level of storytelling up, my wallet can take the hit. 

9/10 

 

The Next "Big Thing:" A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #39 (Gang War)

written by Zeb Wells

penciled by John Romita Jr.

inked by Scott Hanna

colored by Marcio Menyz

When Zeb Wells relaunched this book in 2022 with John Romita Jr., he teased two major storylines, the first being the risible "What Did Peter Parker Do?" which went about as well as a wet fart.  The second storyline, however, one which has had much better build-up, is "Gang War" which is finally reaching its conclusion now.

The story kicked off elsewhere, in one of this book's numerous tie-ins, and thus Wells drops us right into the action, which features rival gangs moving in on one another's territory in New York, with Spider-Man and several of his allies including She Hulk, Miles Morales and Elektra doing everything they can to keep the city from coming apart at the seams. Treachery abounds, with all of the power players like Tombstone, his daughter Janice, aka the Beetle, Hammerhead, the Rose and Madame Masque all making big, bold moves.

My only question is: will any of this even really matter in the grand scheme of things?  

The problem with this "crime" and "gang war" related stories is that, after several decades of serialized storytelling, they all start to feel alike. Marvel only just did something like this not too long ago with "Devil's Reign" over in Daredevil.  Back when Gerry Conway was writing the book thirty years ago, he pitted the Kingpin and Hammerhead against gangster Mexican werewolves (yes, seriously, look it up).  What exactly does Wells bring to the table that hasn't been told in one fashion or another before? There isn't even any hamhanded allegory for American legislation like there was in the original "Civil War" series, it's just a bunch of criminals and supercriminals going at it, with our favorite hero caught in the middle.

Worse still, we're expected to follow all of the dozens of other books tied into this story, which is a turn-off for me even under the most ideal of circumstances. Given that comic books are now five dollars a pop, these are far from the most ideal of circumstances, and it is incumbent on Zeb Wells and JR Jr to give us a good reason to spend our hard-earned money on their book.

Honestly, so far, they haven't.

5/10

 

Foes New and Old: A (Super-Late) Review of Daredevil #3

written by Saladin Ahmed

penciled by Aaron Kuder and Farid Karami 

inked by Cam Smith and Karami

colored by Jesus Aburtov

Having discovered to his shock who has been spreading malicious falsehoods about St. Nicholas Youth Home, which he has been running together with his fellow priest Fr. Javi ever since his mysterious return from Hell, Father Matt Murdock now finds himself fighting on two fronts; by day, he has to engage with Child Protective Services and convince them that the horrible things being written about St. Nick's are not true, and by night, he has to take on the new gang the Heat, packing military-grade weaponry and who may be connected to an old foe of Matt's.

Saladin Ahmed's first mini-story arc nears its conclusion, and it's been a genuinely engaging ride so far. There are, of course, a lot of unanswered questions about Matt's new status quo, which I assume will be addressed over time, but for now I genuinely appreciate how Ahmed manages to put Matt, in his new guise as a Catholic priest, through the wringer without coming across as cruel or mean-spirited (I'm looking at YOU, Zeb Wells). 

It's not all good news, unfortunately. Aaron Kuder, who has done great work up until this point and who still contributes solid pencils to this issue, does not draw the whole issue. His co-artist Farid Karami turns in decent enough work but his style is so different front Kuder's that it's a rather jarring experience, which is a shame because given how well-paced Ahmed's script in the shift in art is the one thing that can derail it. Notably, there isn't even a clean break in the art, i.e. Kuder doesn't draw the first have and Karami the second, rather there is an overlap between the pages drawn by the artists and it is not the cleanest narrative experience.

 Still, so far, so good. 

 

7.5/10

Ed's BACK! A (Super-Late) Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #36 to 38

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by Ed McGuinness

inked by Mark Farmer, McGuinness

colored by Marcio Menyz

After teasing readers yet again with the possibility of Norman Osborn returning to his evil ways as well as the distinct possibility of the death of the widely-despised character Paul, the Spidey brain-trust bring back another of their heavy-hitters, Ed McGuiness to help readers forget for another few issues how they've screwed Peter Parker yet again.  Together with Zeb Wells, McGuinness spins a tale woven from the events of last year's big Spider-Man crossover Dark Web, involving a character introduced in that story, the comedic character Rek-Rap, a comical but well-intentioned demon who idolizes Peter Parker to the point of assuming a twisted, Bizarro-like version of his Spider-Man identity.  

Rek-Rap's antics in the world outside of limbo get him into a fair amount of trouble, much to the annoyance of the Queen of Limbo, Madelyne Pryor, who dispatches Spider-Man to bring Rek-Rap in, and someone else as well. This time, however, Rek-Rap may be onto something as he finds himself investigating a series of mysterious kidnappings, which might actually have a connection to Peter Parker himself. Beware the wrath of Re-Po!

Yes, that's literally the name of this new villain whom Wells and McGuinness have introduced. It is as groan-inducing as much of this run has been, but fortunately McGuinness keeps the story afloat with his lively visuals as usual.  This story is meant to whet the reader's appetite for the upcoming "Gang War" event that follows it, but in truth I could have used less "Gang War" foreshadowing and much more McGuinness goodness.

7.5/10

Super Late, Part II: A Review of Daredevil #2

written by Saladin Ahmed

drawn by Aaron Kuder

colored by Jesus Aburtov

Daredevil's adventures as a man of the cloth continue as Father Matt Murdock encounters a problem he can't quite punch into submission: a corrupt police force out to shut down St. Nicholas, the orphanage he and a fellow priest are running in Hell's Kitchen, and a mysterious, unknown adversary spreading slander about St. Nicholas on social media. It doesn't help that a new gang, armed to the teeth, has arrived on the scene. As Daredevil, Matt uses his muscles and his wit to try to track down the ultimate source of the slander, and makes a shocking discovery.

Someone in the comments section of a review of issue #1 cleverly called out Saladin Ahmed on what his overarching plot was, and to avoid spoilers I won't reveal it here. In truth, Ahmed doesn't make it all that hard to figure out what's going on, and that's quite honestly one of the things I rather like about this new iteration of the book. It's nice, linear, character-driven storytelling. Ahmed shows that Matt isn't defined so much by his powers or even his life as a lawyer as he is by his determination and compassion, and in that sense, I think Ahmed really gets this character.

I also really, really enjoyed Aaron Kuder's art in this issue; I love how clean the book looks, how reminiscent of the likes of David Marquez.

One minor quibble I have, though, is Matt's throwaway line: much of a lawyer's training is useless outside of a courtroom. As an attorney myself, I must respectfully disagree.

8.5/10 

Super Late: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #35 (Spoiler Alert)

written by Zeb Wells

drawn by Patrick Gleason

colored by Marcio Menyz

So this story arc ended several issues ago, magnified by the fact that this title comes out twice a month, and I stayed away from comic books for a while to focus on work. With the Christmas holidays coming I find I have a little time to myself to write some long overdue blog posts. 

So black-suit clad Peter, infused with the sins of Norman Osborn thanks to a magical spear created by Kraven and his new lover, Ashley Kafka's clone aka the Queen Goblin, goes on a rampage against the person who hurt him most: Mary Jane Watson and Zeb We---err Paul Rabin. Things look set to end in tragedy, but Kraven and Norman team up to do the unthinkable: stop Spider-Man.

Of course Peter wouldn't kill MJ, or Paul, or anyone while under the influence of Norman Osborn's evil essence. For all of editorial's pretensions that they want to shake things up in Peter's life (i.e. keep him miserable), there are some lines even they won't cross. Most readers will know how this turns out; Norman and Kraven teamed up to extract Norman's evil from Peter, but not before Peter dropped MJ's beau Paul from a bridge (only to have her save him). Anyway, nothing happened here that would require another laborious retcon, but unfortunately Wells' jackass of a new character is still around.

Patrick Gleason's art is still great; next to Ed McGuinness this guy has provided a reason to keep coming back to this book no matter how annoying Wells' writing gets, but when Jonathan Hickman and Marco Chechetto finally unleash their version of Ultimate Spider-Man next year I wonder if I'll still have the patience to stick around.

8/10

Cathartic: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #34

 written by Zeb Wells

drawn by Patrick Gleason

colored by Marcio Menyz

As I write this, the next issue of the story is probably hitting stores now. Life got in the way a little bit and I don't have a whole lot of time now so I'll keep this short.

This was a good, solid issue, even as it clearly sets the stage for yet another escalation of the rather hateful status quo that Spider-Man's brain trust have imposed on him. 

Basically, Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, infused with Norman Osborn's "sins" or his evil essence, having buried Kraven's clone alive as retribution for what his progenitor did years ago, is now out to take revenge on the person who hurt him most deeply: Spider-Man editori--I mean Mary Jane Watson and her new beau, Zeb We--I mean Paul Rabin. Norman is able to give Mary Jane and Paul advance warning for them to clear out, after which he waits at their home so that he can talk Peter down from his murderous rage. Suffice it to say, it does not go well for Norman. After all, Peter still remembers quite vividly the fact that he killed Gwen Stacy all those years ago. 

Spider-Man has beaten the Green Goblin before, whether it was in his original incarnation up until his death in 1973 or even after he had been resurrected in 1996. Seeing Peter pummel Norman Osborn, therefore, is nothing new. Seeing him do it here was nowhere near as cathartic as seeing Ben Reilly finally get his licks in after the Green Goblin had gaslit him and then murdered him all those years ago. It was, however, still somehow satisfying, seeing Peter finally unleash his rage on Norman for the death of Gwen, the woman he loved more than just about anyone else. It wasn't about stopping him or ending the threat, nor was it even about killing Norman; it was just about payback, which Peter dished out quite  generously.  It's not the kind of thing one sees very often in these long-form, serialized stories. It was similar to how Matt Murdock finally got to kick the s**t out of the Kingpin back in Brian Bendis' run on Daredevil two decades ago.  There's some real psychic satisfaction to be had when a creative team allows the heroic character, eternally locked in struggle with their enemies, to get their own a little bit.

It helps, of course, that Patrick Gleason, still in top form, drew this story. 

8.5/10

Sanctified: A Review of Daredevil #1 (Mild Spoilers)

 written by Saladin Ahmed

drawn by Aaron Kuder

colored by Jesus Aburtov

Another day, another Daredevil reboot.

This time around, Matt Murdock, who literally went down to Hell at the end of Chip Zdarsky's and Marco Checchetto's run and fought actual demons to the death (or whatever constitutes the destruction of demons), has come back to Earth as, of all things...a Catholic priest, one with no memory of his life as a lawyer by day and a costumed crimefighter by night known as Daredevil.  Instead, he attends to the orphanage of St. Nicholas in Hell's Kitchen, an orphanage which is apparently frowned upon by the Catholic Church hierarchy but which manages to stay open thanks to a mysterious benefactor, one whom Matt used to know quite well, and one who is actually watching over him. Unfortunately, someone else is watching over him too, with less benevolent intentions.

I'll say this for this new take on the character: it's different. Matt's been a number of things apart from a lawyer throughout the years. Quite memorably, he was a fry cook after the Kingpin briefly ruined his legal career.  A priest is a new path, one I don't think has been explored yet, so I'm willing to see where Saladin Ahmed and Aaron Kuder, both eminently talented creators, take him with this new direction. I quite like the action sequences that played out here; Kuder's crisp art evokes David Marquez. They treat us to a nicely satisfying done-in-one that leaves the door open for a much bigger story, and I really like storytelling like that. 

That said, I snickered a little at the issue's big showdown; Matt's first opponent is distinctly supernatural, and he defeats it by holding up a "Rosary" and saying...the Act of Contrition?!?  I wasn't exactly looking for "the power of Christ compels you" but this still feels a little out of left field.  Still, full credit to Ahmed for actually having Matt recite a Catholic prayer in its entirety, because it's quite literally one more prayer than was ever uttered in the entirety of Chip Zdarsky's five-year run. Matt's Catholicism is pretty much baked into his character and constantly referred to by his writers, so it's refreshing that one of them actually had him reciting a known Catholic prayer, not to mention tossing out Bible quotes throughout the story.  All that said, it does peeve me that like so many artists before him, Aaron Kuder could not be bothered to learn how to draw a Rosary properly. Oh well. 

Still, the book is off to a much better start that I had thought it would be. 

8/10

Back in Black: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #33

written by Zeb Wells

drawn by Patrick Gleason 

colored by Marcio Menyz

Having been stabbed by Kraven the Hunter with a spear magically imbued with Norman Osborn's evil essence, Spider-Man becomes the darkest version of himself that he has ever been. He dons his black suit once more and sets out to take his revenge on Kraven's clone for his father's act of burying him alive lo those many years ago.   Meanwhile, Norman Osborn tries to stop Peter from trodding a road Norman knows all too well, but he can never catch him in time. 

I was in grade school when Marvel published the highly influential Spider-Man stories "The Death of Jean DeWolff" and "Kraven's Last Hunt" but they were kind enough to reprint them over the years and as a result I was able read them both. In particular, it's "Kraven's Last Hunt" that leaves the greater impression. To my mind it's one of the best Spider-Man stories ever, and I totally get why Marvel is revisiting it with this story. Zeb Wells doesn't even have to do that much this issue besides call up nostalgia from that seminal 80s story, but he deserves props just the same for evoking just the right atmosphere.  

The real star of this issue, though is Patrick Gleason, whose moody art, ably supplemented by Marcio Menyz's color palette pays proper homage to Mike Zeck's and Bob McLeod's fantastic artwork from that story. Visually, this issue is simply flawless to my mind.

Yes, Marvel have done "dark Peter" a number of times before, to varying degrees of success, but there's a different twist to this, and I am really interested to see where they will ultimately take this.

9/10

The End of Good Norman? A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #32

 written by Zeb Wells

drawn by Patrick Gleason

colored by Marcio Menyz

Ever since Nick Spencer purged Norman Osborn of what can best be described as, well, the evil inside him, Marvel has made an interesting game of "what will make him evil again?"  It's a storytelling schtick that may get old at one point, but I have to say, for the moment, I am genuinely enjoying it, much, much more than I did after Dan Slott lobotomized him at the end of his run, the effects of which were almost immediately and quite predictably undone.  It's also given Norman the chance to grow as a  character the same way the remarkable "Superior Spider-Man" mega story arc did wonders for Otto Octavius.  As messy as it got towards the end, in my opinion Nick Spencer's run will be fondly remembered for righting a lot of wrongs in Spider-Man's canon, and for giving readers this interesting little story tidbit. 

In the last four-part story arc it was Otto Octavius who took a crack at restoring Norman to his former evil self by injecting Norman with a hyper-dose of the Green Goblin serum, but now it's the turn of Sergei Kravinoff, aka Kraven the Hunter and Ashley Kafka aka the Queen Goblin...(or clones of those people) to take their shot. Kraven and Kafka have a markedly different reason for wanting to restore Norman's evil ways from Otto, who simply wished to defeat his nemesis as he had remembered him; Kafka became the Queen Goblin because she had been infused with Osborn's evil essence. Through witchcraft, Kraven has extracted it and imbued a spear with it, but the story posits that for Kafka to truly be free, the evil has to be restored to its rightful owner Norman. Also, by restoring Norman to his former self, the Kraven clone intends to give himself a quarry to hunt that would make him worthy of his late father's legacy: the Green Goblin. Kraven sets out for Osborn Industries to accomplish his mission, but Spider-Man intervenes (because of course he would)...and things take a turn.

After the positively flaccid Ms. Marvel story, Marvel has set about to hype up the next big status quo shakeup for Spider-Man, and the developments of this issue must surely play into that. It's nice to see Wells taking the story threads Nick Spencer left by restoring Kraven's death and cleansing Norman Osborn of his evil and weaving something interesting with them. I was a little disappointed at how abrupt Kraven's and Kafka's hookup was (unless it was explored somewhere else), but this story definitely shows promise.

Also, it is great to see Patrick Gleason back on art chores, and I'm glad to know he'll be around for more than just one issue this time.

8.5/10

The Next "Big Thing:" A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #31

written by Zeb Wells

penciled by John Romita, Jr., Emilio Laiso and Ze Carlos

inked by Scott Hanna, Emilio Laiso and Ze Carlos  

(additional stories written and drawn by various)

Yet again, Marvel comes up with an excuse to stuff a bunch of previews for upcoming books into a so-called "landmark" issue and jack up the price. Given that this issue is the 925th issue of The Amazing Spider-Man (following Marvel's so-called "legacy" number) apparently the occasion is worth marking with extra pages of story, even more pages of filler stories and plugs for upcoming books...and a hefty price tag.

The main story is Randy Robertson's wedding to Janice Lincoln. Given that this issue is over a month old by now I'm sure most people know how it went, but I won't spoil anything anyway. It's quite an auspicious event, given that Randy's and Janice's dads Robbie Robertson and Lonnie Lincoln, aka Tombstone, were once mortal enemies, and given that Tombstone is still a crime lord. As one would expect, crazy things happen and Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, as Randy's best man, has to don the webs once more.

Apart from this main story there are a whole bunch of other stories which, if I'm perfectly honest, I don't consider worth discussing considering that they are all basically advertisements for a whole bunch of books I have no intention of buying. All they effectively did was jack up the price of this issue to rather exorbitant heights.  

As much as Zeb Wells' writing has turned me off of late, I thought this story was quite decent; I have genuinely enjoyed how he has handled Tombstone since reestablishing him as a major force upon the book's relaunch in 2022, and with the idiotic death of Ms. Marvel gimmick out of the way perhaps this new "mega arc" he's cooking up can tell a much more compelling story. It doesn't hurt that John Romita, Jr.'s in fine form for this extra-sized issue as are his co-artists Emilio Laiso and Ze Carlos. 

Main story: 8/10

Issue as a whole: 4/10

A REALLY Late Review: The Amazing Spider-Man #30

 written by Zeb Wells

drawn by Ed McGuinness (p) and Mark Farmer (i)

colored by Marcio Menyz

Due to a snafu with the shipping at my local comics shop I wasn't able to get my hands on this issue right away, and so I put off reviewing it, and before I knew it three more issues had come out. I sourced the comic elsewhere so that I could finally give my two cents' worth.

Last issue, Otto Octavius aka Doctor Octopus was just about to inject Norman Osborn with the Green Goblin serum in the hopes of returning him to his former, malevolent state. As this issue starts, he pushes through, albeit not with the expected results. Then, Peter Parker aka Spider-Man arrives on the scene wearing Otto's old arms, and a throwdown quite unlike any other in the history of the book ensues. 

I have to say: I am so very glad Ed McGuiness is on this book because I really was this close to calling it quits after Zeb Wells idiotic stunt involving Ms. Marvel. This four-parter has been a delight to read and I quite enjoy how Wells revisits the whole "Superior Spider-Man" era with Otto and Peter. It's something Marvel will expound on elsewhere, of course, but this story in and of itself is quite satisfying, and Ed is absolutely on the top of his game.  Of course, the story ends making mention of Kamala Khan, who was still dead at that point, and while it made sense to have the characters talk about it, it only reminded me of Marvel's limp marketing gimmick, and took me out of the story if only for a moment. 

Still, this issue was a great ride. 

9.5/10

A Boatload of Fun: A Review of One Piece Season 1

 directed by various

written by various

About a little over a week since its release at the end of August, the live--action adaptation of the wildly popular anime series One Piece (itself an adaptation from a super popular manga series by Eiichiro Oda) had proven to be a runaway hit for Netflix, who produced the show. After getting badly burned by their last live-action adaptation of a beloved anime, Cowboy Bebop, I was extremely hesitant to check out this series.   In fact, I did not immediately finish the first episode because I found it a little long. I had not seen the anime or read the manga and so I had no reference point, but I still had my misgivings. 

After I got around to finishing that first episode, though everything changed.

One Piece, for the uninitiated like myself, takes place in a fictional, oddly anachronistic world which is run by a single government whose security force is a group of baseball-uniform wearing marines and whose biggest threat, apparently, is pirates.  The biggest pirate of them all, Gold Roger (Michael Dorman), is executed at the very beginning of the show and proclaims to the throngs gathered below that his fabled treasure, the One Piece, is theirs for the taking if they have the courage to hit the high seas.  Years later, the young Monkey D. Luffy (played by Inaki Godoy), dreams of finding the One Piece and becoming the new King of the Pirates. He teams up with thief Nami (Emily Rudd) to steal a map of the Grand Line, where the One Piece is believed to be, and on his journey he recruits others to his crew, namely brooding swordsman Roronoa Zoro (Mackenyu), sharpshooter and teller of tall tales Usopp (Jacob Gibson) and chef and martial artist extraordinaire Sanji (Taz Skylar).   Finding the One Piece won't be easy, with other pirates like Buggy (Jeff Ward) and Arlong (McKinley Belcher III) standing in their way, as well as the Marines, led by no less than Luffy's grandfather, Vice-Admiral Garp (Vincent Regan). 

After getting through that first episode, I found myself binge-watching the rest of the eight along with my kids. The show is extraordinarily entertaining and has superb production value. It may have helped that, not having seen the anime, I had no point of reference like I did with Cowboy Bebop, but as a causal fan of anime in general I really got the sense that unlike Bebop, which seemed to treat its source material with disdain, this show wholeheartedly embraced its anime heritage, and all the quirkiness, silliness and occasional cheesiness it entailed.  Sure, some tweaks were needed to the dialogue and story beats here and there, but this series definitely has a distinctly anime sensibility in every single episode.

It helps, I think that the showrunners, headed by Oda himself, has assembled a winning cast headed by the energetic and charismatic Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy, all of whom have fantastic chemistry together, and all of whom are really game for the series' very physical stunt sequences. 

I really immersed myself in this world because the cast and crew were so clearly invested in it, bringing to life an unlikely combination of whimsy and, well, pretty intense violence that must have been a really tough balance to strike. Everything about this production, from the cinematography to the art direction to the fight choreography and visual effects, was quite lovingly rendered, and the love shows. 

The best part was how the first eight episodes tie together and tell a story that gets a satisfying conclusion, even as it clearly sets the stage for much more to come. 

8.5/10

Post-Matt Murdock: A Review of Daredevil #14 (Minor Spoilers)

 written by Chip Zdarsky

drawn by Marco Checchetto

colored by Matt Wilson

In the wake of Daredevil's heroic sacrifice last issue, the people nearest and dearest to him look back fondly on him and can't help but feel like he's still around.  Foggy Nelson, in particular, has moved on, continuing his legal practice, but this time with the assistance of former police officer Cole North who works as his investigator and muscle, and Elektra is trying as best she can not to fall back into her old life of killing people, whether for hire or otherwise, and instead tries to keep Hell's Kitchen safe, as Matt did. Both of them, however, struggle with their loss.

I basically called it when I said in my review of the last issue that this issue, which is also extra-sized, would be spent with the supporting characters mourning the loss of Matt Murdock, though I didn't quite figure on the tease for the new status quo in the last few pages of the issue; I thought it'd be something a lot more coy than that.

Anyway as predictable as this issue's story beats were I liked seeing Foggy Nelson's new status quo with the non-lawyer North as his business partner, which is basically a new twist on Nelson and Murdock.  I may have had my issues with Chip Zdarsky's five-year run on this title, but I think that ex-cop Cole North was one of the truly good things to come out of it. I honestly hope Marvel keep him this way and not power him up through some story contrivance.  

I was less enthused by Elektra carrying on the Daredevil mantle, something she has shared with Matt for a couple of years now, but I do appreciate how Zdarsky has really tried to do something different with her character than what's been written all the years before he came along, where she'd either be stoical or tortured about her past. 

I like that Checchetto is closing out his run with some pretty strong art, the kind that was on full display in the "Devil's Reign" miniseries that remains, for me, the high point of this creative team's now-finished tenure. 

I am genuinely excited to see what Saladin Ahmed and Aaron Kuder can bring to the table in the upcoming series reboot. 

9/10

Jailbreak: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (2023)

 written by Erica Schultz

drawn by Julian Shaw

colored by Andrew Dalhouse

Following the events of "Dark Web" from earlier this year, Peter Parker aka Spider-Man finds himself chasing down Janine Godbe, aka Hallow's Eve, as she attempts to free her lover Ben Reilly aka Chasm from the Madelyne Pryor's realm of Limbo, where he has been imprisoned since failing in his attempt to conquer New York with an army of demons. While Janine's powers of disguise get her pretty far in her mission, ultimately she learns the hard way that she's dealing with the Goblin Queen.

I remember when annuals were an event, written and illustrated by some the most talented creators in the business, often people who couldn't really be counted on to put out monthly work on a timely basis but whose talent could really shine in this annual one-shots. 

In this context, I honestly don't understand what is even remotely special about this story, which is only twenty pages long, doesn't feature any new characters or any auspicious events, or even particularly talented creators. This could basically have been a one-shot issue of the main title, yet it found its way into an overpriced one-shot like this.  

6/10

Backup story: 

written by Celeste Bronfman

drawn by David Lopez

colored by KC Diaz

This marked a slightly different approach to an annual; this story is a teaser of things to come. When Peter, MJ and (ugh) her new boyfriend Paul throw a party for MJ's aunt Anna, the normally sweet old lady suddenly turns savage and starts punching everyone present. Can Peter and MJ get to the bottom of what has afflicted her aunt, and apparently many other people?  Well, not in this issue.

Not that it needs reiterating, but I loathe the current status quo between Peter and MJ, which has been nothing but mean-spirited and lazily-written, and anything that reminds me of it automatically pisses me off, especially a story like this that doesn't seem to have anything to offer. I will admit to liking David Lopez's art a little bit but that's about it. 

4/10

Marvel, if you're going to do "annuals" like this again, please don't bother. 

Anticlimactic: A Review of Daredevil #13 (Mild Spoilers)

 written by Chip Zdarsky

drawn by Marco Checchetto

colored by Matt Wilson

And so Chip Zdarsky's supernatural epic which has been in the making since 2018 finally comes to a conclusion with Matt Murdock aka Daredevil going down to hell to fight the Beast himself, clad in a white version of his costume and convinced that, with the ghost of his dad Jack Murdock by his side, he is doing the will of God. Things do not quite turn out as he had expected, though, and even though he finds the souls of Foggy, Stick and several others and sets about rescuing them all, he realizes with a sinking feeling that there may be no turning back for him.

After finally taking down the Hand a few issues back and then clobbering their financial backers, the Stromwyns, Matt Murdock's showdown with the Beast had the trappings of a classic showdown, reminiscent of his grand final battles with Wilson Fisk, but instead it featured a rather limp twist and ended with a bit of a thud.  This was what Zdarsky spent years setting up? About the only thing it does is make like hard for the incoming creative team of Saladin Ahmed and Aaron Kuder. 

After the Zdarsky/Checchetto team really solidified their credibility with Devil's Reign, it was genuinely sad to see how inconsistent in quality this "War on the Hand" storyline has been, and this showdown really is just the final insult.  I'm at least glad that it's over, save for one more issue which will no doubt be an epilogue of sorts before the new creative team takes over.   

6/10

The Ties that Bind: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #29

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by Ed McGuinness

inked by Mark Farmer, McGuinness

colored by Marcio Menyz

As Otto Octavius, aka Doctor Octopus continues to exact his revenge against Norman Osborn, formerly the Green Goblin, for the humiliation Otto suffered at Osborn's hands back in the dying days of his tenure as the Superior Spider-Man, Jonah Jameson and Otto's old set of octopus arms whisk the beaten Peter Parker aka Spider-Man to safety. After a brief moment of recovery, Peter sets out to rescue Norman with the help of Otto's old arms...for which seems to have an affinity he cannot explain. Meanwhile, even as the captive Norman's repentance from his old ways catches Otto off-guard, Doc Ock is still determined to wreak havoc on his old rival's life.

With Wells' big gimmick now firmly in the rearview mirror, this new story involving Otto Octavius, which actually launched back in the landmark 900th issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, is genuinely intriguing, in particular because of how it references a very interesting time in Otto's life: the year and a few months that he lived in the shoes of Peter Parker.  This Otto/Osborn rematch is something I have been genuinely interested in seeing, especially with Osborn having turned over a new leaf.  It's an interesting contrast to Otto's crack at being a good guy, which was ultimately undone by his own ego. I like that they're slowly revisiting the story beats that led to the Superior Spider-Man saga, because I'd like to think Otto's desire for redemption that Wells' briefly flashes here is something genuine. 

It also helps, of course, that McGuinness' work here is nothing short of sublime. This is peak McGuinness, displaying the kind or artistry that truly made Deadpool a household name and ushered in a new era of glory for Superman in the early noughties.   I am so glad I stuck around for this, no matter how bad a taste issue #26's gimmicky death left in my mouth.  McGuinness is just pure gold on this book.  Here's hoping he keeps up the good work!

9/10

Hickman and Hitch's Sprawling Epic: A Review of Ultimate Invasion #1

 written by Jonathan Hickman

penciled by Bryan Hitch

inked by Andrew Currie

colored by Alex Sinclair

Jonathan Hickman's plan to rebuild the Ultimate Marvel Universe kicks off in earnest, with evil Reed Richards, aka the Maker escaping from his Damage Control prison and rapidly setting his plan in motion. Will even Marvel's ultra-powerful Illuminati (Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Namor, Black Bolt, Charles Xavier and T'Challa) be able to stop him?

When the first Ultimates issue came out in January 2002, over twenty-one years ago, I was absolutely gobsmacked by Bryan Hitch's astonishing "widescreen" art, which fit Mark Millar's script like a glove.  It was Captain America's World War II origin story told like it never had been before, and in fact, it went on to inspire how the character was depicted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Heck the entire first year of issues was basically what served as the narrative backbone of the MCU. 

Unfortunately, the quality of the entire line declined precipitously after that first big arc, and by the early 2010s the Ultimate line of comics was on its last legs, having been thrown a bit of a lifeline by the introduction of Miles Morales, a new Spider-Man. Then, in 2016, Jonathan Hickman ended it all, with a storyline I hadn't even stuck around for anymore: Secret Wars.  It's fitting, then that Hickman, the man who ended the Ultimate Universe, finally teams up with Hitch, the guy who kicked it into high gear.  So what have they brought us?

Well...it's a forty-eight page first issue that is prohibitively expensive. It starts off with a sixteen-page heist, nine pages of which feature exclusively a bunch of anonymous characters whose significance to the plot ends as soon as the Maker appears, and thereafter features a lot of panoramic dialogue pages featuring Mister Fantastic, Black Panther, members of the Illuminati, and Miles Morales. It's only at the tail-end of the issue that we see what the Maker is up to, and to Hickman's credit he leaves an interesting teaser as to what's to come as he starts changing key events to reshape reality.

Narratively, it's a far cry from the 28-pages of full-blooded, action-packed storytelling that Millar and Hitch delivered in 2002 when they presented a hard hitting adventure evocative of Saving Private Ryan in that very first Ultimates issue.  Hickman is known for his slow-burn storytelling, but to my mind he still burned a little too slowly here.  Apart from the Maker, nobody does anything of significance here, and I truly hope that changes next issue. 

There's still a lot to love here, though; Hitch and his Ultimates inker Andrew Currie bring their absolute A game to this issue, though Alex Sinclair, whose vibrant colors made Jim Lee's work on Batman and Superman look brilliant twenty years ago, presents a surprisingly muted color palette considering the scope of this story.  Still, art this brilliant is, by itself, almost worth the price of admission.

I'm on board until this end of this story, but I really, really hope future issues are not as expensive as this one was, because if I'm honest the cover price was kind of brutal. 

7.5/10

Upgraded Ock vs. Osborn: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #28

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by Ed McGuinness

inked by Mark Farmer

colored by Marcio Menyz

After the thrashing they endured last issue, Jonah Jameson brings Doc Ock's shattered sentient octo-arms to Norman Osborn's company, which unfortunately also leads Otto Octavius right to their doorstep. Norman and his employee Peter Parker suit up as the Gold Goblin and Spider-Man, but Otto's got some new , seriously upgraded octopus arms, and a couple of other tricks up his sleeve besides that.

As I said when reviewing the last issue, I honestly appreciate that Zeb Wells is building on the past rivalry between Otto Octavius and Norman Osborn that Dan Slott first developed back in Ock's "Superior Spider-Man" days and that Nick Spencer brought to a head two years ago when he purged Norman Osborn of his sins/evil.  It's often a pet peeve of mine that past stories are ignored so I'm glad to see this express acknowledgment of the past.

That said, more than the last several issues of this run (including the ones I hated), this one feels oddly decompressed. I always welcome the chance to see Ed McGuinness' artwork on this book, which looks great in this issue, I can't help but feel like this has been dragged out just a little bit. I know four issues make for a better collected edition than three (as this arc looks like it'll wrap at issue #30), but Wells could have had a little bit more going than this showdown.  Last issue, we caught a glimpse of Ashley Kafka, which is clearly setting up a future storyline, but this issue, apart from a brief walk-on by Kraven the Hunter, is focused purely on the protagonist and antagonist of this storyline.  While a part of me appreciates that, well, again my problem is that it feels like filler.

Still, filler illustrated by Ed McGuinness is still worth a whole lot of main stories drawn by a whole lot of other artists. 

7.5/10

Going to Hell: A Review of Daredevil #12

 written by Chip Zdarsky

drawn by Marco Checchetto

colored by Matt Wilson

With Daredevil having defeated the Stromwyns, the money behind the Hand, all that remains is for him to chase the Beast down to Hell and reclaim the souls of his friends. The only problem is that to do it, he has to die, and his wife Elektra isn't about to let Matt, good Catholic that he is, take his own life at the very mouth of the Inferno.

This issue was billed as a duel to the death between Matt and Elektra, in a case of some pretty egregiously misleading marketing. Surprisingly, though I quite preferred what ACTUALLY happened as opposed to what was hyped up to happen, for a number of reasons.

First of all, I really like the fact that Chip Zdarsky is revisiting the storyline involving the Beast that his predecessor Charles Soule wrote during his last year or so on the book. Before he really hit his stride with the "Devil's Reign" miniseries, I kind of thought Zdarsky's writing had gone all over the place, with his advocacy against the penal system being his one bright spot. I felt he meandered a bit to get to this point but I'm also glad he's not pretending to shatter any status quos here.  

Second, on that note, I really like focused this issue feels; we really get a sense of Zdarsky's endgame here, and for the first time in a while I feel really excited about the next issue.

This issue is basically just as setup for the climactic throwdown that will take place over the next issue or two which will close out Zdarsky's run, so I look forward to Zdarsky and Checchetto giving it the full beans, as it were.

8/10

After the Gimmick is Done: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #27

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by Ed McGuinness

inked by Mark Farmer

colored by Marcio Menyz

In the wake of Kamala Khan's death last issue, Peter Parker aka Spider-Man and Norman Osborn, aka the Gold Goblin, struggle to move forward with their lives. The threat from Wayep and his emissary Rabin may be gone but there are plenty of threats ahead, including Otto Octavius, whose mechanical arms abandoned him the time he fought Spider-Man, but who has new machinations up his sleeves, with Norman Osborn in his sights.  

With Zeb Wells' big mystery box having been opened, he's gotten back to writing interesting stories again, and as much as I despised "What did Peter do?" I am willing to give Wells the benefit of the doubt on the next few issues. After, all giving that I'm spending on these comics, I'm the only one losing out if I insist on grumbling about his bad story choices.

Setting up Doc Ock against Norman Osborn is something I have not seen nearly often enough since Norman was brought back from the dead in 1996. I've seen Mark Millar and Dan Slott pit them against one another in two stories that were nearly a decade apart, and in both cases Otto came off worse. I could be missing on another story here, but it seems Otto has come to hold a grudge against Osborn over these encounters. This story seems interesting enough, though Wells' last big mega arc has left me wary. Call me cautiously optimistic for now.  

Besides, despite my deep disdain for Wells' gimmicky writing, I persevered to see Ed McGuinness back on art duties, and the man does not disappoint in the least. It grates on me that I have had to wait as long as I have to see this guy draw Spider-Man stories on a semi-regular basis, but, hey, better late than never. I still hope to see Jim Lee illustrate tales of the webhead one day. 

8/10

Death in Comics Used to Matter (Spoilers for The Amazing Spider-Man #26)

 I was only five years old when Chris Claremont and John Byrne killed Jean Grey, one of the founding members of the X-Men, at the end of "The Dark Phoenix Saga," but even at the young age when I started reading Marvel Comics in the early 80s, I knew the story of her death was a big deal. I had no idea what the word "audacity" meant back then, but that's definitely how I felt about what Claremont and Byrne had done.  The sheer moxie of these guys to kill off a main character of the book was simply unheard of at the time, and the fan community, years before the internet, apparently knew how to make their displeasure known. So vehement was the reaction to Jean Grey's death that Byrne who had moved on from Uncanny X-Men and who was now writing and drawing Fantastic Four, ended up bringing Jean back in the pages of that book.

This death marked the first time that a leading character, and not a supporting character like Gwen Stacy or even Bucky, had died in the pages of a mainstream comic book. Unlike Gwen Stacy, the love interest, or Bucky, the sidekick, Jean Grey, was an actual leading character, and in her guise as the Phoenix, she was one of the book's central characters. Not long thereafter, Marvel upped the ante by killing another of its characters, Mar-Vell, in a graphic novel just dedicated to telling that story.  Marvel's rivals at DC followed suit, with hard-hitting deaths like Supergirl and the Flash taking place in Crisis on Infinite Earths.  Spanning the first half of the 80s, these stories all hit pretty hard for those of us old enough to remember.

When Marvel succumbed to fan pressure and brought Jean Grey back from the dead about five years after they had killed her, this marked the beginning of the end of death having any real meaning in comics, at least as far as main characters were concerned. Sure, characters continued to die in the years that followed, but suddenly, resurrecting them, regardless of the storytelling device used, was a real option that neither of the "Big Two" hesitated to shy away from. 

In the early 90s, DC Comics, whose Superman comics were not selling all that well, made what was arguably the most successful use of the whole "death" of a character in comics history: they killed off Superman, and then resurrected him. That basically blew the doors off the whole death and resurrection of a main character: it was no longer just a gimmick to boost sales on a flagging book, it was the gimmick.  It became a running joke that a character had not really arrived until they got to die. High profile comic book deaths since then have included Batman, Wolverine and Captain America, all of which were heavily marketed by DC's and Marvel's respective hype machines. These came with tie-in titles galore, big build-ups and epilogues and, of course, the inevitable return of the character.  To my mind, with each death and resurrection, the concept honestly felt less and less meaningful as a storytelling device, and more and more crass.

With the death of the popular Gen Z character Kamala Khan, aka the current Ms. Marvel, I'd argue that the concept has hit a new low.  

Only the folks at Marvel know how it was decided that Ms. Marvel would die in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man, but however this process may have taken place, this was easily one of the worst-conceived "deaths" that I could possibly think of since Marvel started the ball rolling on this forty three years ago. Rather than die in her own book, which, incidentally is missing in action, Kamala Khan dies as a bit player in someone else's story, and as a "twist" death. It's no secret that Marvel was hyping up The Amazing Spider-Man #26 to be the title's most shocking issue since the death of Gwen Stacy, and so all eyes were on Mary Jane Watson. Even allowing for a twist death, though, a more likely candidate would have been someone from Peter's supporting cast like Norman Osborn.  Kamala was an outside choice, especially since she barely showed up in the book, so it would have been a surprising twist, if nothing else. 

Except, thanks to Marvel's marketing department, it wasn't even that; apparently deciding at the last minute that it would be better to hype up the death than surprise readers, Marvel plastered her death all over the entertainment press weeks before it actually happened, robbing the story of any impact whatsoever, and highlighting how sad Kamala Khan's plight actually was; she didn't even have her own book, even just a miniseries, to die in.  Pretty much anyone who's ever read a comic book knows she'll be back, but there is something especially pathetic about how Marvel has packaged this particular death gimmick. 

Kamala's return will most likely coincide with her feature film debut in November's The Marvels, possibly in a miniseries, followed by the return of her own monthly book. If and when that happens, I hope Marvel has the decency to put it in the hands of creators that will treat her better than Zeb Wells and the rest of Spider-Man editorial have.

And maybe...just maybe...Marvel can lay off the gimmick deaths for a while after so clearly botching this one.  

Too Numb to Care: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #26

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by John Romita, Jr.

inked by Scott Hanna

colored by Marcio Menyz

So, the comic book which Marvel had been hyping as the most shocking issue of The Amazing Spider-Man in 50 years (their words, not mine) finally hit shops last week, and they could not have set their fans up for more disappointment if they had tried. 

I will avoid spoilers for anyone still living under a rock, but in broad strokes, suffice it to say that with this story, writer Zeb Wells finally wraps up the major story arc with which he had started this new iteration of this book, with the fanatical Rabin, loyal, murderous disciple of the equally murderous Mayan god Wayep, having his big showdown with Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, his ex-girlfriend Mary Jane Watson, and their allies.  Rabin seeks to kill Mary Jane as a ritual sacrifice and attain godhood. He can be stopped...but at what cost?

As the payoff of the last year's worth of issues, this issue is, quite sadly, flaccid. It's supposed to hit hard with its "shocking" revelations and a payoff that nobody was supposed to be expecting until Marvel's marketing department took things into their own hands. In the end, though, none of the big twists, reveals or developments in this issue has any real resonance because it's all played for some kind of shock value. None of the supposed shock that Wells is going for feels earned, and so I put down the issue feeling sadly indifferent. Last issue filled me with hate, which I think has, by and large, been editorial's goal for the last year or so, but with this issue I really couldn't bring myself to care about anything anymore. 

If there's any consolation to be had here, it's that John Romita Jr. turns in genuinely strong work here.  Maybe now that Wells has wrapped up his big mystery box story, he can move onto something a little more imaginative than his fantasy of cuckolding Peter Parker. 

I'd love to call it quits for the remainder of Wells' run, honestly, but darn it, Ed McGuinness is back next issue and will stick around for the next four, so it looks like I'm not going anywhere for the time being. 

5/10

Quiet Exit: A (Very, Very Late) Review of Champions: Killer App

written by Danny Lore

drawn by Luciano Vecchio

colored by Federico Blee

One could say Kamala Khan, the Paskistani-American superhero known as Ms. Marvel has finally arrived, given that Marvel Comics has recently revealed that they are about to subject her to a fate reserved only for the most elite of superheroes, i.e. those who get their own movies: she is destined to "die."  She's in the big leagues, it would seem. 

Sadly enough, though, one of the books she top-billed, the teen team book Champions, was canceled nearly two years ago, and had such a low-key exit that it took me nearly two years to track down its final collected edition, Killer App.

This slim volume, which collects issues #6 to #10 of the last series of Champions that Marvel published up until 2021, sees the Champions composed of Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Spider-Man (Miles Morales), Nova (Sam Alexander), Viv Vision and Ironheart (Riri Williams) once again going toe-to-toe with the evil corporation Roxxon, who has, in the Marvel universe, served for decades as the stand-in for nearly every blatantly capitalist, greed-motivated corporation that exists in the real world. This story follows up the last one in which the Champions exposed the abuses involved in implementing the Underage Superhuman Welfare Act or "Kamala's Law" which  regulated adolescent superheroes.  Roxxon's role in this abuses was also exposed, and, still reeling from this, Roxxon is seeking to rehabilitate its image with a new youth-oriented app, "Roxx-On!" while the Champions are determined to prove that Roxxon hasn't changed its ways and, more importantly, seek to have Kamala's Law repealed once and for all. To do so, they will have to do the one thing none of them had ever thought they'd do: infiltrate Roxxon.  

If I'm perfectly honest, as much as I loved the first few volumes of Champions as written by Mark Waid and drawn by teen team book specialist Humberto Ramos (whose credits include Out There and Strange Academy) I can understand why this book simply couldn't sustain its readership; there's only so much pontification that the obviously teenage target audience can take.  This book was "woke" before it was even really a thing, and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, the reality is that it just wasn't attractive to enough readers to sustain the book.

That's really a shame, because with this volume, the book looked better than it had since Waid and Ramos left to do other things. While Danny Lore's script was serviceable and, if nothing else, an improvement over Jim Zub's so-so writing, the real highlight for me was Luciano Vecchio's anime-inspired, ultra-clean art which was evocative of both Gurihiru and Ed McGuinness. I am really glad that the New Warriors reboot this guy was scheduled to work on got canceled; the previews for characters like "Snowflake" and "Safespace" drew such widespread derision from fans of all political persuasions that it could have been truly damaging to Vecchio's career had that book seen the light of day, and this guy deserves to get all the work Marvel can think of to give him.  This guy (Vecchio) should have been the guy to illustrate Kamala's demise. That'd be worth checking out. 

7.5/10

Destined to be Undone: A Review of Daredevil #11

 written by Chip Zdarsky

drawn by Rafael de la Torre

colored by Matt Wilson

As an on-again, off-again reader of Daredevil since the 1990s, one unfortunate trend I've noticed about the character's status quo is how prone it tends to be to resetting. I know that's arguably the case for a lot of Marvel characters, but Daredevil in particular seems especially prone to reinvention.  The guy's been killed, possessed by the Hand, outed to the public, had his secret identity "reconcealed," been happy, been sad, and been subjected to the kind of editorial torment that probably only Spider-Man or Wolverine could rival.

I write this not really to complain but to kind of sigh in resignation at the thought that, yet again, we are probably headed for another hard reset of the character as Chip Zdarsky's run comes to an end in a couple of issues.

With Matt's war against the Hand having basically taken everything from him, he makes one last gambit against the Stromwyn siblings, his current foes and the folks behind the Hand, to get back everything that he cares about and believes in.  After that, he declares that he's basically done...with living.

It's a competently put-together issue, with Marco Checchetto taking yet another break, presumably because he'll be drawing the climactic battle with Elektra next issue, but I really can't help but feel how inconsequential it is because there are very few more obvious ways to declare that a status quo is destined for a reset than to declare the intent to kill the main character, which is what Zdarsky and Marvel have been doing for a while now.  

So basically, none of this really matters, which is kind of a shame because Zdarsky had something really interesting going with his commentary on how the penal system doesn't really reform criminals.  It was the kind of advocacy that could have helped energize the book more than some hackneyed, ultimate-good-vs-evil battle storyline.  

Marvel is still keeping a lid on who's replacing Zdarsky or what the inevitable new status quo will look like which doesn't really inspire confidence because usually we know months in advance who's taking over a book once a creative team ends its run. Given that Marvel has a pretty high profile Disney+ show in the pipeline for the character I hope they have a pretty good team lined up for him.

6.5/10

Love as a Time Lapse: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #25

"written" by Zeb Wells

penciled by Kaare Andrews and John Romita Jr.

inked by Andrews and Scott Hanna

colored by Marcio Menyz

Welcome back to the Cucktacular Spider-Man, which is basically the central theme of Marvel's flagship book nowadays.

Picking up from last month's revelation that Mary Jane Watson now regards her new partner Paul, who was only just introduced to readers less than a year ago, to be the love of her life, this issue dives a little further back into the history of how that happened. To make a long story short, while Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, was busy over the course of a few hours working out how to get back to Mary Jane while she was trapped in another dimension with the murderous, powerful Rabin, MJ, through the "magic" of "time moving differently" was bonding with Paul and falling in love with him, as well as with a couple of children whom they rescued who, suspiciously, just happened to look exactly like them.  

Peter is understandably distraught by what has just transpired, but apparently Rabin and Wayep are nowhere near done. All of this, after all, is just flashbacks; the main event is yet to come.

So, now we're all caught up, and while Peter was at least spared the ignominy of Zeb We--err PAUL impregnating his one true love, this ridiculous reverse deux-ex-machina of a time lapse, doubled with children magically appearing out of nowhere, is still some of the most cruel, below-the-belt sabotage of Peter's life that the Spider-Man brain trust have subjected him to since selling his marriage to the devil, and if I understand things correctly, there's at least one more horrific tragedy just around the corner.  In fact, if I may do the unthinkable and actually compare One More Day favorably to this monstrosity of a story, I'd like to point out that the events of that story basically sprang out of Peter's decision to sign up with Tony Stark in the superhero civil war, and to out himself to the public in the process.  Aunt May getting shot was a tragic but avoidable outcome which made it all the more affecting. Peter thought he was doing the right thing when he outed himself, but it ended up biting him and his loved ones on the ass. THAT's the essence of the infamous Parker luck. 

In this scenario, when confronted with a terrible threat, Peter did every single thing right, from not backing down from yet another life-threatening situation to doing anything and everything to get back to Mary Jane.  I detest how this story has been marketed with the tag-line "what did Peter do" as though it was somehow his fault that Mary Jane broke up with him, which is how the marketing of this story has been leaning for the better part of a year. 

What is so particularly hateful about this book is how unbelievably lazy the writing feels. Nothing about MJ's and Paul's ordeal, which lasted several years in their weird time bubble, feels like it makes any sense beyond the plot requiring it to happen. There's a limp-wristed attempt at pseudo-science to explain how they've held off life-threatening forces for something like four years, but it really doesn't make any sense. Mary Jane falls for this loser because the plot dictates that she needs to. Full stop. 

This is the payoff of a year's worth of mystery box storytelling, and it sucks. It's a shame because Wells has, in the interim, given readers some solid, memorable stories involving a whole bunch of characters of Spidey's library.  I've written elsewhere that Wells is a talented writer, albeit one with a penchant for bizarre stories, like the one in which Curt Connors, aka the Lizard, ate his son.  It's a shame to think that Marvel are literally dipping into the hate-reading well, because judging by the fact that Wells has shut down comments on his social media, that's literally what they've tapped into right now. 

It's also a shame because it's always a pleasure to see Kaare Andrews' work on something other than cover art, and I would have truly loved to have seen more of it on a Spider-Man book under far different circumstances. And no, not even my usual affection for the unspectacular but solid artwork of John Romita Jr. is enough for me to think this story is anything other than rage-baiting garbage. 

Oh, and as if to rub salt in the wound, this issue is extra-sized and extra-priced, and has a forgettable side story featuring Spider-Man and Black Cat going out on a date, written and drawn by people whose names I can't even be bothered to remember or check right now. 

3/10

You Win Some, You Lose Some: A Review of Daredevil #10

 written by Chip Zdarsky

drawn by Marco Checchetto

colored by Matt Wilson

As a longtime reader of comic books featuring Spider-Man and Daredevil, I can't help but compare the way Marvel have handled Matt Murdock to the way they have handled Peter Parker, over the better part of six decades. They have quite a bit in common, like a dead father or father figure, a blonde lover who died at the hands of their greatest nemesis, or recurring personal tragedies. Over the years, it has almost felt at times as if they were in some sort of contest to determine who had it worse in life.

Even now, Peter Parker endures some of his worst torment ever at the hands of his creative team over in his book, Matt Murdock is also going through the wringer as his ultimate war against the forces of evil has taken a serious turn for the worse. After his army, the Fist, won an important but very costly victory over his arch nemesis the Hand, he learned that his oldest friend Foggy Nelson and his mentor Stick were nothing but simulacra planted in their ranks by the Hand, and now the Avengers have caught up with him, and they're hellbent on putting the army Daredevil busted out of prison right back where he got them. Elektra and Daredevil's allies have their hands full with Captain America, Iron Man and Black Panther, while Daredevil faces off against no less than his longtime ally, Spider-Man.

To be honest, my only serious regret about this issue is that there have not been more like it in this run. After Zdarsky and Checchetto seriously impressed with their prestige format miniseries "Devil's Reign," I had high hopes that their climactic finale for Daredevil would have a similar standard of craftsmanship, but it's been a mixed bag over the course of the last ten issues, though this is certainly one of the better ones. The throw-down between Matt and Peter is well-staged, and doesn't crap on canon just for the sake of giving a good story. It is established that, for all of his training, Matt would not be a match for Peter under normal circumstances, and that's all I'll say lest I spoil the outcome.  Still, one can't help but feel there's a bit of plot armor involved, and that detracts from the smoothness of the storytelling. 

Zdarsky has promised yet more twists and turns in the remaining issues of his run, and this would pretty much be par for the course for the Man without Fear, so I just hope Zdarsky and Checchetto can end on a decent finale and leave Matt with a modicum of dignity, even if it's clear they have no intention of giving him any kind of happy ending.

 9/10

Marvel's Creative Nadir (MAJOR SPOILERS for The Amazing Spider-Man #24)

Full disclosure: I didn't grow up with Stan Lee's Spider-Man. The comics I read as a kid were written by Roger Stern, Tom DeFalco, J.M. DeMatteis and David Michelinie and were drawn by John Romita Jr., Ron Frenz, Mark Bagley and Todd McFarlane.  I encountered the occasional Stan Lee issue, but I did not read his landmark stuff until I discovered it in reprints as an adult.

Despite all that, the Spider-Man I grew up with had money problems,  school problems and work problems along with the problem of super powered lunatics constantly trying to kill him. Even though for much of the time I was reading about him, Spider-Man was happily married, his writers still managed to put him through the wringer by doing things like killing his best friend, reintroducing his long-lost parents and then revealing that they were fakes and even replacing him with a clone.  Oh, and then there was the time one of his bad guys buried him alive and ran around brutalizing people while dressed like him. 

In short, even though some of the worst things ever done to Spider-Man happened before I was born, like the death of Gwen Stacy, the love of Peter's life, I was around for plenty of the other stuff, so I know it's a proud Marvel tradition to basically torture Peter Parker.

In the 2000s, though, the torment started getting mean-spirited. In 2004, right after a really stellar run by J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr., Straczynski penned the truly awful, utterly superfluous retcon "Sins Past" which intercalated in the history of the (still dead) Gwen Stacy a sexual tryst with Norman Osborn which resulted in the birth of two children.  It was an abomination, but one so skillfully embedded into Spider-Man's lore that it would be nearly two decades before it was retconned out of canon. 

But Marvel were just getting warmed up: in the nearly universally-reviled "One More Day," Marvel undid Spider-Man's marriage of 20 years (in real time, not comic book time) to Mary Jane Watson by literally selling it to the devil.  I don't think anything more needs to be said about that.

After "One More Day," though, Marvel seemed to figure out ways to make Peter's life miserable that seemed more in keeping with what had been dubbed the "Parker luck." Body-swapping with Doc Ock and then dying and coming back to life? Check. Becoming a billionaire only to lose everything? Check.  Getting hoodwinked by a supervillain roommate? Check. These stories were consistent with the notion that Peter Parker was a hard-luck character, and that his good nature has often made him vulnerable to other people doing bad things to him. 

This latest story, however, departs from that completely and has far more in common with arbitrary, idiotic decisions like the ones that spawned "Sins Past" and "One More Day."

Before the relaunch of the book in 2022, we last saw Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson getting ready to move in together, only to be interrupted by a blinding flash of light.  One relaunch and just a few months later, they are very much apart, with MJ living with a husband named Paul and...two kids?!? The inevitable question arose: surely they're her step kids, right?  After all, how could she have had kids who look anywhere between 6 and 9 years old in the course of a few months, right?  Who is this guy and how did she end up with him? And so a mystery box story was born, using the lazy, hackneyed in media res formula that is meant to shock and awe rather than earn the audience's attention the hard way: through compelling storytelling. 

Well, the mystery box is almost entirely opened. and we've learned that thanks to yet another lazy storytelling device, that of "alternate dimensions where time moves differently" the children that MJ has with Paul (who looks suspiciously like writer Zeb Wells, incidentally) are indeed HER children, whom she conceived and raised in something like ten years that passed in the alternate dimension while mere days passed back in her home dimension, where Peter was busy burning bridges with his fellow heroes just to get back to her because Wells had decided to write longtime allies like the Fantastic Four and Captain America like they were federal agents in a Die Hard movie. 

Marvel has been consistently hyping up the upcoming issue #25 of this abhorrent new status quo with the question "what did Peter Parker do?" to basically deserve to be where he is now, which is basically further away from MJ than he has ever been in their publication history. 

What did Peter do?  HE went to the wall for Mary Jane, doing anything and everything he could to get back to her, knowing she was trapped with an all-powerful, mass-murdering being. He did this only to find out that her devotion to him was nowhere near as strong as his devotion to her.

The thing is, one cannot fault Mary Jane for anything she has done either, because it was really Zeb Wells' brilliant idea that his thinly-veiled, bland-as-fuck avatar should cuck Peter.  His story feels grossly illogical as it is now premised on the notion that MJ and Paul, trapped in that other dimension without any particularly special abilities, spent ten years (or so) fighting off the all-powerful Wayep and/or his murderous, also-very-powerful disciple Rabin, only to reach the end of their rope at the exact moment when Peter showed up.  I'm sure Wells has exercised some kind of storytelling gymnastics to justify this conclusion, but in the end it all feels as nonsensical as Kathleen Kennedy's mutilation of Star Wars lore with the recent sequels. There, it didn't matter if Rey's ridiculously amped-up Jedi abilities were basically nonsensical and without any precedent; what mattered was that the Force was female.  Here, what seems to matter most is that Peter gets cucked by Zeb Wells' avatar, storytelling logic be damned.  

It is true that the idea of screwing Peter over is nothing new. Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and John Romita did it all the time as did the talented writers and artists who followed them like Gerry Conway, Ross Andru and a whole host of others.  This present-day writing by Zeb Wells, however, feels especially mean-spirited to the point of being downright cruel. It feels below the belt and quite honestly beyond the pale. It makes use of writing tools resorted to by the truly lazy to justify its conclusions. Worse still, Marvel's latest creative debacle has a tinge of intellectual dishonesty about it. I am fairly sure they knew they had a hateful, polarizing story on their hands, so rather than lead up to it naturally, Marvel wrapped it up in a mystery box, contriving a sense of urgency to finding out what really happened to keep readers interested.  It seems clear that Wells, a reasonably talented writer who never quite made his mark the way his contemporaries like Dan Slott did, decided that the best way to get the fans interested was to dial the hate all the way up to 11. 

Damn you, Marvel; it wasn't so long ago I was celebrating how you found the nerve to undo the hateful "Sins Past" storyline, and now you go and crap out something ten times more despicable. 

Parker Luck? More Like F*** You, Parker: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #24 (No Spoilers)

written by Zeb Wells

penciled by John Romita Jr.

inked by Scott Hanna

colored by Marcio Menyz

The mystery box behind Peter Parker's current status quo with Mary Jane, established in last year's Nth reboot of The Amazing Spider-Man, is now that much closer to being opened, with key revelations being made here.

In this issue, it is revealed what Peter Parker stole from the Fantastic Four (which was mentioned in issue #1) and why he stole it, and it is also revealed why Kamala Khan has been working with Norman Osborn and Peter Parker. Basically Peter did anything and everything he could to get back to Mary Jane, whom he had, a few issues back, left trapped in another dimension with a genocidal godlike after being forced out of that dimension. When he did make it back to her, well, something else was revealed.

I will devote a separate spoiler post to this issue, from which there is quite a bit to unpack, even before the insanely-hyped up issue #25, but in this very brief, spoiler-free review, I really want to give my two-cents' worth and it's that while I recognize that, as a matter of personal history, Peter Parker has always had terrible luck, which is another way of saying the writers, artists and editors of the last sixty years of Spider-Man stories have collaborated to make his life consistently miserable, this story direction represents a new low, even for the meanest of writers and editors. This story twist reaches One More Day levels of cruelty to this character, and while I am going to see this through to its conclusion, I am definitely not happy with what they have done.

1/10 

Running Out of Time: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #23

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by John Romita Jr. 

inked by Scott Hanna

colored by Marcio Menyz

We are now officially two issues away from the issue that Marvel itself  has billed as "the most shocking issue of The Amazing Spider-Man in 50 years" going as far to compare its revelations to the death of Gwen Stacy.  

Having barely escaped from what would have certainly been a fatal encounter in another dimension with Mayan god Wayep, Peter Parker aka Spider-Man is shocked to learn that even though he and Mary Jane Watson spent a week in that other dimension, mere hours have passed in New York.  As a result, he scrambles to get back to her, as she is trapped with a deadly, all-powerful creature bent on destruction.  Every decision he makes at this point is influenced by this sense of panic as he runs afoul of both the Fantastic Four and even Captain America. In the end, he turns to the last person in the world whose help he would want.

While this particular storyline started out with the return of Wayep and his disciple Benjamin Rabin, for this issue writer Zeb Wells and artists John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna and Marcio Menyz go full flashback mode, and to be fair, given the premise of the story it becomes more plausible to see why Peter would make the decisions he made back then, though we still aren't at that point of no return yet, that point where Mary Jane basically walks away from him for the man who, we now know, was a former follower of the maniac who has caused all of this havoc in the first place.  It's hard to read this story separate from the hype machine that Marvel has kicked into high gear, but Wells manages to keep things engaging. 

John Romita, Jr. has been going great guns on this run so far, but this isn't one of his splashier issues, even though the standard of quality remains more or less consistent. 

I continue to wait with bated breath to see what shocking development they've got in store for issue #25.

8/10

On Its Head: A Review of Daredevil #8 and 9

 written by Chip Zdarsky 

drawn by Marco Checchetto, Manuel Garcia

colored by Matt Wilson

Reading what I now know to be the countdown to Chip Zdarsky's swansong on this title, I have found myself pleasantly surprised by the direction in which Zdarsky has taken his story. I have been less interested in the "final battle against the Hand" hype and far more interested in Matt Murdock's recruitment strategy for his army, which seems absurd on its face, given that he is a lawyer, but which makes so much sense as he explains it. 

Daredevils, aka Matt Murdock and Elektra Natchios, take the fight to the Hand in their first major battle, with both sides suffering grievous losses of one kind or another. As they spend time licking their wounds, Matt is determined to strike yet again, even in spite of Elektra's assurance that they have struck a hefty blow against their foes, only for something to go horribly wrong.

Zdarsky really has put Matt through the wringer like few writers since Frank Miller have, which says a lot since Matt Murdock is arguably one of the most tormented characters in Marvel lore this side of Peter Parker, which might explain why the two of them get along so well. That his latest scheme manages to go awry isn't exactly a new thing, but it does seem to suggest that as he signs of Zdarsky plans to leave Matt in a pretty bad place, the way his predecessor Charles Soule did. 

I remain cautiously optimistic for the remainder of this story, which has about three issues to go before the new creative team comes on board, but I really hope there's a bit more artistic consistency, as new recruit Manuel Garcia (whose art seems to have improved quite a bit since I last saw it in the awful adaptation of the equally awful 2003 Daredevil film) draws quite differently from series regulars Marco Checchetto and Rafael de la Torre. 

 

7.5/10

Killing the Unkillable: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #22

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by John Romita Jr.

inked by Scott Hanna

colored by Marcio Menyz

This review is a little late and I am waiting a little impatiently (for the first time in a while) for the next issue as I want to see what happens next.

In a nutshell, the mystery of how Peter and MJ split up comes one step closer to being revealed as they battle the otherworldly, nigh omnipotent menace posed by Wayep a Mayan god of death, who comes close to killing Peter when MJ steps in.  This also marks the origin of Paul, the man MJ has been married to since the relaunch of the title last year. 

Surprisingly little happens in this issue as Marvel builds up to "the big one" or issue #25 which has been hyped to be its most shocking story in 50 years.  Hype like that is very difficult to live up to, especially without any marquee supporting characters (so far) but I'm willing to give Marvel the benefit of the doubt here as long as they don't have any retroactive sexual trysts between middle-aged men and teenagers in the pipeline, or something similarly stupid. 

John Romita Jr. turns in an okay issue, even if he and wells distinctly feel like they're treading water a bit. 

Hopefully I get to continue the story soon. 

7/10

Mysteries Revealed: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #21

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by John Romita, Jr.

inked by Scott Hanna

colored by Marcio Menyz

Finally, after nearly a year of patiently waiting for Marvel to explain their in media res start to this series reboot, which basically tore out a huge chunk of narrative between the end of the "Beyond" era and the beginning of this one, we readers are finally getting some real answers...or at least, the hint of some answers. 

The issue starts with Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson living out their separate lives, with one about to go to work and the other trying to get her husband and kids out the door, when something cataclysmic happens, something both Peter and Mary Jane recognize, and they realize that someone terrible has returned to their lives.  At this point the story flashes back to the epilogue at the tail end of the "Beyond" saga in which Peter and Mary Jane were about to move in together, only for their momentary bliss to be interrupted by a ray of light. We now found out what the source of that light was.

To make a long story short, it's not looking good for our favorite wall-crawler.

I am generally not a fan of the whole in media res concept; sometimes it feels like a cheap way to generate tension and drama in a story without really earning it yet, by placing the character in a bad situation straightaway.  Fortunately, in this instance, Zeb Wells has told strong enough stories over the last year or so to more or less keep me engaged long enough to find out what happened. It's gratifying that in this issue, he picks up exactly where he left off at the end of the "Beyond" saga; it's nice to know that answers are forthcoming. 

The only problem I foresee, and I hope I'm wrong, is that by setting this story up as the reason that MJ no longer wants anything to do with Peter, Wells may have us scratching our heads and saying "that's it?" or worse, may have Peter do something grossly out of character just to justify his shocking story twist. It's a tightrope he and editorial have chosen to walk, so I wish him luck with it. 

I am also genuinely intrigued in Wells' villains of choice: the Mayan deity Wayep/Wayeb and his disciple Benjamin Rabin, both of whom Wells co-created, but neither of whom I have seen in the pages of a Spider-Man comic since the earliest days of "Brand New Day" back in 2008. I'll readily admit that the characters, who looked pretty fearsome until the story was abruptly ended, felt distinctly underused way back then, so it should be interesting to see what Wells has in store.  

I'm glad to see John Romita, Jr. back on art chores for this issue.  This really is some of his strongest work on a Spidey book since the JMS days.

8.5/10

Hot Date: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #19 and 20

 written by Joe Kelly

penciled and colored by Terry Dodson

inked by Rachel Dodson

Following the multi-issue crossover with the X-Men books that was "Dark Web," The Amazing Spider-Man gets back to telling its own stories, this time courtesy of a guest creative team in writer Joe Kelly and artists Terry and Rachel Dodson.  Gratifyingly, the team also takes a bit of a break from all of the drama in Peter Parker's life lately as he and Black Cat go for a weekend away from it all at a posh ski resort. After a brief moment of awkwardness in which the two of them see Mary Jane and her husband Paul at the exact same resort, they soon find themselves chasing down what appears to be a super-villain related commotion only to find Tombstone's henchwoman White Rabbit actually renting out supervillain gear to several Silicon Valley types for a weekend retreat. What seems like easy money to White Rabbit, however, is a disaster just waiting to happen, and happen it does, forcing Spider-Man and Black Cat to put their awkward holiday on hold.

I've been reading comics for over four decades now, and it's genuinely entertaining when someone comes along with a fresh storytelling concept.  Joe Kelly's idea of supervillainy as material for a corporate retreat feels fresh and most of the jokes land. I also appreciate how Kelly writes White Rabbit, a fairly old character (40 years as of writing) in that he manages to make her feel a little less like a Harley Quinn knockoff.

Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to give this entertainingly written two-parter full marks, I simply cannot bring myself to do so because for some strange reason, the usually reliable and talented husband-and-wife duo of Terry and Rachel Dodson seriously drop the ball in terms of the art. It's not that they've lost any of their talent; the problem is that the art of both of these issues looks distinctly unfinished, as if they drew Spider-Man and the Black Cat but couldn't be bothered to draw anything more than sketches of the remaining characters. It's bizarre; I've never seen the pair of them off their game like this, especially considering they're just guest artists.  This is really disappointing considering the caliber of these creators. I still have fond memories of their awesome run on Marvel Knights: Spider-Man with Mark Millar nearly twenty years ago. I'd hate to think they lost their mojo from that time. 

It's a pity the the art falls so conspicuously short of the writing, because these two issues were a genuinely good, fun read. 

6.5/10

Super-Late: Dark Web Finale #1

written by Zeb Wells

drawn by Adam Kubert (with Francesco Mortarino and Scott Hanna)

colored by Frank Martin

The Spider-Man/X-Men crossover "Dark Web" finally ends in pretty much the only way it can, and yet manages to be pretty decent.

In a nutshell, Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man teams up with the X-Men and Madelyne Pryor, aka the Goblin Queen, team up to retake New York from Ben Reilly, aka Chasm, the King of Limbo. Ben has the entire army of Limbo on his side not to mention his formidable lover Janine Godbe aka Hallow's Eve, but Pete's got a couple of surprises up his sleeve as well, all of which he will definitely need if he's going to free New York from Limbo's thrall.

As big event issues go, this one was well-put together, with some well-paced scripting by Zeb Wells and some nicely dynamic art by veteran Adam Kubert, who gets a bit of an art assist towards the end by Francesco Mortarino and Scott Hanna and lively colors by Frank Martin. The story ties up nicely with a bit of a status quo change, albeit one more relevant to the X-Men's corner of the Marvel Universe than to that of Spider-Man. It's nothing spectacular from a writing perspective, but it made for okay reading. If nothing else, though, I was glad that Adam Kubert closed out the story with decent art after Ed McGuinness put in a solid four issues of brilliance over in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man.  

More than the somewhat paint-by-numbers resolution to the story, though, what appealed to me the seemingly "meta" way in which Wells handles the question of what to do with Ben Reilly moving forward.   He kind of acknowledges that, as bad as Ben's behavior was over the course of this story, it is still overshadowed by the many tragedies that have befallen him, and as a result he still doesn't quite work as villain, so he quite literally ends the story in Limbo, with Marvel keeping him on ice until they figure out the next big story to drop him into. Hallow's Eve, in contrast, is getting her own miniseries soon so I'm at least glad to see they appear to have some kind of plan moving forward.  

 Ben Reilly is a character with a whole lot of potential far beyond just being a Peter replacement or a Spidey villain, and I do hope Marvel figures out what to do with him eventually beyond just killing him again or worse. This story, to be fair, treated him well enough.

7.5/10 

High and Dry: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #18

 written by Zeb Wells

penciled by Ed McGuiness

inked by Cliff Rathburn

colored by Marcio Menyz and Erick Arciniega

As "Dark Web" draws to a close, with Madelyne Pryor having made peace with Jean Grey, Ben Reilly's plan to steal back his memories from Peter quite quickly falls apart, even as Peter struggles to escape from Limbo with J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson.  Embittered by Madelyne's decision to call off the attack on New York, Ben swings off, while Hallow's Eve, aka Ben's girlfriend Janine Godbe, decides to take matters into her own hands, and gives this tale one more monstrous twist.

One can see in this story how Ben Reilly well and truly is Peter Parker; even when he's going full on bad guy and teaming up with a bad guy who actually manages to get what she wants, he still manages to lose. If that isn't a variant of the infamous Parker luck, well, I don't know what is.  Granted, Ben's plan wasn't all that great, but it basically worked for Madelyne, didn't it?  Marvel pretty much telegraphed last issue and in its marketing for the X-Men issues that Ben's  and Madelyne's paths would diverge, but I was honestly surprised that it happened at the very beginning of the issue.  I guess it makes sense given how the issue actually ends.

McGuinness delivers another solid issue, his last for this story. Including the mammoth 900th issue, he's drawn the equivalent of eight whole issues for Zeb Wells' current run, and I'm really looking forward to seeing him again in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I'll content myself with Adam Kubert finishing off this story.

I sincerely doubt Marvel would go through all this trouble of featuring Ben Reilly in the yearlong "Beyond" saga and designing him a cool new supervillain suit just to kill him off yet again, so I am cautiously optimistic for how Zeb Wells will end this particular chapter of the never-ending epic that is the Clone Saga of Spider-Man. 

8/10

Payback: A (VERY) Late Review of Dark Web #1

 written by Zeb Wells

drawn by Adam Kubert

colored by Frank Martin

This is obviously a very late review, considering that I have already reviewed three subsequent chapters of the Spider-Man/X-Men crossover "Dark Web" but when I realized that the entire storyline would NOT end in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man but in an oversized bookend issue, I finally decided to go back and pick up the FIRST bookend, the one that started the whole thing, Dark Web #1, and I'm glad I did. For one thing, I finally have context for the events in The Amazing Spider-Man #15, like a seemingly primal Venom attacking Spider-Man, and the image of Ben Reilly aka Chasm standing over an unconscious Norman Osborn. 

Dark Web #1 (or Dark Web: Dusk) kicks off the ultimate clone team-up between Ben Reilly and Madelyne Pryor, aka the Goblin Queen, to steal the souls/memories of their progenitors Peter Parker aka Spider-Man and Jean Grey. The issue kicks off with Ben having a nightmare about Peter Parker and Mary Jane basically taking away Ben's face and his very identity before shoving him into a store window as a faceless mannequin.  It then kicks into high gear very quickly as Madelyne directs the demons of Limbo to attack New York City, aided by Janine Godbe, now known as Hallow's Eve, Madelyne recruits a very reluctant Eddie Brock aka Venom, while Ben sets out to take down his very first target, none other than Norman Osborn.

I really appreciate this issue because it brings Ben Reilly and Norman Osborn together for the very first time since Osborn, freshly resurrected in the pages of 1996's Spider-Man #75, killed Ben, at the time seemingly for good.  For the first time since his resurrection, Ben finally gets to confront the man who sold him on a complete lie as to who he really was and then turned him into ashes.  This issue, especially the scene in which Ben Reilly really lets Osborn have it, was very cathartic for me.  Ben's abrupt and cruel fate in Spider-Man #75 well and truly left a bad taste in my mouth, one that lingered for twenty-six years, so seeing that injustice finally redressed was a form of satisfaction I never even knew that I needed.

It also helps that intermittent Spidey artist Adam Kubert draws this issue. I would have preferred art from John Romita Jr., who illustrated SM #75, to bring the whole Ben Reilly/Norman Osborn thing full circle, but Kubert's kinetic images are a good fit for Zeb Wells' fast-paced storytelling, even though the art does look a little rushed in a few pages.  The story, too, feels like it ends a tad abruptly, even though I know exactly what comes next.

Now that I'm all caught up, I'm ready for the final chapter of Dark Web.

8/10

Belated Happy Birthday, Spider-Man: A Review of Amazing Fantasy #1000

 written by various

drawn by various

I'm not always a big fan of these oversized anthology issues because they tend to be a mixed bag in terms of quality, but for Spider-Man's 60th birthday celebration last year, which I quite notably almost missed, Marvel has brought out the big guns, with heavyweight creators almost too numerous to name. Industry legends Neil Gaiman, Kurt Busiek, Jonathan Hickman and a host of other writing superstars and up-and-comers join former regular Spider-man writer Dan Slott in crafting a series of short stories set in various periods of Spidey's history, whether past, present or future.  Joining them are an all-star lineup of artists, many of whom have already made an indelible mark on the web slinger like Steve McNiven, Marco Checchetto, Olivier Coipel, and Jim Cheung (to name but a few).

The mammoth 68-page volume features so many stories it's kind of pointless to post synopses of all of them.  Highlights for me, though were the Slott and Cheung collaboration which showed Spidey still fighting crime in his 60s, the Hickman and Checchetto story in which 616 Spidey meets with his multiversal counterparts to ask for advice on dealing with the "Parker luck," and the pleasantly whimsical quasi auto-biographical story by Gaiman and McNiven in which Gaiman essentially recalls how he first came to meet Spider-Man.   Some stories I liked better than others but each and every story featured here is an absolute charmer and I appreciate Marvel for giving each team of creators room to breathe a little bit. This was an extremely well-curated book, in my opinion. 

Thank you for this treat, Marvel. It may have been Spidey's 60th birthday last year, but we're the ones who got the awesome present.

10/10