written by Zeb Wells
penciled by Ed McGuinness (with backup story by Todd Nauck)
inked by Mark Farmer
colored by Marcio Menyz
At the outset I'd like to clarify that I will only be reviewing the main story and its directly-related epilogue at the end of this mammoth-sized 50th issue. I am not a fan of either this "jam" format or the price-tag it entails, but at the very least Marvel have treated us readers to twice the page count of a normal Spider-Man story, with some truly glorious art by Ed McGuiness.
So with nearly all of his major storylines wrapped up, writer Zeb Wells, this time with artist Ed McGuinness, who has been the star of this run, if I'm honest, now tackles what I would argue is probably the most important story of this run: the fate of the Green Goblin.
The Living Brain, which has been Oscorp's custody since very early into Wells' run, has come alive, and spouts out a cryptic message: Peter Parker is not Spider-Man, a message picked up by Oscorp employees Dr. Curt Connors and his assistant Doug, neither of whom know Peter Parker's secret identity as Spider-Man. Norman Osborn knows, however and has Peter summoned from his day off work as an Oscorp employee, a day he normally spends web-slinging, to look into the mystery. Unfortunately, park of what the Living Brain has generated are a series of seemingly random words, but when Peter speaks them in Norman's presence, he learns to his shock that Norman hasn't been completely honest with him.
If I'm honest, if I really tried to, I could point out how little sense this story actually makes from a continuity perspective since it relies quite heavily on events that have preceded this issue, but in truth I don't really care to do that because not only is Wells moving things along at a nice, brisk pace befitting a climactic story, but Ed McGuinness is absolutely firing on all cylinders here. There is a reason this man has been a fan-favorite artist for nearly three decades, his art is both incredibly stylish and dynamic at the same time and yet ironically his line work is deceptively simple. One won't see the proliferation of cross-hatchings or other attempts at jampacking detail onto a page with his stuff; it's just some of the cleanest, most crisp art I've seen in these pages since John Romita Sr.
The epilogue by Wells and Nauck, which comes after a whole bunch of filler stories I didn't really care for, was also properly intriguing as a come on for what comes next.
As off-putting as I found the cover-price of this issue, in this economy I understand why Marvel did what they did, and I am at least grateful that for all of the superfluous stories crammed into the book, the main event was still worth the effort it took to check the book out.
8/10
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