Refrehsed and Rejuvenated: A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #1 to #5

 written by Joe Kelly

drawn by Pepe Larraz

colored by Marte Gracia

As someone who has collected  comic books off and on for the better part of four decades, most of them from Marvel Comics, I have resigned myself to the reality of the periodic reboot.  I get that it's done to rekindle interest in the book, after by launching a new significant storyline or a new creative team, and while I'm generally not a fan of it, sometimes, a relaunch works pretty well for the character, and this particular relaunch just happens to be one of those times that worked.

So, following his "Eight Deaths of Spider-Man" storyline that closed out the last volume of this series, writer Joe Kelly is back with an all-new five part story pitting Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man against his old nemesis, Roderick Kingsley, aka the Hobgoblin, who has a new scheme up his sleeve involving hallucinogens, and a particularly nasty henchwoman in Itsy Bitsy.  These drugs are no joke, either; they prove to be enough to give no less than the Rhino a heart attack.  Will the help of the still-not-evil-again Norman Osborn and a newly introduced character, Pete's old friend from middle school Brian Nehring be enough to help Peter save the day, or does the Hobby really have his number this time?

 Just to be clear; though the numbers of the book have been reset, unfortunately, Peter's status quo has not been.  He ended the last volume out of work, having left his job at Oscorp, and tries out a new job at Rand Enterprises (though notably, Danny Rand doesn't show up at any point), but he still hasn't gotten back together with Mary Jane Watson, from whom he was forcibly and clumsily separated by editorial mandate during the book's last relaunch. Heck, even his current love interest Shay Marken, who was introduced during the last run, has him on "probationary status."  Fortunately, the clunky legacy of Zeb Wells' run doesn't stop Kelly from turning in a surprisingly decent and complete story that delivers both a satisfying narrative and manages to tease more ahead, which is what any truly good comic book story is supposed to do.  There's not status-quo shattering going on here, but some pretty solid character work involving Peter's childhood that manages to enrich his relationship to Aunt May and carry on the one decent thing about Zeb Wells' run; Peter's tenuous alliance with the rehabilitated Norman Osborn. 

As much as I appreciated Kelly's writing this time around, though, for me the real draw his was artist Larraz, whose work I actually remember from a few issues of Ultimate Spider-Man some years ago, but whose work has grown exponentially in quality since then.  I know this book only just had A-list artist Ed McGuinnes turn in an impressive body of work, so bringing on another top-tier talent on board so soon feels almost too good to be true. I am really glad I stuck around for the post-Zeb Wells era because Larraz has blossomed into a truly sensational artist whose work is both distinct and original and yet evocative of all time Spider-Man legends like John Romita Sr.  I was particularly happy that Larraz delivered an entire, uninterrupted five-issue storyline.  If we have yet another situation of rotating artists, I think Marvel are off to a really good start this time around. 

This new run of the book, while not without its problems, is off to a rock-slid start, and I am really excited to see what Kelly and his rotating team of artists has to offer in the issues to come.  

9/10

That was...Long: a *Late* Review of Daredevil #4 to #19

 written by Saladin Ahmed

drawn by Aaron Kuder and various

colored by Jesus Aburtov and various

One of the first casualties of having to adult pretty hard over the last few months has been the meager creative juices that I need to come up with regular blog posts, as a direct result of which, this blog has been tragically neglected in favor of generating much easier, less cerebrally-taxing content like unboxing videos. Heck, even my movie review YouTube channel and has gone tragically neglected. 

Considering how many hours I had poured into this blog, that seems like a shame, especially considering how regularly I used to post here.

Anyway, I'm just going to cut to the chase here; writer Saladin Ahmed's first mega story arc on everyone's favorite blind lawyer/superhero started out strong, and I managed to review the first few issues before life got a little too busy.   Unfortunately, it has since extended into a bloated, unwieldy and somewhat monotonous story that was at least four, possibly five issues longer than it needed to be, and ruined by a chaotic rotation of artists and a resultant shifting in tone that made it hard to stay focused. Not only that, but it ended with more questions than answers. This was a mammoth nineteen issues, and it ceased to be particularly interesting after the first ten or so. 

For those of you just tuning in, this particular run began after writer Chip Zdarsky ended his run Matt literally going to Hell to save his friends. Ahmed brought Matt Murdock back as a Catholic priest, with everyone in his world having seemingly forgotten about him.  In the course of his nineteen issue arc, Ahmed has had Matt face off against demons representing the seven deadly sins, each one possessing someone close to him, or at least someone he knows, which was a pretty good pretext to have members of his supporting  cast and even the occasional guest appearance.  As it dragged on, though, each appearance felt more and more like stunt-casting or fan service and less like a compelling story, and the fact that so many different artists subbed for the original series artist, the excellent Aaron Kuder, made for a very disjointed reading experience. Ahmed's writing may have been uneven but it was enjoyable overall, but the art experience reading this run was just the pits. A decent editor would have had the sense to rotate the artists properly so that each mini story arc could have had a consistent tone and been part of a bigger, better whole.  Instead, the whole thing just has the feel of something cobbled together.

I've been a fan of this character for years and even through some of his lean years I have been able to appreciate the work of the creative teams working on him, but as promising as Ahmed's early issues were, this particular run just kind of went off the rails, which is a shame because if it had only been managed properly, these past nineteen issues could have been so much better.

It feels unfair to grade the entire storyline like this, but in truth, I'd argue Ahmed brought this on himself by stretching out a 12 to 15 issue storyline to something this long. 

6/10