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