Welcome back to the Rundown, True Believers. Last week’s edition of The Marvel Rundown heralded a new era for Iron Man. This week, we bid farewell to an imperfect era of The Amazing Spider-Man, as Zeb Wells and John Romita Jr. spin their final web. This review is spoiler-lite, so if you want to go in with zero info, scroll on down for our Rapid Rundown reviews of Captain America #14.
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Excelsior!
Amazing Spider-Man #60
Writer: Zeb Wells
Penciler: John Romita Jr.
Inker: Scott Hanna
Colorist: Marcio Menyz
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
One thing I’ve learned over the course of this volume of Amazing Spider-Man from writer Zeb Wells is to take each individual story on its own merits. On that score this final story arc, drawn by John Romita Jr.. at its most powerful, it delivers the goods. Outside of gang warWells and Romita’s work on the Tombstone crime saga has been the series’ most consistently compelling and entertaining element. Wells’s scripting is never as tight, and themes so clearly articulated, as when he is crafting this street level crime drama. There’s no discounting what Romita’s kinetic art brings to these issues. This final arc was full of propulsive, brutal action and heart-rending drama. For the last few years we have been made to love, hate, root for, and fear Lonnie Lincoln, AKA Tombstone. In his quest to murder his own daughter for turning state’s witness against him, Tombstone has gone from a gimmicky mobster to one of the cruelest and most compelling antagonists in Spider-Man’s sterling gallery of rogues.
The breathless pace of the last few issues is replaced in this finale by quiet confrontation and Tombstone finally faces his day in court, sort of. Spider-Man managed to save Janice Lincoln’s life but it is the only victory he scraps together. Even with an airtight legal case, Tombstone was able to buy off the judge and walk free, with no consequences for his evil deeds.
The most interesting and thorny moral questions Peter Parker has had to wrestle with throughout the Zeb Wells run were the moral and ethical boundaries that being Spider-Man creates. He has great power but well-meaning use of that power does not always result in doing the most good. In what ways do Spider-Man’s actions interfere with justice? Wells answers that it doesn’t matter. The system is rigged, and no single person can right every wrong. It is a good fight worth risking your life for, even if those you are fighting for don’t appreciate it, even if they punish you for it. But there are no guarantees and sometimes we will make things worse.
It would be malpractice to talk about this issue and run without shouting out the incredible colors by Marcio Menyz and the expressive lettering by VC’s Joe Caramagna. Menyz has proven himself to be a gifted storyteller in his own right, elevating the story and mood. Caramagna has subtly pushed his lettering to enhance the dialogue and while this issue does not call for him to do much fancy, his work flows seamlessly with the art.
In the second half of this issue Wells teams up with artists who have contributed to his run, including Ed McGuinness and Patrick Gleasonand ties up various loose-ends. This is where the cracks that have plagued the book really show. Peter Parker and his life are afterthoughts. There is a coda with Aunt May, who was mostly absent from this run outside of a brief appearance in the first issue. It would be sweet if we had seen this tension pop up anywhere between then and now. But we haven’t seen much of Spider-Man’s impact on Peter’s relationship with anyone, even Mary Jane Watson. The MJ/Peter situation will no doubt be a lightning rod for a certain subset of vocal readers but the real problem with how it lands in this finale is that the rift between these two characters is not a natural outgrowth of their unique history but purely outside influences.Then there is Ben Reilly, Peter’s clone, the former Spider-Man and now vaguely evil doppelganger. Wells opens the door for the possibility of moving the character forward before slamming it shut.
All of these resolutions feel inauthentic and mandated by the vagaries of publishing and editorial. Why have Mary Jane present at all if the only goal was to write her out of Peter’s life again? Why ignore Aunt May–who looks especially stupid here in her inability to recognize Peter Parker is Spider-Man–when Zeb is so clearly interested in the toll of the difficult choices Spider-Man makes? There are big operational consequences to Spider-Man’s choices in these 60 issues but they don’t impact Peter or his supporting cast in any meaningful way. While Wells and Romita have transformed Tombstone as a character, Peter Parker is exactly where he was at the start. With all the demands on this title, there is no space–or worse–no editorial interest in exploring what Peter Parker represents in 2024. The Tombstone story, pulled out of the rest of this run, could stand up to some of the better Spider -Man stories ever told. But within this larger narrative, interrupted, bent, and twisted by demands for big crossovers, spin-offs and IP farming, they feel completely unrelated.
It is a tale of two comics. One is the epilogue to a superb story arc featuring a redefined and compelling supervillain. The other is a perfunctory endcap to a series that could never reliably define its tone or vision. It makes the work done with Tombstone more impressive, that these creators could overcome the engine designed to churn out Marvel events and branding and craft something interesting. As I said at the start, reading Amazing Spider-Man right now means taking each story individually. This one is good enough. But all my doubts about where this book goes from here are as strong as they were when Nick Spencer packed up Kindred and went home.
VERDICT: BROWSE. People who have found things to enjoy in this run will appreciate how it wraps up but the haters are going to hate it.
PS: Please, whatever comes next for Spider-Man, let it include the web whanging REK-RAP.
The Rapid Rundown
- Captain America #14
- To say that writer J. Michael Straczynski‘s run on Captain America is a weird one is an understatement. No stranger to mysticism, he is a bonafide vampire killer, for the past 13 issues, Cap has been his usual stalwart self but in a world of magic and mystery, far from his usual patriotic superhero battlegrounds. After literally battling Death, having lost the opportunity to lay down his burden and find peace in heaven like dimension, Cap finds himself adrift in his personal life when a teammate comes knocking on his door. For this new arc, Cap is joined by the Mighty Thor and the Amazing Spider-Man on a journey to bring back the lost souls of Broxton, Oklahoma. Having written Thor and Spidey for Marvel before, JMS has a leg up in bringing out their voice as the three confer on this new mystery. Before they all get together we get a gem of a monologue describing the difficulties of friendship in the world of superheroes. While I think his Thor is too big standing next to Cap, artist Charles the Great‘s lush art adds an organic edge to the storytelling, his Peter is appropriately awkward while his Spidey is constantly in motion wallcrawling as he dialogues. Like everything JMS crafts, there is a required buy-in as it’s a slow burn with the overall story, and the ending of this issue teases that. –GC3
Make sure to return next week as the Marvel Rundown crew continues its coverage of all things X-men.
