By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos Cuevas (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)
The Story: Everyone in NYC is getting spider-powers. Oh no! It’s Spider-Island!!!
What’s Good: Honestly, the build-up to this Spider-Island mini-event hasn’t been that great, so expectations were a little tempered for this issue. But, once you see the action begin, Spider-Island actually drills down to the essence of Peter Parker: With great power comes great responsibility. We’ve always heard that as Peter Parker’s mantra, but suddenly in Spider-Island we get to see how a whole heap of other people behave once they have “great power”. Some of them aren’t going to be nearly as benevolent as Peter.
But, some of them will do the right thing and that brings us to the Peter/Carlie Cooper relationship. As teased last issue, Carlie gets spider-powers and it seems like her powers manifest earlier in time than the rest of borough’s. This early manifestation is very important to the Peter/Carlie relationship because she immediately tells Peter about her new abilities. Oh, there’s a lot of fun banter between the two about how Peter could perhaps design her a Spider-suit or Peter inwardly worrying that he may have somehow infected her with spider-powers as if it were an STD. But the important thing for the “Peter Parker Love Life” is that she was immediately honest with Peter about her powers whereas Peter hasn’t been close to honest with her. Basically, the Peter-Carlie relationship is dead now, it’s just that the axe hasn’t fallen yet (and may not fall for some time). But, there can’t be any going back from her total openness and his partial truths. It also seems to hint that Peter will be divulging his secret to Carlie at some point.
It was a real treat to get Humberto Ramos back on this issue. He did such a stellar job on the first few issues of Dan Slott’s run (starting with #648) and the Free Comic Book Day issue. In the intervening months, I’ve reread some of his earlier work and he really has taken his art to a new level recently. And this issue has all the Ramos trademarks: energetic cartoony characters and very creative layouts and panel designs. Love it! It isn’t quite as tight as his earlier ASM issues, but that was 10/10 work and it’s really only a few panels that got away (but they seemed to be the splashier ones – esp the one with Dagger front and center). Very nice colors by Edgar Delgado too.
What’s Not So Good: Nothing huge, but there are enough things to hold this issue back from the highest grades. For one thing, I’m not sold on the Jackal as the villain in this event. He just seems kinda… well, B-list. Now, there is a lot of story to go and I’m sure there are some wrinkles, but for now the forces of evil seem a little light.
I also question why we need a mini-event in Spider-Man. Of course the answer is that folks like me will buy all TWENTY EIGHT issues that comprise the event, so this is just a money grab by Marvel. I guess my point is this had better be excellent! Don’t make me feel like a chump for laying out close to $100 on this mini-event.
The final issue is that I really didn’t enjoy the involvement of the other heroes. In some ways it makes sense: If mayhem strikes NYC, shouldn’t the Avengers and other folks show up to help? But they’ve missed a lot of other Spider-related destruction in NYC over the years and they really didn’t add anything to the story. Their appearance felt very much like a way to justify the various tie-in series as if some editor gave Ramos a list of characters who must appear in the splash page.
Conclusion: A pretty good start to this event with an interesting story and very nice art, but there are some mild warning signs of a bloated event.
Grade: B
-Dean Stell
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Filed under: Marvel Comics Tagged: | Amazing Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man #667, Amazing Spider-Man #667 review, Carlos Cuevas, Dan Slott, Dean Stell, Edgar Delgado, Ellie Pyle, Humberto Ramos, Joe Caramagna, Marvel, review, Stephen Wacker
[...] Good: I was a little hard on Amazing Spider-Man #667 a few weeks ago, so I was very pleasantly surprised by this issue. Everything in this issue is [...]
[...] Good: I was a little hard on Amazing Spider-Man #667 a few weeks ago, so I was very pleasantly surprised by this issue. Everything in this issue is [...]
Ya know, you could just buy the ASM parts and get a full story. Nobody is forcing you to buy the other stuff >_>
Oh….I know that. And….I know that people like me are the reason these 28-part check-lists exist. Probably part of the reason folks like me will lash out if the “event” isn’t as good as we’d hoped is due to self-loathing over the fact that we have low self-control when it comes to buying this stuff.
This is one of the BIG reasons that I’m looking forward to the digital revolution. Then you can just buy the ASM parts and if you hear other people saying positive things about the Spider-Girl tie-in or the Cloak and Dagger tie-in, you can just go buy them digitally (without worrying about the comic shop being sold out).
However, I should say that these tie-ins might be pretty good. Cloak and Dagger has art by Emma Rios and Spider-Girl is by Pepe Larraz. I love both of them! And the writers are Nick Spencer and Paul Tobin who aren’t too shabby either.
I’m loving this event so far. I was skeptical at first but Slott is just hitting it. I usually get all the trades for Slott ASM but I couldn’t wait. My next trade should come in next wk.
Glad you’re enjoying it. I probably came off harsher in my review than I meant to. I did enjoy this issue, but with it being an “event”….my expectations are higher and I’m a little afraid that it won’t prove to be as epic as it “should” be.