By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Victor Olazaba (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)
The Story: A new time-hopping Spidey story kicks off.
Five Things:
1. Time travel done right. - This is how time travel should happen, right? At the very least, this is the less common way for fiction to look at time travel. Usually characters just bounce into the future and see future versions of themselves wandering around. This time travel treats the individual more like a constant and when Peter visits the future, he literally skips ahead, and so he wasn’t there in the interim. And this shows us what happens when Spidey takes a single day off. It’s bad folks! This really puts a new wrinkle on the whole “great responsibility” idea, huh?
2. Really fun art. - This probably wasn’t my favorite art from a Ramos-led art team, but it’s still pretty hot (the difference is that I think I prefer Carlos Cuevas inking him). The big thing about Ramos is the energy of his art and that usually takes the form of a twisting and turning Spidey, but in this issue he shows how much energy he can bring to Peter Parker. Even the standing around characters in this issue seem lively and vital. I can think of many realistic artists who would have fumbled this issue (stiff and boring!). And, Ramos also gives us a great double-pager on the title page of the issue: What a good street scene!
3. Going back to the fun elements of Big Time. - When Dan Slott kicked off his run with the Big Time run back in ASM #648, he introduced a lot of FUN to the Peter Parker’s life. Namely, he gave him a serious job where he made good money and could afford to buy stuff. As Big Time matured into Spider Island, it isn’t so much that the FUN went away, but it had to take a back seat to the schemes of the Queen and Jackal. Now that we’re done with that mega-arc, we can go back to seeing Peter Parker being happy and he doesn’t get much happier than when he’s at Horizon Labs, working on a new invention.
4. Madame Web isn’t all serious. - This is a character that can be SUCH a downer with her omens of doom! How nice to see her show up looking all cute in a Colorado Buffalos belly shirt and speaking clearly about future threats.
5. Love the geeky co-worker. - Can’t you just feel this fat guy’s enthusiasm? I love when he unveils his “Breakroom of TOMORROW… morrow… morrow,” and I can only imagine his geek out over getting to team-up with Spidey. Supporting characters like this really add a richness to ASM.
Conclusion: Another great issue of Spider-Man. Slott started his Big Time – Spider Island mega-arc with a string of 3 or 4 “A” issues and he’s doing it again here. Slott gets that Spider-Man is supposed to be FUN and Ramos’ art is the perfect compliment.
Grade: A
-Dean Stell
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Filed under: Marvel Comics Tagged: | Amazing Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man #678, Amazing Spider-Man #678 review, Dan Slott, Dean Stell, Edgar Delgado, Ellie Pyle, Humberto Ramos, Joe Carmagna, Marvel, review, Stephen Wacker, Victor Olazaba
[...] This is how to pace superhero stories! – Slott really understands how to keep it snappy. Last issue presented the problem (that a New York without Spidery-Man for a day gets destroyed) and this issue [...]