The Amazing Spider-Man (2022-2025) #55-60
by
Zeb Wells (Writer), John Romita Jr. (Penciler), Scott Hanna (Inker), Marcio Menyz (Colorist), Joe Caramagna (Letterer), Emilio Laiso (Artist), Bryan Valenza (Colorist), Ramon Rosanas (Artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (Colorist), Lee Gatlin, Andrés Genolet (Artist), Ed McGuinness (Penciler), Mark Farmer (Inker), Todd Nauck (Artist), Paola Rivera (Artist), Patrick Gleason (Artist), Edgar Delgado (Colorist), Joe Kelly, Mark Buckingham (Artist)
My rating: 3 of 5 stars Ω‘s
I took this as a re-joining point for Spider-Man comics which I’ve been bored with and largely avoided for a bit now.
In issue #55 We have Peter facing his usual: life is hard juggling Spidering, a love life with a new lady and whatever other personal life he has at present. This issue is like a transitional issue I think, between the preceding Gang War storyline that had focussed on the villain Tombstone, and whatever comes next. There’s some somewhat funny stuff courtesy Rhino and that parkour-social-media character (I found her boring from day one so don’t care what her name is) which was probably the most entertaining thing in the whole issue. The art is decent and somehow gave me vibes of the Slott-Romita Jr. Spidey era.
A decent standalone issue. Very safe and conventionally Spidey and a nice experience of Peter considering what is important in life.
With issue #56, we’ve hit the landmark 950th issue of this iconic series and the new story kicks off as Spidey is publicly messing with Tombstones business and image while the latter is planning his revenges on Spidey as well as his own estranged daughter who is dating the son of Robbie from the Daily Bugle.
Tombstone wants to use Peter Parker for leverage to draw out Spider-Man and kill them both. There’s some interesting twists in the plot as it plays out and I give due credit that it is a good start as this war escalates between these two characters who have had a long adversarial relationship but the stakes they are building seem even more significant. There’s a bookend related to lions and related to Lonnies’ time as an enforcer with the Kingpin and what he learned which was a nice touch. OH! And there’s a B-story with MJ’s new boyfriend and I don’t even want to bother repeating it because it was boring and I did not get why I was reading it – I mean it wasn’t bad but if I needed to have read the run preceding this to understand any of this or such, I think I’m good not caring.
Tombstone is in prison!!
And then he is not. And then of course, his revenge is moving forward full-steam ahead. I feel like they were going for break-neck pace here and some intensity and it does have that. I’m not loving a fair amount the dialogue and it could have all used a bit more polish – but the story continues decently and of course, the Romita artwork is pretty solid, if you’re a fan of the artist.
Billed as “The most visceral issues in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN history begin here!”, I think that’s a bit exaggerated. I mean it is a solidly action-focussed and intense issue, but the most visceral? Not even close.
This is 100% an art-forward issue. Do not expect any story as such – it is basically 100% a bottle-issue, meaning that the whole thing takes place in a single place. In this case, everything is one part of the “big fight” that is about to happen between Spidey and Tombstone and this fight is starting in his daughters’ apartment where Lonnie has come to conclude some business. It’s a nicely dynamic issue with lots of movement and some solid action – but it led me to ask: (1) this is cool but really, is this the big thing you’re going for with the story to mark 950 issues? (2) Given the fights and feats I have seen Spidey in, this feels like it should not be remotely this hard, I mean I get Spidey holding back a bit but the build and setup here means he shouldn’t be holding back and (3) I have no reason this far down the line to assume Spidey and Lonnie should have any friendly feeling that would keep Spidey from unloading on this dude in full, especially as he is trying to save a lives.
Oh and Robbie Jr might be dead in a bloody puddle somewhere in the house but there is neither mention nor a thought given… so… yeah…
Okie dokie then… we move on to issue #59 and we basically have a rinse and repeat of the previous issue. It is great if you want wall-to-wall Romita Jr. action sequences. the action has exited the apartment they were in during the last issue and now they’re plodding the streets and pummeling each other all over the place and even under the streets – and it is again, a fight I don’t see why should be so damned hard for Spidey.
But fine, it is decent looking action and so that part gets whatever points I give this issue.
Finally we come to the big anniversary issue! Issue #60 where everything til now has been leading.
My reaction? Meh… it was alright. Lonnie is in court, everyone looks beaten up and then lo and behold, nothing of consequence happens and everyone goes back to a holding pattern looking frustrated and grumpy. No one wins anything really. It felt like this was the setup for maybe other stuff to come but in and of itself, it was nothing to even really review.
Pretty much all I can say is that it was a ho-hum end to a ho-hum story. I can kind of see what Wells and Co. were going for here but while we got some nice action in the preceding issues, that aside, the story was utterly middle of the road and definitely not worth the hype posted on the issues and with the whole landmark issue stuff.
The ONLY and only real good in all of this was the part of the story concerning
Interestingly the mini-add-on stuff with Wolverine or Chasm and such which were part of the larger-sized issue here were the more entertaining reads. The final one leads into the next big arc called “The Eight Deaths of Spider-Man” which I am curious about. But it is all pretty average really.
Art was solid, regular JRJ artwork and that was about it.
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