Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #536 Review

Amazing Spider-Man #536
Title: The War at Home Part 5 of 6
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Penciler: Ron Garney
Inker: Bill Reinhold

Plot: The impact of a defenestrated Spider-Man quickly reduces an innocent hotdog stand to a crater of crumpled steel and shattered pavement. Iron Man arrives to condemn his former teammate’s betrayal, only to be plowed into a brick wall by a well-deserved slug to the face. Spider-Man pounces on his ex-mentor, but Iron Man utters a passcode which seems to lock up Spidey’s new costume. Big surprise. The joke’s on Iron Man, though, because the possum-playing Spider-Man had found and disabled the override already. Spidey webs up Iron Man’s face when he least expects it, clobbers him once more for good measure, and flees to the sewers.
Sometime later (we’re told in an editor’s footnote to “pick up Civil War #5 and #6 to fill in the gap!”), Peter visits Aunt May and Mary Jane at their highschool hideaway. Peter tells them he’s joined Captain America’s resistence (as seen in Civil War #6, coming soon to a retailer near you!) and they tell him that they’ll go underground with him despite his wishes. Peter decides to go outside and have conversation about life with the memory of his 16-year-old self, and then the family checks into a seedy motel for the week.
Our hero slips on his old red and blue tights and swings over to a local news station to make a statement to the world. He declares that though everyone wants to feel safe, to sacrifice liberty and justice for security would be to destroy what makes America great. Watching remotely, Iron Man tells his agents to bring
the webhead in.

Likes:

– The beginning was good. I know I’m not alone in thinking Iron Man has needed a good beating for the better part of a year, and, although it was over too quickly, seeing Spider-Man deliver it felt very good. I must admit that Peter pretending to be disabled and smacking Stark down when he let his guard down was something I predicted would happen, but it was a classic moment nonetheless. I just hope Tony could feel the blows through that metal armor of his.

– The end was good. It should be obvious by now what Spider-Man’s speech is really about in regard to real world events, and it is a message delivered with eloquence and passion. It’s a pivotal moment in the context of the story too, because Spider-Man has rarely if ever in his career been forced to make a firm ideological stance like this. But part of the responsibility the icon of Spider-Man represents is not sitting idly by while the values composing one’s very identity are quietly eroded.

Dislikes:

– The beginning was good, the end was good, but that leaves a dozen or so slow pages in the middle that seem rather pointless. Now is the time for rising action; the pace should be racing to a climax instead of creeping to a halt. I’m completely numb to touching moments now, so instead of being poignant it falls flat and takes up space that could have been used to draw out the fight with Iron Man or to actually show Spider-Man teaming up with Captain America. Or perhaps time could have been taken to flesh out some of the events that were mishandled in Civil War #5, like Spidey’s fight with the Thunderbolts.

­ It’s one thing to need to read another series to get background on what is going on between issues, but requiring one to read two additional comics to know what happened between pages 6 and 7 in this one, individual issue is just poor organization. The crossover used to be seamless. Now I need to use scissors to put my comics in chronological order. I’m reading both series anyway, so when all is said and done it isn’t that big a deal, but it makes the flow of the story jarring and Civil War #6 isn’t even out yet.

Favorite Quote: Spider-Man: “If the cost of silence is the soul of the country … if the cost of tacit support is that we lose the very things that make this nation the greatest in human history – then the price is too high.”

Rating: 3 webs out of 5. This was a really hard one for me to rate. It disappointed me overall because it seems like JMS is treading water so as not to give away any Civil War plot points. Maybe it is unfair for me to expect this to be a complete story in of itself rather than a companion to the real action in Civil War, but it started out that way and now the story feels minced between two books. However, there were one or two moments that shined brightly enough to carry the rest of this otherwise wasted issue’s weight. All that averaged out makes for an issue that’s worth buying but could possibly take this arc out of the running for all-time classic status.

Reviewed By: CrazyChris