Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #554 Review

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #554
TITLE: “Burned!”
WRITER: Bob Gale
PENCILS: Phil Jimenez
INKS: Lanning, Miki, & Jimenez
COLORS: Jeromy Cox

PLOT:

Spider-Man saves the ungrateful candidate Crowne and chases Freak to a meth lab. A fire starts, and the blaze quickly consumes the acetone-covered monster. Peter escapes with pictures of the whole ordeal, but Bennet uses them to smear Spidey on the evening news.

Frustrated by the new managerial style, Spider-Man brings flowers to the old editor, J. Jonah Jameson. Our hero lets slip that Marla sold the Bugle during Jonah’s operation, and this news shocks “old flat top” into cardiac arrest!

Spidey then visits Doc Connors, who explains that Freak’s mutation will cause him to resurrect again and again, each time in a more powerfully evolved form. Luckily, the recent cold weather should slow Freak’s metamorphosis enough that his cocoon can be found and neutralized.

THOUGHTS:

I see nothing glaringly offensive in this issue, but it has no reason to exist. Bob Gale devoted an unnecessary chunk to explaining Freak’s powers and setting up his recovery from a fate that probably wouldn’t have changed even if Spider-Man had not intervened. Stretching this story into three parts pushed it, but delaying the resolution for a fourth just shows terrible craftsmanship. Plenty of fat, like Jonah’s predictable second heart attack, could have been trimmed to make room for a real ending.

So the problem with the present installment is that it’s boring, but I have a broader grievance with this whole arc and the Brand New Day philosophy that relates to Gale and company’s attempt at bringing the “soap opera” back into Spider-Man by emphasizing Peter Parker’s bad luck. Peter complicating his social life by deliberately taking unflattering pictures of Bill Hollister, the mayoral candidate who is also the father of Harry’s girlfriend, is certainly soap-operatic, but it eviscerates the character’s likeability.

There are multiple ways to convey the “Parker Luck.” It used to be that Peter’s luck came as a consequence of his heroic actions; his friends thought him cowardly because he disappeared whenever trouble arose, and he often missed dates or arrived late to work because he had to stop a robbery on the way. This version of the “Parker Luck” strengthened the character by underscoring his immense secret burden.

Now Peter’s own bad choices cause his misfortune. His guilt over eschewing journalistic integrity and betraying his friends by aiming his camera up Hollister’s nose demonstrates this interpretation of the “Parker Luck.” So does Peter losing his webshooter in #546 because he chased the mugger in civilian garb to get personal credit, and the same could be said about Jonah having a heart attack because Peter yelled at him at the least appropriate time.

The “bad choices” theory of “Parker Luck” has always been a part of Spider-Man (otherwise Uncle Ben wouldn’t have died), but the current writers have been using it almost exclusively and the “heroic choices” version little if at all.

Peter Parker is an everyman, so he shouldn’t be perfect, but he can’t be too flawed either. The majority of us manage to wear underwear in case our pants rip, so we find it just as difficult to identify with pathetic human failures as it is to identify with saints. Spider-Man is only relatable if he makes the kind of mistakes anyone would make. Like the Lee-Ditko Spidey, I’m probably not Christ-like enough to prevent the robbery of someone who just screwed me out of money, but I don’t know anyone who would sell ugly photos of his friend’s dad and lie about it. There are people out there like that, though, and we have a word for them: pricks.

RATING:

1.5 webheads out of 5. I don’t know whether that number more represents this specific issue or the general state of the series, but it’s at least a little of both.

REVIEWED BY: CrazyChris