AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #588 REVIEW

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 588

Writer: Marc Guggenheim
Penciler: John Romita, Jr.
Inker: Klaus Janson
Story Title: Character Assassination: Conclusion.

Plot

Fight in the prison. Harry puts on some old duds. Spider-Man vs. Menace. An election is decided.

The Commentary

Sorry this one was so late, folks.  Life got in the way.

So I dug on the first and second part of this storyline and had good things to say about the interlude and I wasn’t too keen on the third part. How did I feel about the final chapter?

I rather liked it actually. Despite slightly disjointed pacing through the middle part the ending was pretty sweet. It was a good mix of action and story and all of the plot points were brought to what I would call a satisfying conclusion.

The thing about the current Spider-Man creative landscape is that you have these peaks and valleys and it is obvious that while everyone involved is passionate about what they’re doing there are stories that are bigger than others. Character Assassination was one of those big stories and despite getting wrapped up in March this felt like the epic, year ender designed to wrap up several sub-plots that the creators had been dangling before the readers to keep us coming back. Is a year too long to do such a thing? Maybe. I think that Brand New Day definitely had a few pot holes that made reading the book a chore rather than something we do out of a love of the character but at the same time this was an experiment Marvel performed to see if they could publish a somewhat weekly Spider-Man book.

So Character Assassination had a lot going against it because it was this big, epic story and I was happy to see that the two main sub-plots were resolved effectively.

First sub-plot; the Spider Tracer killer. Or killers I guess. It is seemingly revealed that Vin was part of a conspiracy on the part of several New York police officers and then it came out that he thought he was part of a frame-up where the tracers were placed on the bodies of the already dead. He finds out that his fellow officers were actually killing people, got framed for those murders, got Carlie involved, went to jail and then got broken out by Spider-Man. In all honesty I really don’t care much for Vin as a character. I don’t dislike him but at the same time he isn’t my favorite. Despite that Guggenheim started to change my mind in this issue. Here’s a guy that believes in what he is doing and didn’t let the fact that he was an escaped prisoner get in the way of being a good cop. I liked that and I liked the scenes between Vin and Spider-Man. They had a lot of heart to them.

Second sub-plot; Menace. Or Malice as I called her in my last review before fixing it. As Brad pointed out I seemed to have had Sue Storm on the brain. Sadly it was just a simple mix-up. This was another character arc that I liked a lot better at the end than while it was happening. Frankly Menace wasn’t enough of a presence for me to really buy into her as a big villain but again Guggenheim changed my mind. Not only does it mess up her relationship with Harry, who honestly loved the woman, but completely torpedoed her father’s chances to serve as Mayor of New York. Both of this points were brought to a head in a truly heart wrenching way in this issue. The action was intense but it was more the emotional intensity that grabbed me more than anything else. I felt for all of those characters, even Lily and Harry.

This brings us to the final scene where Harry and Peter talk about everything that has happened while Lily receives a visit from Norman Osborn. On one level you have Harry and Peter, two friends that have gone through so much, talking about why they are friends in the first place. I bought into this hook, line and sinker, which is what a good comic or a good story really should do. Against that we’re given the back drop of Norman welcoming Lily to the family or, more to the point, recruiting her. This gave more weight to Harry’s dilemma because the man responsible for so much of his misery is doing a bang-up job of planning for more of that misery.

That was really awesome.

Seriously. I mean it. That was all kinds of cool and gave the ending that, “It isn’t over yet,” vibe that makes reading monthly…or I guess weekly comics so much fun.

The Final Analysis

A solid end to a solid arc. It had some bumps along the way but taking the arc as a whole this was a fun, exciting, action packed, emotionally driven story that did a lot to make me want to pick up the next issue. Having John Romita, Jr. provide the art for the majority of it made it all go down smooth and proved again that he is one of THE Spider-Man artists.

4 out of 5 webheads.