AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 601
Writer: Mark Waid
Penciler: Mario Alberti
Inker: Mario Alberti
Story Title: “Red-Headed Stranger: No Place Like Home”
Plot
The morning after. Angry roommate. The Reillys stick around. Peter can’t remember. Stood up because of over-sleeping.
The Commentary
First off; sorry this review is so late. It’s been crazy lately. I should be back on track in the next few days.
I’m kind of conflicted on this review. It happens from time to time, especially when I like the writer whose work puts me in that position. I am a fan of Mark Waid. I like his writing. I like his personality. I genuinely look up to the guy and there are only a handful of people that still have that effect on me. So it is almost upsetting when I read a story by a writer I have such a high opinion of and not really like it all that much.
There were a few elements about the issue that I enjoyed It definitely had that old school/mid-eighties feel to it and reminded me of a lot of the little one off stories that used to run in Web of Spider-Man or Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man, which would focus on an hour or day in the life of Peter Parker. In this issue Spider-Man stops a newsstand robbery, Peter running into the Reillys at Aunt May’s place, Peter at the DB offices (with Gloria Grant, y’all) and Spider-Man showing up again to save the day. The lynchpin and the emotional hook of the story is the fact that Peter cannot remember when and where he was supposed to meet Mary Jane and while I have never gone through the exact same thing I can still relate to it.
The thing is as much as I liked all of that at the end of the day the bad of the issue far outweighed the good.
For one it opened on Peter waking up in bed with Michelle. Now that in and of itself isn’t bad. It could have made for a comical scene even. I just hated how she completely overreacted to him not remembering what happened. From the looks of those flashbacks it is pretty apparent that Peter was smashed. Drunk. Intoxicated. Seeing pink elephants. The man was soused. Frankly I am shocked anything happened between Peter and Michelle at all. Allowing for that, though, and assuming that Peter not remembering hurt her feelings what the heck was with the handguns line? It was very over the top and felt out of place. Most of all I was kind of upset because Slott set up a nice, friendly relationship between the two in the last issue and this was such a 180 degree turn from that.
Also I wasn’t much on the art. I did not care for Mario Alberti’s style. It wasn’t bad. I mean he has talent but the faces and the figures all looked just a bit off. Some of it worked. Spider-Man, for example, didn’t look all that bad. I just didn’t like the rest of the art and it was a bit distracting in places making me like the issue even less.
Finally, I just didn’t like the ending. Peter goes through this day of hell and at the end he doesn’t get to see Mary Jane and when we see MJ she is just waking and smiling like standing up a former boyfriend/fiancé/husband is just the most natural thing in the world to her. Wow, I slept through a date…ooh, The Daily Show is on! It was a poor ending to a rather bland story.
Parting Thoughts
Despite those feelings I am unhappy that I disliked this story as much as I did. It’s Mark Waid. I am supposed to enjoy the books he writes. I love Irredeemable, for instance. This just wasn’t my favorite of the stories he’s written. The art didn’t make up for that at all and when I first went through the book I thought the whole thing was kind of pointless. Subsequent readings to write this review led me to see some good in it but over all I wasn’t too thrilled with this issue and as much as MJ’s return was hyped she was barely in the story.
What did make up for some of that disappointment was the back up story by Bendis and Quesada. I really liked it. Then again I like Jessica, so that made it easier but really and truly I dug the crap out of these six pages. It was a nice conversation between Jessica and Peter and I liked how they took a panel that came out of a story from the sixties and incorporated it into the story seamlessly. I’m still not a huge fan of Quesada’s version of Spider-Man but it was a lot better than the art in the main story.
2.5 out of 5 webheads.
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These issues are just killing me. I’ve tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and read them with an open mind but this was just too much. I’m trying to hang in there but it’s getting pretty close for me to just stop reading this flagship title.
I thought the story was passable, thought the back-up was great. As someone who grew up in New England (Southern Maine) and lived in Boston for many years, I both love and hate how the Reillys speak. It brings a smile to my face to read these issues with them and to hear that thick Boston accent in my head, but I think the writers take it a little too far, to the point where it’s almost insulting. Some of the words they put accents on are just wrong and make me question if they’ve actually ever spoken to some from Boston. Just my 2 cents.
The overconfidant MJ ending I didnt mind…as Wacker said, MJ is aware of Peter’s flaws and strengths, and for her, this is another tpyical “Parker Luck” kind of day, which is verified by what she sees on television…she knew the only thing that could keep Peter away from her was being Spider-Man….so it was a nice, care-free way of recongising Peter has a job to do. I liked that ending…what I DIDNT like was the BEGGINING of the story.
Why didnt MJ stop Peter from drinking himself silly? She’s his best friend, you’d THINK she’d take him home and have enough sense to stay with him until he sobers up. Peter dragging Michelle with him into bed thinking she was MJ was henious enough, but MJ should have been grown up enough to keep Peter from embarrasing himself publicly like that, she loves him uncondtionally. At least her own deal with Mephisto is still hanging over her head so this irrational behaviour can be excused on HER part.
she also always blames herself for the relationship problems she has with Peter, so why WOULD she think Peter would have the time of day for her when she left him? Peter’s binge-drinking probably convinced her that he was hurt way too much to think of her as anything other than in platonic terms.
There’s ways of retconning the sex scene. Peter thinks it’s MJ because it WAS MJ, but the deal with Mephisto disguises her as other people….it’s a blindspot!
…Straws. There for grasping.
And good call on the phone call inconsistences…seriously Joe, either have the balls to fire the ASM editor or I’ll come over to your offices and slam his knackers in a desk drawer until he quits for being so FLIPPING INCOMPETANT at keeping these things under control creativly…it affects the quality of the title, it affects the writer (usually good writers under a proper hammer and chisel editing their work), and it affects the judgement of the reader.
On a lighter note…Brian Michale Bendis is always on my on/off list of favourate writers…yet his back-up strip was like divine intervention. Maybe it’s because you could have told this story with a married Spidey (it’d have been better for it), but I thought it was the closest thing to the Spidey that DeFalco, Lee, and even Berndis on USM allow to shine…something sorely missing from the BND mess. Bendis should have tightened the nuts and bolts on this ship before the Titanic set sail. Quesada I’ve always loved as an artist more than than an ideas man and an EIC, so he works well here too…plus it’s nice to have comic characters feel like there genuine for once through his visuals, not ACTORS.
…Is it ironic Quesada always draws Spidey as looking MUCH older than he is in BND?
Bailey,
13 comments way to go!
Man… ALL the money I’m saving…
Good review Mike.
This issue made me quit.
I am honestly a bit heart broken that Mark Waid (Who is one of my top writers) wrote the Brand new day story that made me stop buying. I’ve never quit before. =(
Gee, I think I’m the only one who really liked this issue. Although the book continues to move in a direction that I don’t like, I thought this was one of the better stories.
this issue was very disappointing indeed. i expected to find out at least a little more about where mj had been, but all we get is that she remembers that pete is spider-man, which i assume is what she wanted from mephesto. and i totally agree with you michael, the art was god-awful. 2.5 webheads is generous imho
Oh I probably will, but I just get fired up about the direction that spidey is going in.
And Stampdude, ride out the storm like the rest of us Spidey-fans!
Okay this is a position that I never thought I’d see Peter in. He’s stood girls up, he’s deliberately lied to them to protect his secret or them or both, he’s broken up with them for the same reasons…but getting smashed out of his mind from the cheapest alchohol known to man (it’s JJ so you gotta know he saved few bucks on this) and sleeping with his roommate? New territory that I’m not really sold on. Still, could’ve been worse. Could’ve been Vin…which would have put me on a flight to New York to carry out the long-overdue assassination of Joe Quesada for One More Day. At least MJ remembers Peter is Spider-Man.
It took awhile to read this issue because the art was awful, so every time I went to read I just put it back down, This issue will probably be my last for a long time. I’m really tired of Marvel’s flagship title sucking so bad. If this title came out today brand new it wouldn’t last a year, so long spidey, i will miss you.
Nothing could’ve stopped this issue from sucking. Good Review Mike!
i really really hated the scene with Peter and Michelle in bed. Peter doesnt screw around and he sure as hell doent get drunk to a degree that he doesnt remember having sex with a girl. that would run counter to his strong sense of responsibility. you may call me old-fashioned or backwarded but i did really hated that. i guess Marvel is trying to help sales by introducing sex into ASM comix.
The back-up saved this issue for fully sucking
Sounds like this one hurt ya Mike..
I find it funny that in this issue Peter makes a point of saying he no longer has MJ’s number and didn’t get her new one.
Then in the next issue when she calls him it’s clear the number is somehow saved in his phone (because her name pops up)