AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #613 REVIEW

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 613

Writer: Mark Waid

Penciler: Paul Azaceta

Inker: Paul Azaceta

Story Title: Power to the People Part 2

Plot

Spider-Man escapes a mob. Max and Dexter make a deal. The Mad Thinker thinks wrong. Spider-Man screws things up.

The Commentary

Now this is more like it.

Seriously. This was the best installment of Amazing in quite some time. Outside of two pages I was on board with this issue and continue to be on board with the story as a whole. This feels like classic Spider-Man to me and it was really nice like Amazing Spider-Man after so many months of having problems with it.

There were two aspects of this issue that I liked above all else and the first was that Peter was quintessential Peter through the whole issue. The first scene where the mob turned against Spider-Man…Peter coming up with a little gadget to track Electro…Spider-Man messing up at the end and causing an even bigger mess…these all feel like the Spider-Man I like reading about. Waid just nailed the character throughout the issue and I was really jazzed about this. I’m kind of old school when it comes to Spider-Man and it was nice to have an issue free of hooking up and (mostly) the asinine sub-plot involving Michelle.

The other aspect of the book I liked was the fact that unlike Doc Ock’s thing from issue 600 Max’s revamp feels organic to me. The pacing in this part of the story is spot on and the characterization was very strong. On the surface the whole, “bring down big business” end of Max’s plan seems a little ingenuous but at the end of the day this guy is a criminal. Sure he focused on the whole Glen Campbell, “I am a line man for the county,” thing last time, but the ultimate goal was to cure himself and Max would do anything to achieve that goal, even blackmailing Dexter into giving him the money. The double cross at the end works for me as well because he is just gone mentally. All of these little moments built on each other and made for a solid read.

Parting Thoughts

Once again I am looking forward to the next issue. The only thing that kept this book from getting a higher score is the fact that Michelle is still a caricature not a character. She added nothing to story outside of being this two dimensional shrew to scream at Peter, Aunt May and Jay. It wasn’t even funny. Thankfully this was a really small part of the issue and I was happy with what was going on otherwise. The writing was strong and the artwork, while not my usual cup of tea, was quite good as well.

3.5 out of 5 webheads.