AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #624
Writer: Mark Waid with Tom Peyer
Penciler: Paul Azaceta
Inker: Paul Azaceta
Story Title: Scavengers Part 2
Plot
Spider-Man and the Vulture: Round Two. Peter gives Jonah a hand. The secret origin of the new Vulture. Peter Parker; unemployed!
The Commentary
More vomiting.
Usually when I read a book I know I am going to be reviewing I look for the first event or line of dialogue that stands out. Writing these things can be frustrating sometimes, especially when you are reviewing the same title month after month or in this case week after week, though given my ability to get these reviews out on a timely basis you could probably argue the week after week thing. In any case I try to find a hook to make the review somewhat entertaining for y’all to read.
With this issue the first thought that stood out was, “More vomiting. Great.”
That is not to say that the issue itself was bad or that I didn’t enjoy what I read. I’m just kind of sick of the vomiting. It’s gross. I know it’s meant to be gross but still…gross.
Despite the yuck factor that come from massive amounts of regurgitated acid I dug the heck out of this issue. The opening action sequence was fantastic. Azaceta gave me the feeling of what a fight that took place hundreds of feet in the air would feel like. The dialogue was spot on here as well. I have always liked Waid’s writing and he has a good handle on who Peter is in and out of the Spider-Man outfit. I loved the quips and I loved the internal musings as well. This is another place the art really shined because even though his face was completely covered you could tell that Peter was bluffing a lot of his bravado through body language. This was a classic Spider-Man scene and I could probably go on about it but there are other aspects of the issue to discuss.
I really dug the origin of the new Vulture. I’m a sucker for the villain that was previously a bad guy that got screwed over by other bad guys. It doesn’t make him sympathetic because he was a scum bag to begin with but it adds a neat dimension to who this guy is and it sort of makes him more dangerous because he doesn’t have all that much to lose. I am undecided whether or not it was worth the wait because I am not a fan of having to wait as long as we have to these days for revelations and origins but at the end of the day it works. Still it would have been nicer to get this information in the story arc where the new Vulture first appeared, but maybe that’s just me.
Then there’s the scene which garnered media attention. Peter getting fired. To be honest when I first heard about this I was wondering what the big deal was. The way Steve Wacker spun it (no pun intended, I assure you) is that we were going to see Peter have to deal with being unemployed and having money troubles and standing in line at the unemployment office and everything that goes into losing your job and on one hand that could be interesting but on the other for about 90% of this character’s life in the comics he’s had money problems. I am working under the assumption that this time he won’t have any money and since unemployment is something that is on the hearts and minds of the readers this is a relevant idea to explore. I have never been comfortable with the line of thinking that states that comics should merely be an escapist form of entertainment and that heavy subjects like drug abuse, death and now unemployment shouldn’t be explored because someone might go to comics to forget about their problems. A writer’s muse takes them where she takes them. On the other hand this one might hit too close to home for a lot of readers, which could be a good thing or a major catastrophe. This is an internal debate that I have just about every time when these stories pop up.
But that’s all me working out my own issues about the idea of Peter getting fired. The matter before me is how he got fired and I have to admit this is the first stupid thing Peter has done since the start of Brand New Day that I can honestly say makes perfect sense to me. Peter felt responsible for not being there sooner to help vindicate Jonah. Again I’m confused as to why Peter cares so much about Jonah but at the same time Peter’s a good guy so it sort of makes sense. So he doctors a photo and once Jonah discovers that the picture had been faked Peter is fired via an extremely public press conference. Peter did the wrong thing for the right reason and he now has to deal with the consequences of his actions.
On one hand I like this idea because if given to the proper writing team this concept could have some serious legs. I can understand why Jonah did what he did because even though he can be the biggest jerk on the planet this version of Jonah seems to have his principles and he couldn’t use false evidence to clear his name even if he is innocent. On the other hand the public firing seem unnecessarily punitive especially since he added the, “No one should hire this guy,” thing right there at the end. Jonah could have very easily revealed that the photos were doctored and fired Peter behind closed doors, but he didn’t. He call a press conference and basically said, “I’m innocent but the evidence was manufactured and now allow me to throw someone I have known for years under the bus so I can look good.” It seems both in character and out of character and thus I am a tad conflicted on the whole thing.
Parting Thoughts
This was a thoroughly entertaining issue from start to finish. To my mind this is some of the best writing Mark Waid has done on this title to date and I am excited to see the other stories he will contribute to down the road. I am still not entirely sold on Peter getting fired but unlike other complications that the creators have thrown his way I am very interested to see if this is going to lead anywhere. If it does we may get one of those sub-plots that not only has a lasting impact but one that we’ll be talking about years down the road.
Or it could all go down in flames. I am hoping for the former over the latter.
It occurs to me here at the end that I have neglected to mention Tom Peyer’s name in both this and the previous review. I have liked Peyer’s work in the past and it is nice to see his name in the credits again. So I hope he hasn’t felt slighted by me leaving his name out when I was heaping the praise on the writing of this issue and the previous one.
Sorry, Tom. I hope there are no hard feelings.
4 out of 5 webheads.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Pandora
Amazon Music
iHeartRadio
Podbean
Amazon Alexa
Player.fm
Listen Notes
Stitcher
Hmmm okay.
To answer your question, Donovan, I honestly didn’t think of SPIDER-MAN 3 in this review because I really don’t care for the film and mostly block it from my mind. You are right that Peter did the same thing though, which is wrong, though I would argue that Peter did it to help Jonah and Eddie did it to help his own career. So there is a big difference of intent there.
As for him running away well I wouldn’t characterize Peter as acting like a child. He was completely blindsided by the press conference. It’s not that Jonah called him into his office, told him the situation and asked Peter to come with him to the press conference to fess up to what had happened. Jonah said, “Come here,” and then publicly humiliated him. Did Peter deserve to be fired? Yes, but Jonah grandstanded for his own personal satisfaction and frankly I would have ran too.
Interesting development that fails in its execution. Once again we have out-of-character moments to shake up Peter’s status quo that will be resolved in a year’s time. Just wait for it.
In today’s political landscape it makes total sense that JJJ throw Pete under the bus like that. He’s got to send a message that it isn’t tolerated by his organization and cut all ties so he looks clean. Sad, but true. Has anyone else used the Negative Aunt May plot recently? I’d think she’d have some cross words for Pete inregards to what he did and him running away.
Peter… with money problems…
What’s so “Brand New” about that?
I understand that Waid was going for a “Parker Luck” scenario in that, even though Peter was trying to help Jonah, it cost him his job and ended up getting blacklisted. I also understand Peter Parker is an imperfect hero, who sometimes makes rash decisions, and has made phony photographs (his taking pictures of himself as Spider-Man and selling them for profit notwithstanding) is something he’s done in the past. But this case, there were four really big problems I had with his actions in this story:
1. Did Peter sincerely believed that his only option in saving Jonah’s job as mayor was to come up with a single photograph that would exonerate him? As opposed to say, doing is own investigation and gathering evidence to clear Jonah? Remember, far as the public was concerned, Jonah was responsible in creating the Red Vulture; so why would a mere photograph showing him fighting the Red Vulture completely exonerate him? Wouldn’t someone say: “Well, maybe the Vulture was attacking you because he wanted revenge for you turning him into a monster? Just like what happened with the Scorpion. And doesn’t Peter Parker work for your press office? How do we know that didn’t he take part in helping you stage a photo-op to make you look innocent?” Heck, if anything, Jonah’s lucky that other witnesses managed to come forward to corroborate the “doctored” photo Peter “took.”
2. It says Peter “recreated exactly a moment that he’d seen with his own eyes that would have been caught on film had he taken the shot,” i.e. seeing Jonah kick the Red Vulture. Well I double-checked both this issue and the one before it, and there are no scenes of any kind showing what Peter, as Spider-Man, witnessing Jonah kicking the Red Vulture, much less defending himself against the Red Vulture. Lots of scenes of Jonah cowering behind his desk, running away, or hiding from the Red Vulture in the shadows, but nothing showing Jonah actually fighting the Red Vulture. The only time he was about to, (wait, I take that back, Jonah himself said he was “running away” there, too) that member of the security detail took away the poker he was going to use–and Spidey didn’t actually see that. That was Jonah’s own flashback. So if Peter is recreating something he actually saw with his own eyes, then he must either have selective amnesia, is delusional, or that “psychic blindspot” he has has doubled back on him. Not to mention Jonah himself would automatically know the photo was fake since he would realize he never did anything like the photo depicted.
3. For a guy who is supposed to be a professional photographer, and thus one would assume he would have more than a passing knowledge of photo-editing software, one would think he would have done a far more competent job on constructing the fake than a mere “cut-and-paste” job. Certainly enough so that Jonah wouldn’t be able to notice the obvious error of having the previous mayor’s family portrait in the background. But I suppose we can overlook that since, apparently, Peter doesn’t actually own a computer.
4. When Jonah sandbags Peter at the press conference (which, I agree, really wasn’t necessary as he could have just fired him beforehand and then held the press conference), when Jonah demands Peter explain himself, what does Peter do? He runs away. Mr. “I take responsibility for my actions” realizing he got caught takes off and makes himself look even more guilty. Thus, it’s really hard to sympathize with Peter at that point. In fact, one would argue it’s actually Jonah who off the better hero here than the title character.
It bugged me at first the photo thing, but i thinking it over it didn’t bother me.
Peter did something wrong trying to do something right. thats very Parker.
Peter lied in order to do it, Pete is a good man but he lies in nearly every issue of spider-man since its inception.
Would peter forge photos to help someone out, yeah his done it lots of times. most recently in my mind to JJ in Millars run to make Jonah believe his son was spider-man.
It is a gray area but i like some edge to the character. i don’t think peter should be 100% percent a boy scout. but i can more then see why others will be unhappy with this direction
I agree with Donovan. Someone explain why these 2 issues were supposedly great, when Peter acted in a way that is the antithesis of his prior 47 years of character development?
Oh, what does he care? He’s banging the Black Cat!
*GROAN…*
Maybe Peter should assume Ben’s identity and go work at the Daily Grind, then we could have the best of both worlds!!
Sorry to harp on this more, but I’m interested to know what you thought of Peter doing the exact same thing that Eddie Brock did in the SM3 movie, or the fact that he ran away literally like a child at the end. Or him pissing and moaning about how this was the worst time to be Peter Parker when he’s been publically arrested for murder before.
I’m not trying to start anything, I’d really like to know what you thought about those aspects specifically.
Good review of an issue that I hated. I don’t agree with the things you said you liked Mike, but you said it well enough that I liked the review. Peter’s doctoring of the photo and subsequent firing drove me up the wall because I thought it was completley ridiculous.
And Peter’s always known that Jonah is a good guy at heart, so him trying to help JJ makes total sense. How he went about it was bollocks though.
IMO.