AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #649
“Kill To Be You”
Writer: Dan Slott
Penciler: Humberto Ramos
Inker: Carlos Cuevas
Colorist: Edgar Delgado
Cover Art: Humberto Ramos and Edgar Delgado
Be warned – there are SPOILERS ahead!
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
The Plot
A flashback shows the Hobgoblin cutting a swath through a South American dictatorship. Cut to modern times, in which Hobby makes a return to the New York City crime scene. Retrieving some equipment from a bunker belonging to Norman Osborn, the Hobgoblin comes across former (heroic) Green Goblin Phil Urich. After a brief encounter, Urich kills the Hobgoblin. Spider-Man and the Black Cat save Norah from some Goblin Cultists. Peter has a scare regarding Carlie and his secret identity. The Daily Bugle returns, and we learn that Phil has resumed Goblin-ing to impress Norah. Aunt May escorts Peter to his first day of work. Steve Rogers convinces Mayor Jameson to give Spider-Man the key to the city. Mac Gargan continues to suffer after being forcibly removed from the symbiote. Peter gets his lab set up and has an unproductive day at work. The new Hobgoblin attacks and incapacitates Spider-Man.
The Good
Following the scheme from last issue, Dan Slott manages to juggle multiple storylines and character plots without causing the entire thing to crack under its own weight. We have the Phil/Hobgoblin plotline, Peter’s new job, the rise of the Goblin Cult, the rebirth of the Daily Bugle, a Mac Gargan plotline, and more. Tons of characters show up, including the underused Mayor Jameson and the rarely-seen Black Cat. All the while, Slott manages to give them all enough to do that it doesn’t feel like they’re showing up solely for face time – for the most part, they all contribute to what’s occurring in the story.
Unlike the last time, this Hobgoblin mystery was handled quickly and effectively. Regardless of whether or not you like the way it played out (and boy, do I dislike it … see “The Ugly”), Slott stuck to his guns and dealt with the issue quickly. Avoiding the mistakes made with Jackpot and Menace, we get a fast reveal and a moderately convincing reason why Phil has put on the Hobgoblin mask, given the circumstances. Knowing the identity of the Hobgoblin this early in the story may actually make it a better one, because as readers we can understand the motivations and state of the character better than we would if he remained a blank slate.
Considering the attention paid to the changes in Peter’s job situation and Front Line / The Daily Bugle, both are handled in a fairly mundane manner. Sure, both are called out at some point to remind us – including one wallbanger moment that I will mention later – but unlike what the hype led us to believe, neither are the focus of the story. It’s a departure from what became the norm in the last couple of years of having every minute change waved in our faces for the purpose of showing us how groundbreaking and new everything in Brand New Day was supposed to be (when in reality, most of it rehashed older, better stories). I like it better this way, because it allows the story to develop more organically. This is especially important given how many storylines are being followed at once – reader fatigue could quickly become an issue if every plotline was treated with undue importance.
Knowing what lies ahead in the near future or not, the pieces are coming together nicely. Slott is using these issues effectively to set up elements that will play out over the course of his run. There are enough interesting, open-ended subplots to continue to draw me into the book, regardless of the quality of the story at hand. In particular, I want to see where this Mac Gargan subplot is headed. (While it’s obvious from preview material that there will be a new Venom, it’s not immediately obvious which character will don the symbiote.)
The Bad
You all know by now that I’m a big fan of Tom DeFalco’s Spider-Girl (and not the current imposter), and one of the best supporting characters in that book was Phil Urich. Using his experience as a former heroic Green Goblin, Phil guided Mayday in her early career. It only made sense, considering that the 1990s Green Goblin series written by DeFalco and starring Phil Urich was essentially the blueprint upon which Spider-Girl was based. Phil has always been a good kid dealing with weighty problems. The Phil Urich we see here, however, is a complete departure for the character – to the point that it isn’t even remotely the same guy. Not only does he act in a wildly different manner, but he also bears no physical resemblance to the Phil that we’ve seen elsewhere. I’m peripherally aware that this is following up on developments in the recently-cancelled Loners, but (a) it was probably done in conjunction with Slott’s plans, and (b) it probably didn’t make sense to the three people reading the book anyway. This isn’t character derailment, this is a character head-on train collision.
Outside of this poor characterization, Slott’s script contains plenty of juvenile humor and head-scratching gaffes. Following up on the fart joke from last issue, we get jokes about pornography, BDSM, and the size of Randy Robertson’s junk. That’s right folks, The Amazing Spider-Man has now fallen to the level of dick and fart jokes. It’s sickening. At the same time, one moment in particular stood out for me – after two pages of buildup, Aunt May drops Peter off at his new workplace and beams with pride that Peter has finally gotten work in the scientific field. Cue the record scratch! This is NOT the first time that Peter has gotten work as a scientist. Remember TriCorp? (Slott should – he ripped off the first TriCorp story last issue.) Or Peter’s work as a graduate assistant – both times? This is the “promise” from The Amazing Spider-Man #1 that Slott teased several times while hyping up his run (go ahead and check if you don’t believe me … it’s the first panel of page three). Once again, another “groundbreaking” and “new” development of this era is a rehash of something done before. I’m also not keen on Slott’s solution for the problem of storing Peter’s Spidey equipment (which he moves not because of cleaning ladies in the hotel, but because Carlie Cooper suddenly possesses superhuman levels of perception), which introduces a host of logistical problems that should be addressed in the coming issues.
Under the pencil of Humberto Ramos, this book has a very hit-or-miss quality. As usual, his faces are a mess. The same character will have a pointed chin in one panel, a box chin in the next panel, and a round chin in the following panel. Action scenes are confusing and full of awkwardly disproportionate anatomy. Camera choices stray too far too one end of the spectrum or another with regards to the level of zoom. It’s just a mess, not only of illustration but also of construction.
The Ugly
Do I really need to introduce this one?
After years of fan requests – an actual case of “because you demanded it,” for a change – the Hobgoblin was brought back only to be killed immediately. Yes, they left themselves some wiggle room in case they don’t have the balls to stick by their story, but the effect is what it is. As far as we know, Roderick Kingsley is pretty damn dead.
No character’s return has been more anticipated than the Hobgoblin. Any fan of the comic growing up in the 80s – which admittedly is before my time – grew up with the Hobgoblin as “their” goblin. Others, like myself, that have gone back and read the stories after the fact fell in love with the character. Kingsley was the sane goblin, the one with a calculating mind and ruthlessness to match. In my opinion, he was the perfect villain. There has been a lot of chatter on message boards across the internet that this was an intentional insult to the fans, and that’s not an argument that I’m willing to directly address in this space. Regardless of whether or not it was an intentional slap (and boy, does Steve Wacker’s obnoxious baiting make it seem like it is), this is another case of a writer lazily establishing the menace of his character by having him/her easily take out an established character in a way that makes little to no sense. This is a trope that I’ve complained about before, and this is one of its worst applications to date.
The Bottom Line
This is another mediocre issue. The book isn’t bad per se, but it sure isn’t good either. There’s enough here to maintain hope, but the execution of the story is sapping that hope quickly. 2.5 out of 5 webheads.
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You don’t remember me,
but I remember you ‘t was not so long ago,
you broke my heart in two
Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, caused by you….
If we could start anew, I wouldn’t hesitate
I’d gladly take you back, and tempt the hands of fate
Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart,
caused by you, you, you, you, you
Love is not a gadget, love is not a toy
When you find the one you love, he’ll fill your heart with joy
If we could start anew, I wouldn’t hesitate
I’d gladly take you back, and tempt the hands of fate
Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, caused by you, you
No, no no no now, no, no no…
You………….
🙂
Wait. I’m sorry. It’s ‘write’ not ‘right’. Like Next month we write ‘next month Spider-man reveals his identity to the world, but we’re not going to get aroudn to telling that story because next month he flies and we need to keep changing things around until we just through our arms up and say ‘I quit’ with a Mephisto story line that will probably the worst comic book of all time’.
That’s not a compliment, either. I must be bad at compliments.
I bet Dan Slott is doing great work on the book. But it’s hard to right a book about a magically unkillable Spider-man who cares more about his constantly dying Aunt (who has also died) than anyone on the planet and does stupid things even though he was supposed to be smart and no one remembers it anyway.
Yeah.
Ramos looks like he’s doing some killer work on the series.
Wait, is that compliment or not?
Or BiB?
@Styleshift – What are you talking about? Spidey totally had anger issues in the ’90s. Did we forget about “the Spider” or the Clone Saga?
@ Gerard: Not knocking your review buddy. Just saying what I thought about the ish, (like anyone really cared… 🙁 lol)
As for how violent the scene was. We definitely haven’t seen anything THIS violent in Amazing Spider-man.
How many t.v. shows can behead someone ON SCREEN without an MA rating? You’ve gotta be really sick and murderous to physically take someone’s head off as opposed to just shooting them.
The scene itself doesn’t bother me, It’s just a matter of being written tastefully (Which has been seriously lacking since ASM 601)
I didn’t really knock this situation at first because It was alooooong time ago that I would stop handing Amazing Spider-man to “ages 9 and up”.
I’ve gotta give Mr. Wacker credit though. Some of us get hot just because we don’t like the direction.
If they had beheaded Carlie on screen like this most of us would have bought 10 copies.
@herman22. Dude. Your applying Wolverine, Hulk, and Spawn to SPIDER-MAN. Totally different characters. Spidey doesn’t have anger issues or claws and I’m pretty sure he didn’t come from hell. (Well…maybe post OMIT.)
That logic doesn’t work here bro (or sis?). =/
Why turn a former superhero to a lethal super criminal? That’s not nice
I wish Kingsley’s secret account remained a secret, and Roderick stayed away
I was actually shocked at the start of this comic. AND LIKED IT!!!!!!! Digging the new direction. Gotta say..NOT a fan of the art. It mos def takes away from the story. For me anyway.
Speaking from a child of the 90’s I can totally speak on comic books in that era. Not to mention all the half naked women in costumes that it started ushering in as well. yeah what happened in this issue was a little much BUT…Marvel isn’t doing anything new in comics that is available to a younger audience. I remember in the early days of Image comics and they had this stuff in their comics ALL THE TIME. I was in 5th grade reading these comics. It didn’t have this “OH MY GOD” impression that this was crazy or out of control.
I remember Todd Mcfarlane always was always pushing the envelope with violence. in his classic Hulk vs Wolverine fight, He had Wolverine not holding back and making him oz green blood EVERYWHERE. That was in the late 80’s. Later in the mid 90’s with Spawn he again would push that envelope with Spawn (which was not advertised as a “adult comic”) and give the readers a taste of what would come not to just comics but pop culture in general which was over the top violence.
Hell, look at Lord Of The Rings. That is a movie I would think that most parents would let their young kids watch. You tell me you will let your kid watch that movie where Aragorn CHOPS off a goblins head and not let your kid read Spider-Man cause of one panel?
Maybe spidey was just makin stuff up to try to get the FF to sto[p asking questions? Was his psychic blind spot explanation before or after he unmasked to the FF?
@Themanofbat–Yep, that’s exactly right and the point I was getting at. And good that you also noticed that, in OMIT, Peter was never actually told how the blindspot works and since Dr. Strange had his memory wiped as well, he never did tell Peter. And yet, Spidey seems to know all about how in works in issue #591 even though no one told him and this was the first time he was unmasking in front of anyone since it happens. Honestly, it would have been much simpler if there was just a mindwipe and no blindspot at all.
@CRM–No worries. 🙂
I just now got the “rewriting history” bit. I can’t say it didn’t sting a little.
Oh, Mr. Wacker, you are such a card.
I thought these last 2 issues have been the best Amazing Spider-Man has been since the early JMS stuff. I really enjoyed it. For the first time since like issue 501, i am excited to read the next issue.
I wonder what Mister Negative is up to these days. Seems he doesn’t do much in this book outside of cameos and brief one off appearances since he hired Hammerhead. And with the Kingpin back…
Apologies, BD, Steve… but the “rewriting history” comment was STILL a stretch, Wacker.
@Themanofbat
Yeah I was just getting ready to read the issue when I wrote that, I misunderstood what stillanderd was saying, it is actually explained in #591 that basically the only way to find out that Peter is Spider-man is an unmasking, voluntary or not. I promise never to comment on an issue before reading it ever again.
@stillanerd
Nevermind, I guess I shouldn’t comment before reading the issue…….I assumed there was some sort of unmaking thing involved with Carlie, but yeah, from what I remember the only way to know who he is is to unmask him or for him to unmask himself.
@CRM – Yeah, but Slott had indicated on many occasions that somehow, it made people “guess the wrong way” if they suspected that they knew Spidey’s identity…
That’s why Kraven-Girl picked Vin as being Spider-Man when she found the costume in their apartment… it’s why Norman thought of some ridiculous reason in NWTD when he knew Spidey had a camera on his chest… even though THAT was never explained in OMIT, the readers, via interviews, were all aware that something in this “mystical blind spot” prevented people from putting two & two together (that Peter was Spider-Man) when they thought they could figure Spidey’s identity…
Perhaps since it wasn’t explained in OMIT, Slott might just run with what’s been established in the books thus far…
@stillanerd
The blind spot only erased things of Spider-man in the past, thats why the statue had a blank face in the arc with the FF. If someone pulls of his mask or finds out some other way they would know he is Spider-man, thats how the FF and half of the Avengers know who he is.
90’s violence example…Venom doing POP GOES THE WEASEL to a clowns head. Ouch.
Steve,
I concede, those early Carnage appearances were very bloody.
As far as the poster asking for you to be fired he broke one of the front page and message board rules and got his first warning. Here’s an example of the rules.
http://spidermancrawlspace.com/wwwboard/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=904
Gerard, the reviewer deleted his comment. He’s not an admin on the board and shouldn’t have deleted it. He’s an author for the front page. We keep the comments up there so others see what not to do. We also make a point to announce they got a warning.
And as far as the criticisms going deeper, yes…haters gonna hate. But you know that already and that’s why this Missouri boy doesn’t want your job. Spider-Fans have been vocal for nearly 50 years and that is a constant.
Off the top of my head ASM 363 where a guy gets stabbed through the chest by Carnage and ASM 378 (ish) also with Carnage bloodily killing some random people in car…but there are many, many more examples. I think the scene in 649 fits in fine with current modern day standards…though it is gross.
None of this will change anyone’s mind here though, as the criticisms and reactions go far deeper than what’s actually in the books.
And again, don’t feel like you need to delete and whitewash what people say on my account. better that that stuff is public, i would think.
SW
1 Warning goes out to Gazmodius for a personal attack on Steve.
Enigma: Please show some more respect and don’t call him “Stevie.”
Steve: Good to see you back on the site. As I said months ago, you’re always welcome. However, I can’t think of any violent Spider-Man death scenes from the 90s like the Hobgoblin beheading. What are some examples?
You trying to compare that to what you guys did to the books, Stevie?
Not even close…
There have been far more violent deaths and blood than this in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man. I read this stuff in the 90s!
(Sorry to see you deleted the one guy’s comment about me getting fired. Seems odd to rewrite history like that.)
Lot’s more to the Hobgoblin story. I hope the rest makes you as tepid as this part!
Thanks for readin’,
SW
Lol why are you upset about a comic book death? Insert dead comic book character that has come back to life saying hi. Use Thanos if you want a current one.
Another excellent issue, 5 / 5 from me. Slott is knocking this story out of the park IMHO.
Phil Urich looked like that crazed newscaster in Shed — the one who the Lizard made go all primitive & went after the Asian reporterette (then got smashed down by the equally-primitized other guy).
There is no way I would allow any kid of mine to read this.
@SirSpiderMonkey – OK, that was wrong. But you tell that to Ben Reilly, though.
@SirSpiderMonkey – Tell that to Uncle Ben.
that was daniel who got killed, not roddy
It’s as obvious as kaine getting taken down in the grim hunt in the spidey outfit
i mean cmon!
C’mon…Kingsley will be back. It’s only comic book death, the most reversible concept ever.
@Gerard – Not in the review itself, but in the comments section. That was my bad. I didn’t make myself clear there.
@Themanofbat: It’s canceled out by how crappy that one cover is. 😉
I like the variants… and I buy them, but they get expensive when they happen every week… once every 3 or 4 months would be nice… 🙂
Hey Gerard…
You should have added in “The Good” department that there was only ONE cover to the issue… 🙂
@Jonny: Comics need an MPAA-like authority to oversee ratings, because it’s been ridiculous for a long time now.
@stillanerd: I’m going to assume that the rules of the “psychic blindspot” are still vague enough to allow for this stuff. I’m not going to take Slott’s word for it unless it happens on the page. (I’m freaking tired of getting crucial plot points and explanations in interviews and on message boards instead of the pages of the damn comic.)
@Jason Marsh Larouche: In fairness, I never read Loners (and judging from the sales numbers and quick cancellation, neither did anyone else …), so I have no idea how the story of Phil becoming villainous played itself out.
@Billium 3: Relax, dude (or dudette?). If a comic book lingers with you that much, it’s time to stop reading that series for a while. It’ll be there if and when you decide to come back.
@Kassady86: I don’t like it either, but death isn’t something new to comics. I’m open for just about any death if it makes a good story, but this was NOT a good story.
@stephen wacker: Sorry about that. It took me a while to wipe that one out because I was at the hospital all day. 😐
@styleshift: I didn’t think the book was bad either — like I said in the review, it was just very average. That’s not terrible or anything, and it’s certainly an improvement over most of what we’ve gotten this year.
@Two-Bit Specialist: Wait wait wait … what does reading my review have to do with the conclusion you just made? I hardly represent a “general consensus” in and of myself, and my judgment of the issue shouldn’t have any bearing on your own. If you like the book, like the book. **shrugs**
I was waiting for the review to see what the general consensus was. I was afraid that my enjoyment of #648 was due to a fluke by Marvel. I think this issue has enough strong points (such as the Aunt May moment) to make me want to buy it now. Since I: a)never read the DeFalco run featuring Gobby, 2)enjoy the book of the so-called “Spider-girl imposter” and c)never read the Green Goblin mini either, I think I’ll be okay.
I actually didn’t think the story was too bad beyond the hobgoblin thing. The scene with Aunt May was really cool.
In fact I’m happy Kingsley has been written off. I don’t want to see him “Doc Ock” updated. Yuck.
If the Joker can be “killed” in every form of entertainment and be brought back, Hobby can be brought back.
The character calls for this kind of situation.
Shoot they even recently did it with Mysterio.
I’ve gotta say, I keep feeling like I’m getting slapped to the face. On one hand Dan is listening when it comes to the cheesy Parker Luck. Props for that. On the other hand we’ve seen a lot of kicks below the belt from the same writer. From the kiss in the club on the first page in the very first issue of BND all the way to the most recent Peter and Mj laughing hysterically about moving in together again. Now this. I find myself starting to enjoy his stories and than WHAM there he goes giggling and kicking me in the nuts again.
I really don’t know what to say about what could be “plagiarism”. When Slott hears about it he’ll just deny it and joke if he did do it.
Who would really say “Aw gawsh ya caught me!” 😉
I’d LIKE to say Dan is above that, HE CAN be a nice guy as well as a really good writer…but we’ve all seen him get PURTY petty.
Who knows, it goes against all odds since these two typically disagree on Spidey but Strange coincidences DO happen.
If I were Kev I’d be pretty flattered right now.
People who liked this story must admit that it proves that Kevin writes on a professional level now. tee hee 😀
Marvel managed to ruin two of my favorite characters in a single stroke! Well done!
Agreed Themanofbat. I enjoy the books too – very entertaining.
I liked the book. Good pacing, good story flow, interesting sub-plots… and even Ramos’ art worked for me.
Spidey will be in good shape as long as Slott is on board…. in MY opinion.
:^D
I’m calling Wednesday at the latest.
In addition to the inappropriate sleaze humour and the crapulous art, apparently Wacker thinks the purpose of this particular comicbook is to make those who read it angry and frustrated.
[Gerard’s Edit: C’mon now, that’s uncalled for. I’m removing the unnecessary bit. >:(]
What is it with Marvel and killing characters? Especially those with potential.
Words cannot describe how angry killing off Kingsley made me; ruined my Thanksgiving. I am giving up Amazing Spider-Man unless it’s revealed this was all a plot masterminded by Kingsley (With him healthy and alive) or til they bring him back. Never has a comic book death outraged me so.
I, for one, am shocked at the radical departure for Phil Urich. I collected the Green Goblin series back in the 90s, as well as ALL incarnations of the May Parker Spider-Girl book. I liked the idea of a heroic Goblin. And yeah he looks nothing LIKE the Phil of the past. This one looks like a complete dirtbag that’s been lacking in sun for a while. While I acknowledge that this could be a very latent side effect of the upgraded Goblin formula Urich was originally exposed to, I just don’t recognize the guy at all. While I like Humberto’s redesign, I was REALLY looking forward to the Kingsley Hobby stirring up trouble for Peter’s Big Time lifestyle. It just didn’t seem like something the Phil of the past would do. In truth, I was really disgusted with Dan Slott’s decision to turn Phil into a villain.
Yeah, the whole idea of bringing back the original Hobgoblin just so Phil Urich can quickly kill him off appears be nothing but a cheap bait-and-switch designed to create shock value, pure and simple.
Also, Gerard, good observation about Aunt May seemingly forgetting that Peter has been a scientist before. I was caught up in the moment of the scene that that bit of continuity escaped my notice. Course, it certainly was almost ruined what with Aunt May thinking Peter was hiding pornography when she went to wake him up.
And as for the Peter/Carlie scene, Peter technically shouldn’t have anything to worry about Carlie’s amazing powers of observation considering that, according to the very rules of the psychic blindspot Dan Slott himself set-up in issue #591, Carlie shouldn’t be able to deduce Peter is Spider-Man anyway. Unless Marvel has decided to abandon the “psychic blindspot” altogether and didn’t inform the readers about it.
In fairness to Slott, really the only way to have a Goblin die is to cut of the head so similarities where always going to be there (and I know the similarities go beyond that)
Personally I’m annoyed by the outright explicit dick and porn jokes more than anything, if I ever have kids I’m going to want to read them my entire backlog of Spider-man up to OMD but I could not in good conscious read this kind of stuff to a kid, like hell I read my 8 year old cousin hercules and it’s a book where hercules basically sleeps with a different woman every arc and I feel comfy doing that because NOTHING is explicitly stated, it’s all done like the simpsons where adults can read into it and kids can’t (example, hercules is great at the elyin tickler, Namora says Hercules honey “tastes sweet,” all stuff I could say to a kid and they won’t know what the hell I’m talking about) hell hercules has never even been shown in bed with a women in the entire run. Odd for a T rated book in contrast to the A ASM gets.
As it is I’m lucky I have over 600 spider-man comics leading up to OMD, at five comics a night that should easily last me 2-3 years
Are there no variants for this one? I’m shocked!
@BD: Several months? That was more like two years ago! 😉
A lot of people are speculating that it’s Daniel Kingsley under the mask, but the Hobgoblin is clearly shown tearing a steel door off of its hinges. It can’t be Daniel unless he got superpowers when nobody was looking.
I’ve been spoiled by this online before I read your reviews. I can’t believe they killed Hobgoblin and cut his head off. This sounds just like what Harry did to Norman in Kev’s Crawl Space several months ago.