AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #653
“Revenge of the Spider-Slayer, Part Two: All You Love Will Die”
Plotter: Dan Slott
Scripter: Fred Van Lente
Penciler: Stefano Caselli
Inker: Stefano Caselli
Colorist: Edgar Delgado
“Lock and/or Key, Part Two”
Writer: Fred Van Lente
Penciler: Reilly Brown
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Colorist: Andres Mossa
Cover Art: Stefano Caselli and Edgar Delgado
Be warned – there are SPOILERS ahead!
I was a big fan of the previous issue, giving it my highest grade to date as reviewer of the title – 4.5 out of 5 webheads. I recommended it to anybody that was apprehensive about jumping aboard again, stating that it was a good point to jump in and test the waters again. Does this issue continue that winning formula?
NOPE!
The Plot
Continuing from last issue, Alistair Smythe’s spider-slayers continue to wreak havoc on Andru Air Force Base, disrupting the shuttle launch and attacking members of the Jameson family and their closest friends. Spider-Man calls the New Avengers for help, but this time they are unavailable. Max Modell and his associate Mr. Muntz try to help, and Max begins to suspect something about the connection between Peter and Spider-Man. Spidey tricks the Scorpion into damaging the fuel intake on one of the boosters, which activates the safety protocols. Doctor Octopus, observing the occurrences with a remote octobot, uses the machine to assist the astronauts on board as part of his heretofore unknown plans. The boosters disengage from the shuttle, leaving Spider-Man and the Scorpion in freefall. Spidey is saved by the fortuitous arrival of Ms. Marvel and the other New Avengers, most of whom engage the spider-slayers at the base. Spider-Man concocts a plan to protect both the Daily Bugle and the two Mrs. Jamesons (Aunt May and Marla). The plan works to some extent, but Spidey needs to backtrack to Horizon Labs in order to build a gizmo to cancel the spider-slayers’ warning sense – which causes him to run right into an answers-demanding Max Modell.
In the backup story, Spider-Man and Power Man team up to stop the Looter from stealing a Freemason meteorite hidden beneath Federal Hall. Oh, and a tentacle monster tries to rape Spider-Man. (The previous sentences are not a parody. That is the actually what happened.)
The Good
Like last issue, this book is nice to look at. Both the main story (illustrated by Stefano Caselli and colored by Edgar Delgado) and the backup (penciled by Reilly Brown, inked by Victor Olazaba, and colored by Andres Mossa) feature beautiful artwork and crisp coloring. Though I found the colors on the main feature to be a little too mute, and at times Caselli’s linework strayed too close to the Ramos side of things, it was another solid effort all around. The real standout this time around was actually the coloring on the backup – they literally popped off of the page.
The stakes remain high, so the issue has a degree of tension not unlike the previous issue. It was a bit more subdued this time around, mainly due to the inclusion of the New Avengers, but there is still an underlying sense that something could go awry. It’s a big adventure, with a huge set piece and smaller altercations throughout. Spider-Man and friends solve on big problem, but the danger doesn’t end there – it simply moves onto several smaller problems that build to a climax. It’s a well-structured and fairly entertaining story.
There are two minor things that I really liked in this issue, and I’ll mention them here. First, Robbie seems to be releasing his inner Jonah on the Daily Bugle crew in one scene. It’s actually pretty funny that he would take on some of the leadership characteristics that he openly criticized his previous boss for. I feel like this is a running subplot in the making. Second, Slott gives us a tease of sorts with the appearance of Doctor Octopus. I like it when seeds like this are planted in a story, and I like it even better when it has some minor impact on the story at hand. We get a small hint of an upcoming Sinister Six story, and Ock acing as a mover in this arc is a bonus.
The Bad
Unfortunately, there was a lot to dislike in this story.
First and foremost, the appearance of the New Avengers left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s good to see that Slott has chosen to address and utilize both Avengers teams in the title. On the other hand, bringing in the Avengers changes the tenor of the stories in a way that is unrecoverable – in other words, this ceases to be The Amazing Spider-Man and instead becomes The Amazing Spider-Man and Friends. Those are two different books. This also causes problems for later on, because featuring the Avengers teams so much in the early going will inevitably lead to questions of “Why didn’t Spider-Man call the Avengers to help him with X?” in most every story from here on out. This also cheapens the quality of Spider-Man’s victories, because chances are he will always win because of somebody else. Case in point: Spider-Man didn’t save the shuttle – Doctor Octopus did. In fact, Ock probably could have saved the shuttle regardless of whether or not Spider-Man caused the safety overrides to kick in. The same thing happened in the previous arc with the Black Cat’s bad luck powers, which are implied to have led directly to the victory. As fans, we want to see Spider-Man overcome the odds and win. Instead, we get to see Spider-Man blow the whistle so his friends can come in and win for him, and that’s just weak.
For all of the “Peter Parker is a genius!” stuff that we’ve been getting so far in Slott’s run, he sure does seem to do a lot of dumbass things in this book. For example, he tries to fire his webs while attached to a rocket hurtling through the atmosphere at incredible speeds, which anybody with a basic knowledge of physics should know is impossible. (Speaking of basic physics, this issue has a real doozy in it that I’ll leave for the end.) Later, he suspiciously calls for Aunt May first in the spa, and then he stumbles right into Max Modell at Horizon Labs. Seriously, this guy is acting like a Class-A moron!
The backup is a waste of time and effort, but it is what it is. We had better get used to worthless backups from here on out, judging from the fact that Slott is already in trouble with deadlines. (Fred Van Lente actually scripts this entire issue. It’s worth noting that Slott is known for working in the traditional Marvel Style, which involves writing a plot for the artist that is to be scripted near the end of the process, after the penciler has already drawn the issue. Van Lente is simply doing the work on the back end, so this is still very much Slott’s story.) By the way, guys … I don’t think I ever needed to see THIS in a Spider-Man comic:
The Ugly
You may recall that all objects on Earth, whether they be on the surface or in the air, are constantly acted upon by the Earth’s gravity. If you took physics in high school or in college, you may remember a few specifics. You see, the Earth’s gravity can be expressed as the product of an object’s mass multiplied by a constant commonly signified by the letter g – this constant is known as the gravitational constant, the acceleration towards the planet’s center of gravity which is located at the Earth’s core. This is a key factor when considering things like, say, free-falling, because it expresses the fact that a falling object will continue to increase in velocity at a constant rate as it hurtles towards the surface.
THEY DO NOT CONTINUE TO FALL AT THE SAME SPEED.
Now, you may be saying to yourself, “But Gerard, surely the gravitational constant isn’t that significant, right?” Wrong. You see, that gravitational constant is about 32 feet per second squared.
Let’s do the math. Gargan claims that there’s no difference between falling from thirty stories and from seven miles in the air, because it’s “maximum velocity.” Of course, there’s no such thing, because of the constant acceleration of gravity. Anybody that remembers high school or early college physics is probably aware of the constant acceleration equations. We can easily apply one of them in this case, because we have a constant acceleration, g. (We’re assuming negligible air resistance, since they’re just people, and that the initial falling speed is zero, since it’s a free-fall.)
By the time Gargan hit the ground, he could be falling at over a thousand miles an hour. I’m pretty sure that he would be jelly if he hit the ground at that speed, regardless of how powerful his little tech suit is. By contrast, if he fell from a thirty-story building, he would only be going about a hundred miles an hour on impact. BIG difference.
Yes, I know that I’m a nerd, and that people are inevitably going to do the usual “BLAH BLAH BLAH it’s comics!” routine, but if you’re going to try to revolve the book around scientific ideas, you should at least try to get some basic physics right.
CrazyChris-inspired Edit: Yes, I’m aware of the concepts of terminal velocity and air resistance. The only point of this little exercise is to illustrate with some classical physics that there is a large difference between jumping from seven miles up and jumping from about 300 feet, like Gargan suggests. Terminal velocity and air resistance would not be a factor at a height as low as 300 ft. — you would need to jump from a height of around 2000 feet for an average human. Gargan’s body and costume would make him a much larger density than a standard human, so his terminal velocity would be much, much larger than that of an ordinary human. Plus, we have to consider that the atmosphere in the wake of the shuttle is much less dense than normal (owning to fluid displacement) and that the remaining atmosphere is also at a much higher temperature due to the burning of the engines, which would make the molecules more apt to “stand aside.” Additionally, curled up into a ball like that, with a suit that possibly has some positive aerodynamic effects, makes it so that the factor of drag would be lower than normal as well. (Not “breaking the speed of sound” low, but hey, pobody’s nerfect. 😛 )
The Bottom Line
I was disappointed by this one, because I liked the start of the arc so much. This isn’t terrible, but it’s pretty mediocre. 2.5 out of 5 webheads.
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Who cares if it was possible. I’m just excited to see Spidey fighting Cthulu!
@Spider-Dad
I think Tom Clancy said it best: “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”
I love all the physics debate, even though I don’t understand it at all. You guys might be interested in a book called “The Physics of Superheroes.”
http://amzn.com/1592405088
That said…why was Iron Fist in his green costume? In the pages of New Avengers, he got magically upgraded to a white costume with a gold dragon on the chest.
As for the involvement of the New Avengers in the first place…I’ll be the first to say that Spidey shouldn’t be in the “mighty” Avengers at all. I don’t know why you would have the same person on two teams (this goes for Logan too). It makes no sense. And in both Avengers books, Spidey looks like an IDIOT. I’m good with quippage, but he barely does anything BUT crack wise.
That said, in this case calling for backup made sense. They damn near lost a space shuttle. If Spidey hadn’t called and the shuttle crashed on Earth, Steve Rogers would’ve had his head.
Gerard, the heck with debating the science, this story had many other problems than wrestling with physics. For example, how bad is the security and control procedures at Andru Air Force base? You have at least 2 security breaches on the premises with Smythe somehow getting into the control room and no one noticing, plus you have a little Octobot running around in the shuttle that no one sees, despite the “dozen” or so reviews?
This story arc has too many contrivances, (let’s not forget, Peter somehow gets involved in rockets now, despite zero experience???) that it is beyond laughable at every level.
Plus who launches space shuttles from New Jersey??? Wait, when it conveniently fits the plot.
Instead of reading ASM, I thought I was reading one of those silly Hostess ads of the 1970’s…this story felt like Marvel Adventures…
Oh, man. I didn’t get to go to my LCS until today because the city was frozen for four days, and I forgot to look for this issue today. :/
I really liked how at the the very end it said “read Power man and Iron Fist or youll make Spidey cry” that really made me laugh. Van Lente got me
Anyone want to talk about plumbing?
@31
And yet back when he was a teen and young college student in Stan Lee’s run he would routinely put a beat down on supervillains some of which were much tougher than him at time(like scorpion who originally was portrayed as one badass mofo as far as strength goes). It would seem like he’s become less experienced as he’s become older instead of the opposite.
Because knowledge is power!!!
I agree w/ the “Help I need somebody” complaint. It has been a beef of mine for a loooong time now. Spider-Man is a veteran ass-kicker. I’m not saying that a team-up isn’t nice or necessary from time to time, but he has certainly been written like and amatuer who seems to be winning most of his fights from sheer dumb luck. Disappointing.
Yeah, and if you guys arent careful Ill pull out my liberal arts degree and really, um, bring the discussion
People People People come now, we all know that the apropriate answer here is the simplest one. And the simplest answer is “Its science, we don’t have to explain it”.
Wow I’m even more confused by this science talk than when Stella talks about literature thingies and speaks in Latin….
Now now, lets not all get out our maths degrees out to compare
The fact remains, this is nothing on OMIT’s devil brick complete violation of the laws of gravity, when I’m off work tomorrow I may do my analysis once I done my fringe marathon.
Sorry, Sir but Slott got it right. I’m an avid skydiver with a degree in math (minor in physics). Using your provided formula and deltaX = 30 stories = 30 x 10 feet = 300 feet.
V = ( 2 x 32.2 ft/s.s x 300 )^.5 = 139 ft/s
So a fall from 300 feet (in a vacuum) will get you to hit at 139 ft/s = 94.77 miles/hour which is about the terminal velocity of a falling human. (We can slow down to about 90 m/h when cupping air and speed up to 150 miles/hour in a needle dive). A fall from 300 feet or above will have you hit the ground at about the same speed no matter how high. Note the extra speed you attain when in the upper atmosphere (less air = less resistance) will bleed off once you start hitting the thicker air pillow as you come down.
Physics in comics is important to me so I’m glad to see you outraged when it is wrong. Just be sure it is wrong before teeing off. (I’d be glad to consult if you want).
p.s. The last time I was torked off by bad phisics was when she-hulk jumped up and grabbed the wing of a plane and then slammed it into the ground. Anyone want to say what was wrong with that?
@Doc: I was talking specifically about human beings. Again, you need to be at about 2000 ft. or above before it becomes a major factor.
Man, I’m amazed that some BS scribbles that I made in a couple of minutes to get a few laughs has erupted into such a big deal. 😛
@erock: Um … no? In case you haven’t noticed, none of this stuff is weighted evenly. I can write as much as I want in each section, and it’s mostly just pointing out the important stuff (The Good and The Bad) and nitpicking the hell out of something that bothered me (The Ugly). There are issues in which I barely use one section or the other, and at the end of the day, I’m not using them as any kind of mathematical formula or anything. Hell, I probably wrote the same amount word-wise in my last review for The Good and The Bad, but I gave the issue a 4.5 out of 5!
In fact, I generally know the grade I’m going to give before I even write the review — the rest is just trying to articulate my thoughts as best I can with my limited talent. 😉
Is it sad that Luke Cage gets the best line in a Spider-Man comic?
Why does the reviewer need to use this Good, Bad, and Ugly format for his reviews? This pre-dictates that 2/3 of the review is going to be negative. Give the issues a chance instead of looking for so many reasons to dislike it.
@Gerard, wow, no one is happier than I am to see Physics make its way into an ASM review…but i think theres a reason i’m usually in the minority…I mean, debating things like classic ‘free fall’ physics/acceleration due to gravity/air resistance seems to ignore the other ridiculous ‘comic book’ science stuff going on…constantly. Also, the statement ” Terminal velocity and air resistance would not be a factor at a height as low as 300 ft.” is certainly incorrect. if i dropped a feather and bowling ball from my hands to the ground, air resistance would be a huge factor. thats the significance of the astronaut’s experiment on the moon (with a bowling ball and a feather) that is so famous, the moon has no atmosphere (thus no air resistance) and they fell at the exact same speed…ah well…sorry for the sidetrack…
@Donovan Grant
When did harry help Peter during NWTD? I recall Spidey taking on the Norman and the some the Thunderbolts single-handedly…are you sure you’re not thinking of Character Assassination in which Harry exposed Menace? B/c NWTD had Spidey showing some real resiliency against a bunch of villians and he still found time to pummel Norman…good. And as far as American Son, Harry turned Spidey over to his dad…definitely a dick-head move by Harry at the time, but he redeemed himself but stepping in to help Spidey later…bottom line, i’m not sure i’d characterize the majority of BND as Spidey being inept to fight alone…especially since over the years, spidey has had numerous collaborations in crime fighting…
Gerard Delatour II- your out of your element Donnie. 😉
@2serious: Some larger comic shops actually will sell you the book directly and ship it to you. You can try a place like Midtown Comics here in New York for that.
@hermann22: You need to relax, bro. 😆
Man….what a noob Slott is…I mean C’MON!!!!! How could he write about something that is not 100% accurate and assume we all have the suspension of disbelief when we read comics. Pshhhhhhhhh..no wonder I gave up reading fantasy/sci-fi and stopped watching tv altogether.
You kids crack me up….
Hello everyone,
Great review,
I’ve been a long time follower of this site and Spidey is my favorite hero. Great review. After reading the review of 652 I want to order it and all other subsequent issues that follow.
But I’m wondering where would I go to order issue 652 and onward?
I’ve been to Mailordercomics but the layout is a bit sloppy and I can’t find 652 or this issue.
Any help would be appreciated.
You see Smythe put extra science into the new suit which out-sciences your chart. Dig?
Gerard. You’re forgetting about SCIENCE!
Also Gerard I haven’t read this issue but is it possible to explain Mac Gargans stupidness with “he’s a fucking idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about it” or does the situation play out like his idea of physics is correct, otherwise you could get a no prize attempt for that
Dammt Gerard, mathematical formulas are my thing
Nice to see the Blind Spot continue to be completely ignored, looks me me and stillanerd were right on that regard
OK, I’ll do the honors.
SCIENCE!
I know the tentacle monster thing was an easy joke to pull, but from what it looked like it wasn’t trying to rape Spider-Man or anything so I had no problem with that. However, Spidey’s belt has always been illustrated on the pants part of his costume, not the shirt. So that’s a bit of a bug.
Total agreement about the New Avengers interfering. Just more crap to show what a loser Spidey is that he can’t do anything by himself. Really, have the majority of the BND stories had him win a fight by himself at all? I would be surprised if they did. Off the top of my head:
New Ways to Die; Help from Harry Osborn.
American Son: Harry saved his ass.
OMIT: Deus Ex MagicScience
Grim Hunt: He was told not to rage, indicating that he was in the wrong.
Admittedly I’ve not read too much else, but what most I have read the guy can’t do squat by himself. He’s been a superhero for at the very least ten years, if not the more likey 15. Where’d all that experience go? With his marriage?
@Loadmaster69: There has been evidence throughout Big Time that the blindspot is no longer a factor. I think that the problem is that it was so vaguely delineated to begin with that it’s difficult to make a valid argument.
So i’m assuming that the blind spot is completely gone because i though that the characters brain would jump to a different conclusion if they tried to put it together that Pete and Spidey are one and the same.
im an idiot. I went to a different comic shop today get some comics. If I knew this one was going to be out I would have gone to my regular shop… there goes tomorrow’s lunch break
@CrazyChris: The thirty-story drop was a high estimate. The calculated value was in the 80s. Either way, the point is that we’re not talking about a “normal” person here. Yes, the numbers are exaggerated for comedic effect, but the idea is sound. If he had said three hundred stories, then we could talk. 😛
But the large air resistance is a huge deal. A skydiver’s velocity will generally cap out at 122 miles per hour. It says so right on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity. That 122 miles per hour sounds close to what you calculated for a drop from thirty stories. To me it looks like Slott got his physics correct in this case. The formula you used would come to the correct result if Scorpion was falling in a vacuum, but not on Earth.
I chuckled at the tentacle pic for a second…
… ONLY a second.
Art looks pretty good.
That was ridiculously awesome Gerard. 0_0
Physics argghhh, I can just feel my brain melting while trying to understand what the hell you just said. Well actually your explanation was pretty straight forward its the damned graph that made me go huh?
@CrazyChris: Well, yes. The point is, I was using simple classical physics to disprove the statement that there is negligible difference between falling thirty stories and falling from seven miles, which there is. I mean, I didn’t take into account all sorts of stuff like the dropoff of gravitational acceleration into the upper atmosphere, large air resistance, transference of kinetic energy to heat, Gargan’s likely very large density, etc.
I hate to be a party pooper, but there’s something you forgot to account for is air resistance. The faster you are falling, the harder the air you’re falling through pushes back at you. At a certain point, the air resistance will be of such force that it negates the acceleration due to gravity. At that point, the falling object will cease to accelerate and will instead fall at a steady speed. That speed is called “terminal velocity.” So it is highly unlikely that Scorpion would falls as fast as your math suggests. Otherwise, he would be falling faster than the speed of sound, which of course people who jump from high places (like airplanes) do not do.
I can’t believe you whipped out the physics man.