AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 657
- Writer: Dan Slott
- Art: Marcos Martin, Ty Templeton, Nuno Plati and Stefano Caselli
- Story Title: “Torch Song”
So far I have been fairly positive about Amazing Spider-Man as a title since I came back as a review.
This time…not so much.
Plot
Spider-Man visits the Fantastic Four and reminisce on adventures that the team shared. At the end a message for Spider-Man from Johnny Storm is played and Spidey ends up joining the team.
The Commentary
There really isn’t a whole that that I have to write about this issue. The point of the story was to tell a few stories about Spider-Man and the FF and how close he and Johnny were and while I appreciate where Slott was coming from on this one I just didn’t care for it all that much.
I think a lot of that came from the fact that Johnny’s death doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. I like the FF and have followed them on occasion but for one thing I wasn’t reading the title when he died and for the other death in a Marvel comic has almost zero meaning for me at this point. Well, that’s not exactly true. Death in comics in general has almost zero meaning for me at this point. Too many characters have come back from the dead in the past decade or so that it just doesn’t have the punch it used to have. There are exceptions on both sides to be sure. I never thought I would say, “Wow, bringing Bucky back would be a great idea,” and yet I love Brubaker’s run on Captain America, so there you go.
The main problem I had with this issue is that the stories were a little too…silly for me. Johnny and Peter are hanging out and playing jokes on each other before playing an even bigger joke on Ben. Sue Storm gets arrested for showing off the Frightful Four’s underwear. Johnny, Reed and Peter stall out in space and have to fix the car before getting caught in a supernova. I just didn’t get a whole lot out of these stories. Were they funny? A bit. I chuckled here and there and I always liked the family dynamic of the Fantastic Four but this issue seemed like a ham fisted way of getting Spider-Man to join the team.
By the way, I don’t like the idea of Spider-Man joining the Fantastic Four. While it is nice to see Spider-Man getting a lot of exposure I am worried that even more of this main title will be taken up with guest appearances by the members of the teams Peter belongs to. So far we have gotten only one story arc since Big Time began that was an actual Spider-Man story. I want to see Peter interact with his supporting cast, not members of the Avengers or the Fantastic Four.
I do have to admit that Spider-Man getting trapped in the containment cell from Amazing Spider-Man #1 was a nice touch. I’ll give Slott that one.
Parting Thoughts
This issue was goofy and I didn’t care for it all that much. The writing was fine and the artwork was fine. I just wasn’t into it. This happens from time to time, though apathy is hardly the feeling I want to get from reading a comic book.
3 out of 5 webheads.
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i loved this issue. the best spider-man comics after the sensational spider-man vol. 2 annual # 1 by Matt Fraction
Gerard and I are both reviewing the title. If you search back a page you’ll see his review.
Not that I don’t want to hear Mr Bailey’s thoughts, but was there an announcement that Gerard was no longer reviewing that I missed?
Sorry for not knowing, what happened to Gerard as the reviewer of the regular series?
ah, it all makes sense to me, now. Thanks, Mike!
Not like the American education system’s grade scale should be considered valid… We could probably do with a tougher grading based on some of the kids that are allowed to skate by with barely any form of education these days.
Personally, I think of scores around 2.5 as “neutral” rather than average, because the average comic is pretty bad in my opinion. Saying something is “average” means it is on par with most of the other comics out there, whereas saying something is “neutral” means its on the line between me liking it and not liking it. On my scale, the average comic would get something less than a 2.5 because I don’t like the average comic. A 3 means it passes the “did I like it test,” but just barely. It kind of is like a 60% in American schools. It is passing but just barely.
@ Two-Bit: Well, if 5 = A and 4 = B then 3=C, 2=D and 1=F, so it does work out to be average.
I think the problem is that, if you approach every “death” issue with the attitude “it’s not going to stick,” then, yeah, it’s always going to suck, no matter how good the actual story is on its own merits.
Which is a shame.
By the way, it took me a long time to get it through my head that a 3 out of 5 is just average, not bad. I mean, you know how in school a 50 out of 100 is an F? I thought reviews did the same. O_o
I kind of rate my reviews as if it were a test. 2.5 is 50% for me. I just thought I’d join in on this club since I’m a reviewer too. 😆
But I do have to agree with Bailey on this issue, it wasn’t really special to me. Had some good Human Torch/ Spidey stuff but we all know he’s coming back in about two/ three years. Am I the only one kind of already getting tired of seeing Peter depressed about people dying around him? Don’t get me wrong I like the writing but I can’t wait to move on already.
CrazyChris dropping some English-class knowledge on all of us. Are we all just discussing how we approach comics now? Me next? Like Chris said I try to stay away from approaching categories as “good” and “bad,” instead I try to just make it seem like what worked and what didn’t work for me in the issue. In my final ratings break down I focus on the five main categories I targeted and give them the Good (3), Meh (2) or Poor (1) treatment and then its basically simple math to determine the overall score. I feel like anything between a 2.5 to a 3.5 could be considered a ‘meh’ issue.
“By the way,” good review again. I don’t have a number based rating on this one since I try not to over analyze an issue I don’t need to review, but I’d probably would have giving this between a 3 or 4 as well.
I always considered a 3 as “good” But loved the hell out of this issue.4.5/5 from me if anyone was wondering
To continue off of #9, this is related to why I never break my reviews into “pros” and “cons” sections. I prefer to present my whole opinion as an essay because it lets me connect ideas in ways other than “this part was good, and so was this part, and this part, but this part was bad, and so was this part, and this part.” I think the best reviews sort of have a thesis which represent the reviewers overall reaction to the comic and the rest of the points, good or bad, support that thesis. That method embodies the idea that a review is the reviewer’s overall reaction, not an average of different aspects. For example, the thesis of this review, I think, is that the issue could be seen as decent, but, for a couple of reasons, it failed to make Michael care about the Torch’s “death.” The points that the death is probably temporary and that the issue was silly in tone support that idea because they are reasons why the comic failed to make Michael care about the Torch’s death. The aside about how Spider-Man is on too many teams isn’t directly related, but the way the paragraph is offset with “By the way” signals to the reader that this is sort of a tangent, so it isn’t confusing what Michael’s main point is.
@6: To me, it’s simply “on a scale from 0 to 5, how much do I like this comic.” Everything more specific is a factor that goes into answering that one question. If I like the art, that might push it forward a little bit. If the story is devoid of anything that gets my imagination running, that would push it backwards. Technical skill, yeah that’ll usually raise the score, and so will something emotionally poignant. But I consider each factor entirely in terms of how it effects my own enjoyment of the comic. I take all the factors in their entirety, and from that I come up with an overall review that represents my appreciation of the comic. I don’t come up with my own reaction, and then what the “objective” reaction would be, and then average the two together. That sounds like what Michael is describing. Michael’s method is perfectly valid, too, it’s just not the way I look at comics.
I wonder if his involvement with the FF will be any different than his membership in New Avengers… or will he actually be used as something other than comic relief. For the love of god, do NOT turn him into Wolverine… he’s on how many teams right now?
As far as the Torch’s death…
… didn’t Captain America just bite the big one? And now what, we have TWO running around?
Constant resurrections have cheapened the emotional impact of stories like this.
I think Slott’s just trying way too hard to be goofy, rather than actually being clever.
I can see it. When I approach a comic review, I tend to look at it technically (story, art) and then emotionally (what emotions the issue itself evoke in me). The final grade takes both things into account, however.
I think any reviewer is going to have different interpretations of the rating scale and that’s okay as long as the reviewer communicates what the rating means. Michael, I find your balancing between how “actually good” and how well you liked it to be interesting. It’s very different from the way I think about comics. To me, there’s no such thing as “actually good” as a separate entity from subjective enjoyment.
wouldn’t 2.5 be middle of the road? Just curious as a 3 indicates more positive and you didn’t seem to care for it that much. A 2.5 seems more like a “meh” rating to me, but hey, it’s all good! I enjoyed the review
I have a weird scale for judging…well, anything really. I look at it two ways; was it actually good and did I like it. Something can be good or at least done well and I can still not like it and I can love something to death and realize that it was executed poorly. I recognized what Slott was going for in this issue and on that front he succeeded. I just didn’t like it, hence the middle of the road rating.
Michael, do you consider a 3/5 a negative score? I always thought of it as being positive with big caveats.
I agree with this. I enjoyed the concept of the story but would have been fine if they decided to have this be an opening comic for the FF series instead of an entry in Amazing. This way I guess they’re thinking they can lure readers into that series. It was nice to see Peter’s reaction to the death of his best friend instead of just glossing over the fact that he died though.