Slott kicked off Spider-verse with a bang last week, can he keep up his impressive lead-up to a cool sounding event?
WRITER: Dan Slott
PENCILER: Humberto Ramos
INKS: Victor Olazaba
COLORS: Edgar Delgado
LETTERER: Chris Eliopoulos
COVER: Ramos/Delgado
VARIANT COVER: Stephanie Hans
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Ellie Pyle
EDITOR: Nick Lowe
PLOT: The issue begins like any other issue of Amazing Spider-Man….with the worst puns imaginable. We open up on the
“Slyde a-way” which is the Eel’s secret headquarters. Black Cat, and Electro burst in, and take the Eel hostage. From here we cut back to the immensely annoying make-out session between Peter and Silk. It’s explained that Animal Magnetism is what is constantly bringing them together. Silk reveals she knows Spider-Man’s true identity which is somehow a turnoff for him (perhaps Slott misread all of Black Cat’s dialogue in the 80s and thought it was Peter who wanted the masks on). We then visit the newsroom of The Fact Channel who is bumping Jonah because they are having an interview with Parker Industries. Unbeknownst to the newsroom Sajani who was their ideal interviewee about the company has been kidnapped by The Black Cat. Sajani is held up in a nice penthouse being served wine, and being treated like a queen whilst The Black Cat busts up a Mafia meeting between Phil Urich, and Mr. Negative. She tells them she is going to squash the spider, and break the man.
With Sajani out of sight Anna Maria races to find Peter. Once she enters his apartment she witnesses some Spider loving, and Peter makes thee ole “can’t help myself” excuse. Anna Maria is hearing none of it, and demands Peter put some clothes on in order to do the interview. So Peter and Cindy (silk) wander down to the television station, and begin a typical interview. That is until Electro, and Black Cat barge in to convince Spider-Man to reveal himself by putting Peter Parker in danger…WOW guys this hasn’t ever happened to Spider-Man before. Then Cindy hopes out in full Silk regalia and starts opening a can of whoop butt. Peter fake loses his contact lenses, changes into Spider-Man, gets paralyzed by Electro, and the issue ends with J. Jonah Jameson focusing the cameras on Spider-Man as Black Cat prepares to remove his mask. Wow…so so very original.
STORY: Now I like a good pun as much as the next guy, but what we get in Amazing Spider-Man #5 are not good puns, they are very very bad puns. The “Slyde” A-way nearly made me face palm myself through the head. This is not improved in the least bit as The Black Cat proceeds to say lines like “This Black Cat has crossed your path”, and “if you were a smart eel you’d slip away”. The scene is set up in a very James Bondian fashion, but even at their worst James Bond films never had puns this bad. Oh well it’s just the first few pages right? I’m sure it will improve from here. OH WAIT.
So now we cut back to the Peter, and Cindy relationship. Which uses the weird animal magnetism excuse that really makes me feel uncomfortable whenever it’s used, it seems like a lazy ploy by the writer in order to have titillation without having a story behind it. Hell even Spider-Man XXX had a story before they got into action. When Axel Braun has better storytelling you know you’re in trouble. In the past I have defended the new take on Black Cat. The only real reason I wanted to give it a chance, because I had faith that something interesting would be done with the character. Sadly I was wrong, her characterization is so poor it doesn’t fit at all with the established persona.Why on earth would she be interested in becoming a mob boss? The whole situation is just a terrible idea, and again we get more bad puns this time from The Goblin King about Pizza…it’s awful.
All in all this is a very atypical Spider-Man plot. It reuses a lot of old Spider-Man tropes, we have gang meetings, and the lingering threat of exposing his identity on television. All have been done before, and yet when done right they are still an enjoyable read. A Spider-Man issue can be like a Coke, you enjoy a coke even though you’ve had a million cokes throughout your life. You know the taste, and flavor going in, and you know you’ll love it. This issue is like buying a coke with the taste just a little off kilter, and finding out you accidentally bought cherry coke. It’s just not the same.
ART: There are some enjoyable splash pages, and the action scenes are well shot. The way Ramos draws hands though still messes with my head a little.
BEST BACKGROUND CHARACTER: Mr. Negative, because where the hell did Mr. Negative come from? I haven’t seen that dude in comics for ages, and he just magically pops back up hanging out being a crime lord again. What we all really need is for Silvermane’s head to go back on his bad-ass robot body, so he can truly take over the crime families yet again.
ON THE NEXT AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: Civil War #2, oh wait never mind they will probably just have Silk kick Black Cat in the face, and he won’t get unmasked.
D-
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@#6
Slott’s two original characters? Now there’s a shock, isn’t it?
Because the movie is released next Tuesday on DVD. Probably no other reason than that varient cover.
Why is Gwen on the cover?
So how many people has Slott had Felicia murder now? Dead bodies are piling up at her feet.
The only character I feel that was on character this entire story was Anna and Sanji. Their scenes were the best thing about the entire issue. The rest, holy, was it bad! Be in my review later today.
It’s amazing that after not writing Peter for over a year, Slott seems to be incapable of writing a good story with the title character.
For someone who supposedly loves the character and the book so much, it’s incredibly how badly Slott drops the ball with the titular lead, his characterization, and the characterization of his entire cast that aren’t his own creations.
I agree with the comment about how Ramos draws hands. He really needs to not stylize them so much.
Great review. I just realized that the last time we saw Mr. Negative wasn’t he stripped of his powers by Spider-Man and Anti Venom? Am I missing something?
On a completely different topic. That is the most irrelevant and morbid variant covers I’ve ever seen. It’s a nice piece of art, but what it is it doing on the cover of this issue? A shameless attempt to tie into ASM2?
Nice review Andrew. Again, bud, I found myself feeling pretty much the opposite about the issue as a whole than you did. While I still totally despise the character assassination of Felicia Hardy, and rolled my eyes at some of the Eel-puns, I thought this was pretty solid and fun. I’m super happy that Silk and Spidey’s make-out sesh didn’t lead to another post-OMD hook-up. I laughed out loud when Slott called Cindy “Spinning Jenny”. And I’m actually interested in Electro’s development in this issue. He seemed pretty interested in the possible cure that Sajani mentioned, so maybe the crispification of his girlfriend from earlier is actually leading somewhere. If anything, I think the issue suffers from not fleshing out Electro’s mindset any more than it does. I don’t think that this was an awesome issue by any account, but it was a B or a B- in my book. Keep up the good work Crawlspacers!
Nicely done as always, Andrew
LOL! And I thought I was harsh on this one! 😀