Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #297 Review

Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #297 Review

Writer: Chip Zdarsky

Artists: Adam Kurbert with Juan Frigeri

Colorist: Jason Keith

C.Artist: Adam Kubert and Jordie Bellaire

Editor-in-Chief: Alex Alonso

The issues starts off…

With Peter coming home only to be attacked by entire SWAT team.  Don’t you hate it when that happens?  You come home, wanna put your feet up, talk to your made up/not made up sister, then SWAT just slides down your skylight window..uninvited no less!!!!

This issue is all about Peter escaping his apartment building from Agent Mintz’s SWAT team.  They want to arrest Peter, to get to Spider-Man, which will get them to Teresa.  *heavy sigh*  Seriously, why hasn’t anyone figured out the truth yet, but I digress.  Peter left his costume in the alleyway to avoid if Agent Mintz was to come knocking on his door like Jameson did.  He didn’t want to take any chances.

Oops..

So Peter fights an entire swat team via being stealthy and only two web cartridges.  Gets shot in the process too.  Oh yeah…his Spider-Sense isn’t working.  He does smash through floors to get to the basement to obtain what costume he has down in his locker space.  Not sure why he didn’t go through the window, grab his costume from the alleyway and make a get away via rooftop…oh that’s right, he didn’t want to expose he was Spider-Man.  Smashing through the apartment floors less subtle.  Classic Peter.  *rolls eyes*

So now in mis-match classic/symbiote costume, Spider-Man takes to the streets and plows through the SWAT team and avoids snipers.  Gets in trouble though with Agent Mintz going all Robocop and explaining how he blocked his spider sense.  Luckily Jameson saves him by hitting Mintz with his car and pulls a classic Arnold “Come with me if you want to live” on Peter.  No superheroes were around to save Spidey in his own book so Jameson had to do it.

As they get away, they head over to Aunt May where Mintz’s goons are already there to “arrest” her.  Peter gets out of the car and surrenders himself in exchange to let May go.

Thoughts:  I really didn’t like this issue.  I’m not going to argue with the art, because Kurbert does a fine job.  Zdarsky wants Peter to get out of a situation that he walked right into without exposing his alter ego as much as possible until the very end.  I get that, really I do.  It shows what Peter can do, without being Spider-Man.  What failed for me is that Peter is fleeing avoiding to be captured and in the end of the issue he surrenders himself.  He’s smarter than this!  His antics just makes him look more suspicious as ever that HE IS SPIDER-MAN.  It’s been a huge problem in this book so far that I just don’t like.

Unmasked smashing through floor to floor to get into the basement?  He’s UNMASKED!  Also wearing  SWAT gear!  Why would Spider-Man wear SWAT unless he’s hiding something, right?  What saved it from failing for me was the old numbering is back.

To me, Peter knows his spider sense is on the glitch.  He know Mintz wanted to talk to both him and Spider-Man.  Talk, not kill.  He SHOULD have known that going back to his apartment was not a very good idea if he wanted to avoid any entanglement with Mintz.  He just seemed completely out of character for me and once again saved by someone else.  Peter isn’t perfect, by far, but I tend to think he’s a bit more smarter than what I read in this issue.

Pros:

• Old numbering is back

Cons:

• Everything else

Grade: D-