Amazing Spider-Man Vol 5 #13/814: The Bogenrieder Perspective

In which Jonah gives the big boy a verbal one-two.

Amazing Spider-Man Vol 5 #13/814

“Lifetime Achievement Pt 3”

Writer: Nick Spencer

Artist: Ryan Ottley

Inks: Cliff Rathburn

Colors: Laura Martin

Editor: Nick Lowe and Devin Lewis

EiC: C.B. Cebulski

Last time on Amazing Spider-Man that Neil didn’t cover:

Ya boi, J Jonah Jameson, has become a shock jock and has spent the better part of his time praising Spider-Man instead of bashing him. On Christmas, Spidey and Jonah are expected to appear at a function for Kingpin where Jonah will be awarded for his contributions to media, but get kidnapped by the Enforcers and put into a Murderworld by Arcade. And after being attacked by Scorpion, (In the right costume, for once!) the Spider-Slayers and the Fly(s), we are treated to a “This is your life” of Jonah, before getting assaulted by the Big Man!

And now, we return you to your regularly scheduled review!

Peter gets utterly thrashed by a gigantic Big Man, who it turns out is a robot piloted by none other than… Frederick Foswell, Jr! (What a tweeeeist!) He wants revenge against Spider-Man for supposedly killing his father, and wants to herald Jonah for supposedly trying to spread the truth about his father and his death. Jonah refuses and tries to tie him down with the hijacked Spider-Slayer, leading to him getting shot by a stray shot and Peter slingshotting the Big Man into the sky so it can explode.

Jonah declines the award from Kingpin on principle, and gets bumped from his morning commute slot in favor of a couple of dude-bros, to find Norah Winters as his co-worker. Scorpion, meanwhile, gets dumped by his girlfriend and captured by Taskmaster and Black Ant, and dumped into a prison cell with Vulture, Tarantula and King Cobra.

Thoughts:

For those of you who are going “Whoa, Neil, where’s your review of ASM #11 and 12?” yeah, I was a bit busy during December. When I finally had time to get around to doing it (Last week) there was an issue just around the corner and both Mike and Mark put up good reviews that I thought solidly encapsulated my thoughts on both issues; a little underwhelming on the story for Spencer’s high metric, but it was great to have Ottley back on art. Solid B’s all around.

Unfortunately, I think this book is more of the same. Compared to each arc, which has one or more excellent issue to begin and/or wrap up the arc, this issue is very much consistently the same in quality across all three issues, with a minor upkick in quality, but not enough to really bump it up a full letter grade. Thankfully, there has yet to be an art with a lackluster conclusion a la the previous writer, so I can give the issue, and thus the arc, props for not dropping the ball at the finish line.

As mentioned in my recap of my thoughts of the previous issue, Ryan Ottley’s return was a welcome one; while I don’t dislike Ramos’ work on this run, Ottley’s work has been a defining part of this run and very much set it apart from the rest of the Marvel house style. One of his strengths that carried over from Invincible is his recognition of how important it is to convey motion and strenght; when Peter is straining to lift the Big Man bot with his webs, or when Jonah’s Spider-Slayer is ambushing Foswell Jr., it very much feels like you’re living in the moment. I love his art, as well as the inks and colors by Rathburn and Martin, and it’s mildly depressing that we’re going from this to Chris “I only draw blobs and spikes” Bachalo.

Writing-wise, I think Spencer definitely gets his character work down. Peter and Jonah’s banter feels natural and has great rythym and flow, and Jonah’s speech to Foswell Jr. is filled with a lot of the heart and heavy weight I’ve come to expect from the book; rather than injecting a joke in Peter’s internal monologue to ruin the mood, Spencer knows that letting a serious scene play out completely is key to a good story. However, the book also knows that it’s okay to have laughs, and places them effectively throughout the book. (Particularly with the banter between Black Ant, Taskmaster and Scorpion.)

There was some good use of the page space to whittle down the number of running subplots, as we slowly build into the final stretch before Hunted. So while we’re down a few, we’re still running a bunch in the background, so let’s hope they all begin trickling down instead of being drip-fed like the previous writer.

The only thing I think drags down the book, but a significant one, was that there was very little in the way of action. I understand that this is more of a character-driven book, and that this is sort of an average expectancy for the industry as a whole (To varying degrees of success) but it feels like Spencer doesn’t really want to focus on action and focus fully on the character study of Peter and his supporting cast. That’s okay, but come Hunted it could become a problem. It’s kind of a sub-problem, but there’s not really anything new said about Jonah, who was by all means the focus of this arc; it’s more a feeling that Spencer wanted to play around with Jameson in this new status quo, and less like he wanted to make a point about Jonah as a character. (Which is disappointing, since every arc since Spencer started has made a big deal out of examining the specific supporting characters of said arc.)

Is this issue bad? Certainly not. Is the arc bad? Again, no. But Spencer has set himself such a high metric that a solid ending instead of a great ending comes as a bit of a disappointment. Still, my excitement going into Hunted is unchecked, so here’s a great new year for the webhead.

Final Grade: B