Amazing Spider-Man Vol 5 #22/Lgy 823 Review: The Bogenrieder Perspective

Braka Brakas, I have returned! College is out for the summer and I’m going to go all-out. Just for this issue, though. The rest?… eh.

Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #22/ Lgy #823

“Hunted, Pt 6”

Writer: Nick Spencer

Pencils: Humberto Ramos

Inks: Victor Olazaba and Humberto Ramos

Colors: Edgar Delgado and Erick Arciniega

Editor: Nick Lowe and Kathleen Wisneski

EiC: C.B. Cebulski

The story so far:

1. Peter has been captured by absolute madman Kraven, his clone son, and been thrown in Central Park with a bunch of weekend warriors playing VR with Kraven-themed robots. After spending much of the event on the defensive, Peter went in on Kraven, only to get a swarm of Vermin clones sicced on him and Kraven saves him to keep him on the brink.
2. Doctor Connors has Taskmaster sneak him into the Thunderdome, but in attacking Kraven Jr, has been thrown into a cell with Spider-Man; Connors has Peter rip the inhibitor chip out, killing him and letting the Lizard go and save Billy and Black Cat.
3. Speaking of, Black Cat and Billy Connors are attacked by a Kraven bot and the man behind the wheel has a sudden conscience growth when he realizes Billy is a kid. Eventually, it’s revealed that if you die in the robot, you die in real life.
4. Vulture has assumed command of the animal-themed villains, and is using wolfpack tactics to take down the Kravenbots.

And now, the conclusion (Featuring a Ron Jones score)

As all the chess pieces converge on each other, (Kraven Jr., Lizard, Black Cat and Billy on one fight and the villains and Kravenbots on the other) Peter is finally freed and comes face to face with Kraven. The two fight, and Kraven tries to goad Peter into killing him. Peter, wracked with guilt over nearly killing Doctor Connors and not being able to make sure MJ is safe, refuses and forces Kraven to watch footage of Lizard saving Felicia and Billy from Kraven Jr.

Kraven, realizing that he will never get the death he wants from Peter, lets him go, turns off the Kravenbots (Letting Vulture take credit for saving the day amongst his peers) and lowers the forcefield. Kraven Jr., having recovered from fighting Lizard, fights and kills what he thinks is Spider-Man. But when he sees Spider-Man swinging overhead, he unmasks his prey to find that it his father. As the comic ends on a picture of Kraven with his sons, Kraven Jr. lets out a Klingon death cry.

Thoughts:

So I realize I’ve been dead for three months, but now that classes are over I’m free to focus on delivering reviews for you all! I’m going to skip over my thoughts on the issues in between the opening salvo and the final issue (Mostly because I’ve discussed those issues either on the podcast or on my personal YouTube channel) but my thoughts on ASM 21 can be summarized and are best suited with brevity; art could’ve been better, but I appreciated how Peter was pushed to his absolute brink and had to do the unthinkable to save his ex and an innocent child.

Now, onto the main show, I want to get the art out of the way.

I honestly don’t think it was Humberto Ramos’ best work here. The note he left at the last page in Spanish thanking the rest of the team was sweet and sentimental, but it feels like he didn’t go out firing all cylinders on this issue; standard Ramos body proportion issues are rampant, especially in the tighter panels. That said, the colors, particularly in Spidey’s hallucination, are spot on; Edgar Delgado always elevates the art a couple steps up. Regardless, as this is apparently Ramos’ last issue for Amazing Spider-Man, at least under Spencer’s tenure, I wish him and his regular art team the best of luck on whatever project he’s being put on next.

Writing wise, I think this was the best way to end this story. While there are some alternate takes that I and a lot of people were expecting, I don’t think anybody saw it ending this way, and I’ve gotta say that I’m glad that we’re at a point where we aren’t able to predict the story to a “T” like with Slott’s run. There’s a few people who were confused as to why Kraven died when supposedly the curse required him to be killed by Spidey, and I think I can answer them myself.

1. Kraven was already killed and revived by Kaine in Scarlet Spider, so the curse has already been broken in theory; my interpretation of Kraven’s intent was that he wanted to be killed at the hand of his greatest foe. Kraven as a character has kinda gone back and forth on being a real stickler for honor of the hunt, and probably just wants Peter to kill him for the sake of it.
2. The curse itself has always been very loosely defined; as far as my “haven’t read Grim Hunt in three years” recollection is, the only requirement is that he dies at the hands of the Spider; so even if he hadn’t broken the curse via Kaine, it’s possible that it could’ve been loopholed by Kraven dying because of Spider-Man indirectly as opposed to directly killing him. Either way, it doesn’t specify how Peter must kill Kraven, so like I said, loophole.
3. Eh, Kraven’s nuts.

I’ve had my own personal problems with how the pacing of this story took place, particularly around the halfway point where everything slowed to a crawl for the sake of letting Peter catch up with what was going on. But the payoff for this issue was very much worth the wait, for both Peter and Kraven as characters; Peter got to reaffirm his beliefs, while not descending into Slott-levels of “No one dies” preachiness, and Kraven finally got closure and the death that should have stayed permanent. For all my gripes with Hunted (Which were already very few, and mostly pacing and art-related) I think that this “final” issue (I say this because 23 is probably going to serve as a sort of closure for this arc while also doubling as a transition into the Centidemon/Peter joining the Superior Foes/all-new, all-female Sinister Syndicate storyline.) does a great job of wrapping up the ten-issue storyline he’s been building up since issue 2.

Fantastico, Spencer. You broke the curse. Congrats on sticking the landing.

Final Grade: A+