Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #38 Review: The Bogenrieder Perspective

In which Jonah joins CBR.

Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #38

“Breaking News, Part One”

Writer: Nick Spencer

Line Art: Iban Coello

Colors: Brian Reber

Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna

Editors: Nick Lowe and Kathleen Wisneski

Editor-in-Chief: CB Cebulski

Plot:

Jonah goes in for his first day at the new Threats and Menaces, where he learns that Norah Winters has turned the entire thing into a clickbait-centric website, and while Jonah objects, he reflects on how the practices on display here were cultivated by his own personal crusade against Spider-Man. Which is coincidental for the plot, because guess who’s on the morning news? Only Spider-Man is stealing from a bank, which is really a false flag to steal from criminal organization PLUTO; this was forwarded by Mark’s favorite supporting character Teresa, who interrogated the information out of Chameleon.

Jonah goes into the fray and gives Peter an assist, and at the same Foreigner leaves Sable’s recovery to go have fun and gamble at Chance’s Palace casino (For those of you who only read Amazing Spider-Man, it’s appeared before in Unbelievable Gwenpool #24!), but loses a few good million dollars on Spider-Man winning under a certain amount of time. Peter, thinking he’s won, calls it a day, but finds out that Jonah has done the single worst thing he can do: help.

Thoughts:

So, we’re back with another Jonah-centric arc, and I can’t say that I’m not happy for the supporting character wheel to finally rotate back to Jonah. That said, it’s a bit of a weird issue, but in a good way, and certainly not in a way that I would have ever expected somebody in the mainstream comics industry to bring it through.

Before getting into the subjects of clickbait and modern journalism, I want to do the quick and expected “Neil talks about art” section right out of the gate. After Iban Coello knocked it out of the park with the Venomverse saga and rotating with Stegman on Donny Cates’ Venom run, I was genuinely looking forwards to his art on the book; and when the final product arrived, don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it. The main problem, I think, is that Coello’s output isn’t as clean as his usual output and this comes off as a little chunky. That said, it might have to do with how dirty Reber’s color palette is, especially in the very clean and supposedly bright areas like the Palace. The reds were a bit too dark for my liking, but Spider-Man pops out whenever he’s on-panel, and I suppose that’s the most important part of the coloring.

Now, let’s talk about how Nick Spencer just stopped caring and decided to take a gun and start shooting at journalists. Every time there was a journalist on-panel, Spencer took this weird but hilarious approach where he makes them normal, everyday people outside of their jobs; but the moment they start talking about their work, they go to the absolute extreme of how bad modern journalism can get these days. Not only does it help to reflect with Jonah on how he’s composed himself across his own career, it does a very good job of working in various elements across the other Marvel titles. (More specifically the X-Men are a big one, and Spencer willing to even dunk on his own HYRDACap fiasco shows a level of self-deprecating comedy that I wasn’t expecting but appreciated nonetheless.)

Additionally, I also appreciated how Spencer used the Palace and tied them into the Silver Sable storyline running in the background. While I enjoy the Palace’s use in Gwenpool, it served more as a gimmick location rather than a fully fleshed-out environment. Spencer takes the basic foundation and adds his own comedic flair to it, which goes to show how well he understands villains and their dynamic within their niche of society. There’s also a nice dig at how often the heroes butt heads with each other instead of the villains, as well as additional good continuity with the titles that were released that week. (Immortal Hulk easiest to place among them.)

I think the weakest part of the issue for me was Peter himself. He was still written in character, but it felt like his scheme alongside Teresa was more of a backplot. I understand that this was meant to be an issue that focuses on Jonah, but it felt more like Peter was sort of underutilized and more as a set-up for coming in with a foil for Jonah. As a plus, he was written as competent here and wasn’t made into a joke, so under the circumstances I’m more than willing to let it slide.

Plus, it made Mark made for the fifth time about the letters page and I might have accidentally found my way into the book via orange hoodie guy, so hey, it can’t be that bad, can it?

Final Grade: B+/A-