The hits just keep coming, here we are again with not just one, but two issues this week of Kindred and Spidey fisticuffs! Thanks, Spidey Office for giving me two new issues on my birthday week!
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Story Title: Last Remains Part Three
Writer: Nick Spencer
Artist: Patrick Gleason
Colorist: Edgar Delgado
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga
Cover Artist: Patrick Gleason and Edgar Delgado
Asst. Editor: Lindsey Cohick and Tom Groneman
Editor: Nick Lowe
Published: Nov. 11, 2020
Remedial ASM 101
Kindred, presumably Harry Osborn somehow, has been baiting Peter and Norman in their dreams. He then Unleashed villain after villain to do his plans, killing them in return until he brought Sin-Eater out of hell to cleanse/steal powers from the rest. Now Norman is cleansed and the Order of the Web bears his sins as well as the sins of others, making them mind controlled demons destroying New York. Spider-Man, desperate to fix the situation, steals a hand from Dr. Strange and enters a messed up astral plane to finally face Kindred. More or less.
The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test
Spidey is none too happy to see the corpses of Gwen, George (Stacy, that is, not Berryman), Jean DeWolffe, Marla Jameson, Flash, and Uncle Ben placed around a dinner table (though it is not really known yet if these are the real corpses or just astral corpses). Spider-Man goes in for the kill and a rather major fight ensues, culminating when Spider-Man punches Kindred so hard, his hand goes through his chest.
YECK!
Spider-Man then gets the living snot beat out of him and the beating doesn’t stop until Peter sees all the Order of the Demons tearing up the city. Gwen’s on top of a bridge flipping the script and throwing Miles off the top. This is enough for Peter to surrender and trade his life for theirs. The fight stops, the demons leave, and Kindred takes his payment by snapping Peter’s neck.
What Passed and Failed
PASS – This Guy!
The city is being destroyed by DEMONS and he is on the scene! What does he do when he sees Demon Spider-Woman? Pulls out the handcuffs! I don’t know if he was overly confident and thinking, ‘It’s just a girl’ or if he was trying to de-escalate the situation and not feed into police violence stereotypes or what! All I know is that even having handcuffs in his hands at this point in time is about as ridiculous as anything I’ve seen lately! Props to him for making my day! Marvel, I want to a limited series on THIS guy or at least inform your artists to stick this guy randomly into background scenes trying handcuff Thanos, Carange, and others!
FAIL – This missed opportunity:
Come on! Kindred is a demon from hell who just did everything both good and bad that happened and Peter is thanking God? You couldn’t ask for a better quip setup for Kindred! Rare miss by Spencer.
OOTI (Onomatopoeia of the Issue)
What a noisy issue! In fact, here are all the onomatopoeias that were NOT picked:
Most of these are OOTI worthy and I am sure JR will enjoy the noises here, so which one rose above them all?
On a scale of 1 (POW) to 10 (BLRKBQRKPQRBLNB), SNAP rates a 9.5.
SNAP for a Spider-Man comic with Gwen Stacy references is by default powerful. So why a 9.5 and not a 10? Because to get a coveted 10, it’s got to be perfect, and we all know that the SNAP needs to go just to the side of the neck and not over the face.
This was a lot to choose from. Any disagreements? Which one would you have picked?
Analysis
Spider-Man Surrenders – This left me feeling irritated toward the story, but I had to stop and think about this. It is not just that he fought this guy and got his butt kicked. Spidey has had his butt kicked before. I had to remind myself that in the last day, Peter stormed Ravencroft, fought Sin-Eater minions, fought a Juggernaut-powered Sin-Eater, dealt with Norman, got pushed so far that he threw Norman out to face Sin-Eater, fought his Spider-Family to the point where they whipped him solidly, travelled through the astral plane, and, after seeing the desecrated corpses of those he loves, gets his rear handed to him by a foe that seems to be unbeatable (he put a fist through his chest and it didn’t faze him). After all of that, he sees the Spider-family paying the price for his sins (OK, it doesn’t matter that they all made their own choices here and that the price for his sins is higher than it should be – this is Peter we are talking about – how many jokes have been made about him freaking out over little things and shouting ‘It’s all my fault!’), and Miles, the one he seems to have the strongest connection to, is about to be killed. That’s a lot to take in one day. It’s been spread out over a month in my reading, so I had to readjust my thinking to it.
Still, I would have rather Peter gotten beated to a pulp and not surrender (not a criticism of the story or writing).
Final Grade
B+
Your Turn
What grade do YOU give it?
What’s Next?
If you think you’ve seen a brutal Spider-Man fight before, you are wrong. Do not miss this issue.
Wow! That’s a blurb that makes me want to buy the next issue! I don’t need much, just a promise of a good fight! In fact, this might be the second-best blurb I can remember seeing for solicits. The first, of course, being this Moon Knight classic!
Extra Credit
Find me a better solicit than the Moon Knight one. If you can’t find it, then create your own!
Nick Lowe has asked people to let the Spider office know how they are doing by sending an email to spideyoffice@marvel.com and to make sure you mark it “OK to print”. If you get published, make sure to draw our attention to it (unless your name is Chi-Town)!
But Wait! There’s More!
Want to know what happened next with Miles and company? How about Mary Jane and Norman? Well, swing over to Chi-Town’s ASM #52.LR review! Marvel’s trying to kill us with this schedule so old Chi-Man came up with a good idea for us to split them. I guess even a blind squirrel can find an acorn once in a while!
‘Nuff Said!
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@Mark – And have enough left over to buy an onion, which I would attach to my belt, which was the style at the time.
@Evan – And you could take a quarter to the store, buy a Batman, buy a Spider-Man, buy a candy bar, and still have change left over to watch a movie on the way home.
@Evan – And it was snowing the whole time!
@hornacek — Did you have to walk uphill both ways to get to the comic store?
GET OFF MY LAWN!
@hornacek – Ok, Boomer.
🙂
I *am* behind. In my day, Amazing Spider-Man came out *once* a month! That’s the way it was and we liked it! We loved it!
@Hornacek – Yeah, Kindred is laying all sorts of blame on Peter that Peter doesn’t deserve, which is odd since Peter deserves a lot of blame. But, we all know that Peter will take up that cross and believe DeWolff’s demise was all his fault.
In a real fight, yes. We’ve seen him thrust those giant centipedes through people and do quick lash outs, but never a sustained fight. So far, we haven’t seen what his limits are. It seems that he is sort of a Groot figure – has whatever power is needed for the situation at hand.
You are behind, Hornacek! These issues are coming out too fast for you to be lollygagging around! 🙂
I think Kindred is really reaching when he says that Spidey is responsible for Jean DeWolff’s death. Her death had nothing to do with Peter/Spidey – she was a cop who was killed by her partner (cop, not personal) who was going crazy from SHIELD drugs. Nothing Peter/Spidey did led to her death.
Am I correct and this is the first time we’ve seen Kindred in an actual physical fight? All (?) of his previous appearances have had him just standing around and talking/monologuing. I assumed he would be a physical match for Spidey before this issue, and this fight confirmed it.
We’ve seen Kindred’s giant centipedes hanging around him before, but this is the first (?) time we’ve seen them in action in a fight, and I got a real Doc Ock’s tentacle vibe here, especially in the panels where they are holding Peter by the hands/feet.
The panel shown of Spider-Woman with the handcuff-cop – her mouth reminded me of the new breed of vampires in Blade II where their entire jaw opened up.
@Mark — I guess my reason for buying Tess of the D’Urbervilles is because I’d never read Thomas Hardy, and the copies at my library did not have very good footnotes, so I bought a used edition that did. (I guess it’s always possible that the libraries will close again, and going four five months over the summer without access to library books cost me lots of money and space.) I’m nearly half-way through it and, while I admit the plot isn’t exactly riveting, the writing is absolutely beautiful in places. I suspect the whole story could be articulated in a couple of paragraphs, but that’s not entirely why I picked it up. There are enough Shakespearean references in there to keep you happy, though. I haven’t found any onomatopoeia yet, but hey — I’ve learned a lot about milking cows, so there’s that. (It was only $4, and I got a free Ultimate Spider-man sticker.)
Evan, Chi-Town, and Jeff Gutman
@Evan – No-Prize request denied. However, I am more interested in why you bought a Tess of the D’Urbervilles book anyway? Uggh, I don’t remember much of the book, but I am fairly certain I didn’t enjoy it. The sticker may be more valuable than the book! But then, maybe I need a new take on it. I’ll let you give me a thumbs up or thumbs down on if I need to re-read it . I’m going to guess that isn’t mine because I haven’t had that book since college and that was well before any Ultimate Spider-Man anything.
@Chi-Town – I look forward to your review next week on Thanksgiving Wednesday! 🙂
@Jeff Gutman – I’m always up for full page fight scenes and I guess I should have given some praise for the all out fights. For some reason, maybe the surrender, maybe the decompression, maybe what was going on in my life last Wednesday, whatever, it just didn’t click for me. The Facebook responses, however, were very positive for this issue, and I am not upset by the story and still looking forward to tomorrow’s issue. Good point!
Honestly I’m surprised you didn’t mention the ultra decompressed storyline here. We had 20+ where almost NOTHING happened except kindred beat spidey around – a LOT of full page fight scenes, full page scenes of spidey falling through a mirror glass, a full page scene of spidey punching kindred, a full page scene of kindred hitting spidey. And after 20+ pages spidey surrenders but we STILL didn’t learn anything else about what kindred feels is spideys “sin” which has been dragged out for waaaaay too long now. I was surprised at just how decompressed this particular comic was.
Ever hear of the slide of hand trick? Look at one hand not seeing what’s going on in the other.
Looking forward to your review this week, while I take a day off. He he he he.
Oh man..the icing on this cake would be if there was a letter’s section and another letter of mine got published.
@Mark — I can hardly hear you over all of the noise in this issue! I’m going to try to soften the one and only fail you gave this issue. Maybe the reason there was no God-related quip from Kindred (the “Zod” moment in Superman II comes to mind) is because Peter’s “Oh God” was a caption/thought and not spoken aloud. Then again, that would have been an awesome moment to not only put in said quip, but underscore Kindred’s power, assuming he can read minds. If he can enter dreams, I suppose that’s not that big of a stretch. Meh, maybe you’re right. I tried for a No-Prize, but oh well.
Completely unrelated to this review, but I bought a used copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles a couple of weeks ago, and whoever had it before me stuck an Ultimate Spider-man sticker as a bookmark right at the beginning of Part IV. You wouldn’t have just sold a bunch of your books online, would you?
@David – That’s as good a guess as any. I don’t think Spencer is going that route, but he might! If so, you’ll get a proper shout out here!
@Mark, what if the demonic MJ is the personality of the MJ that was present in the book from 2008 to 2018 under the BND writers and Slott? Perhaps she was supressed once Flash was died and the ‘real’ MJ began remembering everything she loved about Peter?
@Jack – Keep the theories coming! That’s is what is really making this arc for me – Spencer is giving us enough to speculate and that makes us a more active part of this story. That astral MJ (must be MJ, right? A red head in a Spidey comic?!) did not look like a, “Face it Tiger” MJ. I worry for Chi-Town if she turns out to be a mean MJ. I did pick up on the nothing to fear from “The Green Goblin” comment when I was going back and looking at Harry’s death. I’m interested in how far Kindred will go to prove his point. He looked like he was willing to lump MJ right on in with Peter until she spared a centipede. Then he was all, “There’s goodness in this world after all!” Good thing he wasn’t after
@David – You know, that sums up my feelings as well – felt cry babish. I know it was supposed to be that he was pushed past his limits, but it just didn’t sit well with me. As far as your speed reading goes – slow down and savor the comic a bit! You’re paying enough for it!
I have been considering customising my issues of ASM covering this arc, keeping the page count the same length but replacing some of the pages with ones from the .LR comics so there’s more depth and variety to the Peter-centric title, as I feel it’s all very paper thin at the moment. Peter comes off as too much of a crybaby in this issue, I get wanting to take him to his wit’s end, but Peter’s appeal is he often has his wits about him, he’s proven stronger than this in the past, here he’s acting like the brand new baby he’s been since OMD, but then, maybe, just maybe, that is the whole point of the exercise. That this isn’t the Peter we know, and it’s time he faced up to what’s been so different about him
I also have a pesky habit of speed-reading, so I totally missed the ‘snap’ and just thought Peter was being clubbed unconscious at the end.
Won’t it be interesting if “Astral Annie” gets involved with this,… but on -Peter’s- side?
I know, I’m bursting with theories. Last time it was wondering if Sin-Eater is going to blast Harry with his shot-gun. Now … well, maybe that’s Astral MJ. She might try to destroy Harry, vs . Real MJ trying to reach Harry.
Harry once told MJ she had “nothing to fear from the Green Goblin.” He isn’t the Green Goblin now.
Me too Gabriel, that is what is holding me back although I don’t think it should. I just can’t help not liking that part as much.
Michael – Yeah and Kindred also killed those two lackeys of the Kingpin directly. And I’ll have to go back and check, but didn’t he also kill Stromm?
Sthenurus, killing Peter in the astral plane…I didn’t think that and astral killing might not be a real killing. I’m not very versed in astral stuff. Can we get a verification from someone here?
jbeltramirez – ok, that makes me like it a *little* more.
Steve – the art in this issue was mostly good/great, but that panel did look odd.
@Sthenurus- Kindred killed Mysterio’s psychiatrist in issue 24.
After the neck snap, isn’t that Peters head next to Kindred watching the neck snap? Confusing.
Well, the part Peter Surrenders, is a reference of spectacular #200, he surrendered to Harry/Goblin.
I honestly think the whole thing with kindred happens in the astral plane. He didn’t snap peter real neck. It’s just a metaphor to bring him to hell and make him face mephisto and the deal. As far as I know kindred killed no one (directly) so far. My guess: it’s Harry’s way to “redeem” peter the way peter redeemed him in spectacular 200. After that is done he can move on from purgatory. Something like that.
At this point, this story arc will be remember as one of the best Spider-Man stories of all time, or one of spider-man most dissapointing stories of all time, I can’t see this being perceived as the usual “Oh, this was the storie, I guess”. I hope is the first one.
I really loved both issues, but Spider-Man crying really trown me out a bit, of course the the “snap” bring me back pretty fast, but it’s the only thing holding me back to give this one a A+, but is to me a A.