It’s the title fight! Kindred vs. Spider-Man! Harry vs. Peter! No spoilers, but it will be a fight to the death! Quit wasting time reading the blurb – go on, already! Read the review!
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Story Title: Last Remains part 5
Writer: Nick Spencer
Penciler: Mark Bagley
Inkers: John Dell
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: Dec. 9, 2020
?Andrew Hennessy? His name is on the cover, but not on the credit page.
Remedial ASM 101
Kindred. Come on, you know what is going on.
The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test
They fight! Peter gets a few good hits in. Kindred gets a few lucky death blows in.
What Passed and Failed
PASS – Angry Peter – I love it when Peter’s temper comes out.
FAIL – The art – how many people are fighting? Two? Because it looked like more. I would swear that this was a rush job with five different artists just by judging from the faces. Now look, I hate criticizing artwork. I’m not an artist. Plus, I know Bagley is some beloved icon for the podcast and they look like I just spit into a baptismal font when I remarked the first time I didn’t like the art. But note – I am not saying I do not like Bagley art. I am saying I am not impressed with his performance in this book so far. But I do expect to be able to recognize who is who in a book without having to check the dialogue. All in all, outside of faces, it was OK and I probably wouldn’t have listed it as a FAIL (but I sure as heck still wouldn’t have listed it as a PASS). We had to have this panel just to verify who it is.
And with that, I will no longer mention in my reviews my dislike of what Bagley is doing in these pages. Unless, of course, I change my mind.
PASS – The death scenes – both art and writing on these were spot on! More on those later!
OOTI (Onomatopoeia of the Issue)
On a scale of 1 (POW) to 10 (BLRKBQRKPQRBLNB), CHWUCH rates a 7. Not only is it the sound of Peter’s skull caving in, but it could easily work for a panel of Baby Yoda chomping on a frog lady egg.
Analysis
The Fight – At first, Peter and Harry trade blows and then Peter goes full force on him, even doing one of those double arm swings. At this point the reader is like, “FINALLY! Peter Parker letting loose!” However, Kindred hears Peter say the word “dead” and the whole fight changes. Kindred either stands on the side of the wall or floats in the air (hard to tell by the art – judging by how the shadows are colored, he’s floating). Then he proceeds to beat the living daylights out of Peter, say a few cool lines, then kill Peter.
Only to resurrect him and do it all again.
And again.
And again.
Wash.
Rinse.
Repeat.
It’s as if Harry spent some time reading one of Berryman’s old articles.
Harry has really set himself up as a superior foe for Spider-Man (no, not those Superior Foes). That’s eight deaths total (counting the neck snap a while back). Fortunately for Peter, Kindred isn’t after just his death. Now, I guess we could consider that if this is the astral plane, then are these really deaths? But I posit that it doesn’t matter if Kindred is really killing and resurrecting Spidey, the effect on Peter is the same.
Going too deep – This is a stretch, I know, but I thought I would throw it out there –
The inscription above the gates of hell in Dante’s Inferno reads:
Through me is the way to the city of woe,
Through me is the way to eternal pain,
Through me is the way to a lost people.
Justice moved my great Creator
Divine Power made me,
the Supreme Wisdom and the Primal Love.
Before me, nothing else was created
nothing, but the eternal and I last eternally.
Abandon all hope, you who enter here.
Part of which is included the Coffee Bean sign, which is a place the old gang used to hang out.
Coincidence I’m sure, but it could be Spencer being clever.
Confess – Harry wants Peter to confess his sins. It is unclear at this point what sins exactly he wants Peter to confess to. It seems like it is just the irresponsibility of him bringing his Spider-Man life into his supporting cast’s lives, but it could be the confess to the deal with Mephisto. There is a lot of speculation about how much of this deals with Mephisto and the marriage. Obviously, that will be tied into this, but I do not think it is Kindred’s primary focus. Kindred was alive and active BEFORE the deal, so the deal may just be something ELSE that has Harry’s panties in a wad.
Mary Jane – Not only is the Order of the Web (now evil free!) coming into the picture, but so is Mary Jane. We know it is Mary Jane because she has red hair. Thankfully she does not look like a Ditko Enforcer member, but nothing besides the red hair screams that this is Mary Jane. The way she is dressed reminds me of a Shakespeare quote (Othello IV.ii.71-72).
Final Grade
I would LOVE to give this an A, but the art just drops it a bit for me. It’s not the worst art I’ve seen by a long shot, but it certainly isn’t Bagley’s best and if he is coming back to ASM, we should expect nothing but his best.
B+
What’s Next?
“LAST REMAINS” ends and will make you look at Spider-Man differently. It’ll make Peter look at himself differently. If you thought the buildup TO Kindred was intense, the fallout FROM Kindred is even more devastating.
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!
‘Nuff Said!
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@Aqu@ & @Chi-Town
Aqu@ – Ha! You’re right! I went from part 2 to part 4 and then part 4 again and part 4 AGAIN! Ha! Ha! I blame it on my age… 🙁
Chi-Town – Man, I think it is going to be a “Are we there yet?” scenario come next issue (I think it is part 4). I am betting that Kindred isn’t going anywhere and will be teased all through the next 25 (or more) issues.
I have to admit Mark, your “Going too deep” theory is a bit of a stretch, but damn…what IF that was the case. Gonna give you kudos for that one. The art was good enough for me, but I will give you the MJ splash page. It’s the same outfit she had on last two issues and yes her hair style and color give it away, but her face is a bit off. I’ve seen Bags draw MJ better than that, especially in Ultimate Spider-Man.
For a decade Marvel always used the “MJ Carrot Tease” for us to buy the comic in hopes that Peter and MJ are back together and OMD will be “resolved”. We are just so used to Marvel crying out wolf that despite what a wonderful job Spencer has done getting those two back together and fixing a lot of problems that happened to Spidey over the last decade, it’s hard to accept that the marriage may be coming back. I’m hoping by when this is all over, we are on happy ground.
That being said, WHEN WILL THIS BE OVER?! Now, I’m starting to lose patience. I get the Covid 19 thing, I do, the delays were a must. Still 54LR could have come out this week and ASM next week. Now I feel the story is dragging . I want to be “We’re almost at the finish line!! YAY” instead of “Are we there yet??!”
No, seriously, I wasn’t talking about the pacing of the comic, but about the title of your reviews. I think it’s been stuck at part 4 for two or three posts. :p
@Gabriel – You might be right on that. Writing stories for the numbering is a pain. I see doing it maybe for a #100 issue, but all the other “milestones” are like kindergarten graduation.
@Aqu@ – Ha!
@Evan – The bow tie is a clear indication of a schemer in action! And you are right, as always – I should have given a few bonus points to the allusions and bumped this into the A- status. Oh well.
@Sthenurus – I think those days are gone. I was ok with this one because I liked the fight scene taking up the majority of the issue, but I get the point. There is often way too much padding. What’s the joke? It took Bendis six issues to cover Stan Lee’s eleven pages for the origin of Spider-Man? Those things are great for the binge reading, but not for the schmucks like us the support the title by buying each individual issue.
This was a C- at most for me. For 2 issues in a row nothing happened. Sure the death and resurrection montage was cool but it could have been compressed in another issue.
I know decompressed storytelling have become the norm since Bendis but damn… Kraven last hunt covers the same amount of issue but every page feels necessary. This arcs is 6 issues too (without the tie-ins) and feels much less eventful. It feels like it should have been 6 issues WITH the ties in. The heck?
@Mark — Say what you will about the book, but this review gets an A+ from me, simply because it contains references to both Dante Alighieri and Shakespeare. (I’m guessing the Dante reference is just a coincidence, like you said, but your finding it was very New Rockstars-ish, and I appreciate that.) By the way, is that actually Harry’s smile in that Coffee Bean Gang® picture? He appears to be scheming already. I think that picture is prescient in more ways than one: the abandonment of hope is something I tend to experience whenever I go into a Starbucks.
Is it just me or have we been at part 4 for a couple of issues?
It’s so obvios to me that #ASM 53 and #ASM 54 was originally intended to be one issue, but was split on two because of marvel wanting to do something big to #ASM 60 (just look to the cover of that issue). And looking to the description and price of #ASM 56, I think that will be the real end of the arc.
Too bad that this issue end up being split on two, would be a +A to me, but because of that, I will give #54 a +C and this one a +B.
@Michael – I like that theory. It makes much more sense than to be something related to the deal with Mephisto to be the cause of Harry’s descent. I think the deal with Mephisto is just one more thing where Peter does something that affects others as a result of his actions that Kindred will bring up and I bet he will only bring it up to cause more pain to Peter. The hiding of Norman’s insanity rather than to let him get help makes most sense.
I still think the sin Harry wants Peter to confess to is lying to the authorities about Norman being the Goblin back in Amazing 40. Harry was talking about how Peter thinks he knows better than everyone else. That’s what Peter did when he effectively played judge and jury. But more, Peter did it because he thought he was protecting Harry. But Harry never asked Peter to protect him. Harry had a right to know the truth about his father but Peter denied him that because he thought he knew better than Harry.
Moreover, Harry said that the consequences of our actions being unintended does not absolve us. What were the unintended consequences of Peter’s lie? Gwen’s death, which we’ve seen referenced many times in this arc. But also, Gwen’s death set in motion the chain of events which led to Harry becoming the Green Goblin the first time, which led to his later stint as the Goblin during DeMatteis’s run. Which was what resulted in Harry dying, and going to Hell. But it’s more than that. We saw Kindred standing over Normie at the start of issue 53. Harry’s actions during his stint as the Goblin are usually depicted as the cause of all the issues Normie’s had over the years. Harry hates himself for what he’s done for Normie but he also hates Peter as well.
@Anon-Y-mous – Yes he did! My biggest complaint about his art was the faces. The death scenes were brutal. In fact I might go back and edit the post to reflect that to be fair.
I dunno about you, but in my opinion Bagley did a good job making the deaths look incredibly brutal.