Craig’s Critique: Amazing Spider-Man #44 (Legacy #938): “Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss” or “This Could Have Been A One-Shot”

The gang war ends!  I know what you’re thinking, it feels like it just started.  But all … good (?) things must come to an end.  And, well, at least this issue is an end to this story.

(This cover would mean more if Spidey and Madame Masque hadn’t just met.  This cover makes it seem like they have been rivals for a long time.)

 

CREDITS

Writer:  Zeb Wells

Penciler:  John Romita Jr.

Inker:  Scott Hanna

Colorists:  Marcio Menyz

Letterer:  VC’s Joe Caramagna

Variant Cover Artists:  GOOGLE DEFINES “VARIANT” AS “A FORM OR VERSION OF SOMETHING THAT DIFFERS IN SOME RESPECT FROM OTHER FORMS OF THE SAME THING OR FROM A STANDARD”.

 

PREVIOUSLY IN AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …

Madame Masque’s people and The Beetle’s people started their LARPing battle in Central Park.  Spidey and his team (Elektra/Daredevil, Spider-Miles, Spider-Woman, She-Hulk, and Tombstone) show up and start attacking everyone.  Tombstone targets Shotgun, who gets his mind control sigil broken so he’s no longer under Masque’s control.  He tells Tombstone that he is a government agent sent to kill the gang lords of New York, including (for some reason) The Beetle.  While Masque instructs everyone to kill Spidey, Tombstone confronts Janice, rips her wings off, knocks her out, realizing that he’s going to have to become the monster that wins today in order to keep her safe.

 

SUMMARY

Spidey and his team are fighting Madame Masque’s team, along with help from the Syndicate (minus The Beetle).  But suddenly Electro⁽¹⁾ and Lady Octopus start attacking the heroes.  White Rabbit wonders what’s going on when Tombstone appears, telling her that if Spider-Man wins “we all gonna lose” and he says him and the Syndicate are leaving.  White Rabbit asks about Janice, and Tombstone says that he’s in charge now.

And now for something completely different … a Gang War Territories map.

(No change at all from last issue.  Which makes sense, since last issue ended with both sides rushing towards each other to fight in Central Park.)

All of the non-powered members of Beetle’s team start attacking “the squares”; Miles is shocked to learn that means him (and the other heroes).

(I don’t know why but I feel personally attacked by this.  Are we all “the squares” because we read these comics?)

Digger and Paste-Pot Patty -er- Trapstr attack the heroes as they retreat.  Spidey is dealing with Electro and a pile of AIM goons when he is attacked from behind by … I’m going to say Count Nefaria.  Suddenly all of the heroes are knocked to the ground and surrounded by Madame Masque, Count Nefaira, Silvermane, and a bunch of AIM goons.  Realizing that the Syndicate has betrayed them (and they’ve only been fighting together for 3 pages, so “betrayal” is a strong word) they fight back, even as Spidey is blasted by Count Nefaria’s … power beams?⁽²⁾

But just when all seems lost … SWEET CHRISTMAS!  OH MY GOD!  IT’S LUKE CAGE!

(At first I didn’t recognize him without his Gang War mask.)

But the mayor did not come here alone!  Because you demanded it!⁽³⁾  The team-up we have all been waiting for!  Jackpot and Spider-Boy!!!

(I’d like to think Zells was forced to include Spider-Boy under protest, but then again, Jackpot is his creation.)

Meanwhile Spidey is facedown on the ground while Silvermane is blasting him in the back with some kind of laser beams.  I thought Silvermane was just a cyborg with superstrength.  Can he do this?  Sure, why not?⁽⁴⁾

(Spidey here is how I have felt for most of this Gang War story; Silvermane’s beams represent each issue, one after the other, beating me down.)

But this is no ordinary hero.  This is Spider-Man!  He doesn’t give up!  He’s about to fight back and stop Silvermane and Count Nefaria all on his own with no help.

Oh wait, no he’s not.  From the woods a figure in the darkness (who is apparently Shotgun – more on this later) shoots at Silvermane and Count Nefaria, disrupting their sigils and breaking the mind control.  Why not just shoot both of them in the head?  And wasn’t Shotgun unconscious, knocked out by Tombstone moments ago in the previous issue?  Hey, shut up, that’s why!

(“Well, my job here is done.”  “But you didn’t do anything!”  “Didn’t I?”)

Now Count Nefaria and Silvermane are no longer under Madame Masque’s mind control.  Do they decide to attack her, as the previous panels established she is literally feet away from them, and they would be angry at her for mind controlling them?  No, they decide to kill Spider-Man instead.  But it’s She-Hulk and (ugh) Jackpot to the rescue, who attack Count Nefaria and Silvermane, calling them “heavy hitters” (sure, why not), leaving Spidey to take on Masque – the showdown this entire story has been building to.⁽⁵⁾

Madame Masque tries to justify her actions, while Spidey says that the entire city is burning, and that she shot his friend Randy! (more on this later)  As we get a montage of the other heroes turning the tide against Masque’s team, Spidey monologues, basically telling Masque that “hurt people hurt people”, as he webs up her wrist cannon just as she shoots it, causing it to explode and knock her out.

(And that’s … one to grow on.)

Rabble realizes that she’s picked the wrong side and leaves (all the way back to Miles’ book).  The heroes have won and declare victory.  Suddenly Shang-Chi and Danny Rand show up, and Danny is upset that nobody (including me) saw what they were doing all the time.  We get lots of post-battle banter with the various heroes.  Spidey tells Luke Cage that he hopes Luke doesn’t get in any trouble from helping them, But Luke says that’s not a problem anymore …

… and we cut to Peter in Randy’s hospital room where he tells an “unconscious” Randy that Fisk’s Law has been repealed.  You know how we were told multiple times that law was so ingrained into the books that it couldn’t be repealed?  Well, because of the Gang War people protested and the law was immediately repealed.  Because it that’s easy to repeal an unpopular law, despite everything we’ve been told up until now.

Peter pours his heart out to Randy, who suddenly talks to Peter, revealing that he regained consciousness after Spidey visited him in the previous issue.⁽⁶⁾  Peter fills Randy in on what happened in this event.  But when Randy asks about Janice, Peter tells him that no one knows what happened to her (so much for this story ending with a Randy/Janice reconciliation).

Cut to Tombstone and White Rabbit, who are also discussing Janice.  She disappeared from the battle and they don’t know where she is either.  Tombstone reveals that he’s taken over The Syndicate and that they are the only gangsters left in the city.  White Rabbit reminds him that he was fighting on Spider-Man’s side for awhile, and that no one is going to forget that.

Tombstone says that he needed Spidey’s help to keep the city from burning, and that he owes him.  And because of that, he’s going to have to beat Spider-Man to death with his bare hands in front of everyone.  And with that, Tombstone puts on his jacket and goes to work.

()

NOT THE END!⁽⁷⁾

(So all the other gang leaders are either dead or arrested, so Tombstone wins by default?  The two sweetest words in the English language!)

 

INITIAL RESPONSE

Well, after 30-some issues of craziness and wackiness, we kept saying “give us a grounded, street-level Spider-Man story”.  And that’s what we got here.  Sort of.

(I like to think Marvel does actual focus groups like this for its comics.)

WHAT I LIKED

Hmm … another time I will have to struggle with this section.

For a issue that is basically one big fight, the fight is done well.  There’s lots of action, interplay with the various heroes and villains, and changing alliances.

The art is really good.  In previous issues I have pointed out some panels where the JRJR art for certain faces/characters is subpar, but unless I missed something, that’s not here in this issue.

The Peter/Randy scene is nice.  It would be nicer if … well, I’ll leave that for the next section.

Well, the gang war is over.

I warned you I’d have to struggle with this section.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE

I try to come up with original ideas here, but I have to reuse one that both Mark and myself (and Ryan?) have said for most of the Gang War issues:  this is not a Spider-Man story.  This is a Tombstone/Janice/Madame Masque story with Spider-Man appearing in it.  And that doesn’t really change much in this issue.

With how much this story has been about Janice, she literally disappears from this issue.  Is she dead?  Did she run away?  Does Tombstone have her locked up somewhere?  We have no idea, or any hint of an idea.  If she’s not imprisoned, wouldn’t she reach out to The Syndicate?  Wouldn’t they be more loyal to her than Tombstone?

I feel like Spider-Man and his team should not have this much trouble with this group.  Apparently Count Nefaria has gone toe-to-toe with the Hulk and Dr. Doom, and Silvermane is a super-strong Cyborg, and the Syndicate are … the Syndicate, but the rest of the bad guys are just non-powered street thugs and AIM guys.  It feels like the heroes get overwhelmed very quickly.  This would make more sense if Spidey was alone fighting all of them, and the rest of the heroes showed up halfway through the battle to turn the tide.  The idea of Trapstr defeating She-Hulk …

This is more of a problem with the Miles book, but every time I see Miles wielding an energy sword/sai I ask myself “Why?  You have super-strength, agility and web-fluid.  Just punch someone – you don’t need a sword.”

(Seriously folks, what are we even doing here?)

While I liked Luke Cage showing up to save the day, having him bring Jackpot and Spider-Boy just feels wrong.  Forget your personal feelings about these characters – the two of them have had nothing to do with the Gang War story in this book (yes, Jackpot had a one-shot tie-in, but it was barely GW related).  Spider-Boy feels like he’s only here because Dan Slott needs the character to show up in other Spider-Man books not written by him.

The mind-control sigils are both powerful and ridiculous.  Madame Masque uses them to control Count Nefaria and Silvermane (among others), and yet they can be disrupted by shooting a bullet at them, or just rubbing up against them?  Shouldn’t these sigils be better protected if they can be so easily broken?  Why not put some clothing or armor over them?  What if one of them rubs up against someone when they’re walking through a crowd and the sigil is broken?  This is a terrible design flaw in a vital part of Masque’s plan.

When Spidey confronts Madame Masque about Randy being shot and she says “That … that wasn’t my decision.” – she’s right!  That was all Hammerhead.  Masque was still pretending to be HH’s girlfriend at that time.  And when HH orders the hit on Randy, she literally tells him it’s a bad idea.  It just feels weird that Spidey’s main motivation for going after Masque here (although he would do it anyway since she’s a criminal and he wants to stop this gang war) is that he thinks she had Randy shot, and he (apparently) never learns that this is incorrect.

When Count Nefaria’s and Silvermane’s sigils are disrupted, I assume that’s Shotgun shooting at them from the woods because Madame Masque literally says “Shotgun.”  But is it?  His face is completely in shadow in both of the panels where he’s shown.  Is Masque just assuming it’s him or is it actually him?  If it’s meant to be Shotgun then why have his face completely in darkness?  And he’s using a gun, not his eponymous (?) shotgun.  And why doesn’t he just shoot Nefaria and Silvermane in the head, killing them? (I mean, I know why, because it’s comics and we want these characters in future stories, but still)  We know he was sent by the government to assassinate threats in the gangs, so he wouldn’t have any problem with killing these two, who were the head of the Maggia until Masque took them out.  This is the kind of minute detail I latch onto and try to make into a major thing.

(This guy might as well be saying “Justice is served!” with how he’s shooting people from the shadows.)

Once Spider-Man is shot in the back by Count Nefaria’s beams, there is brown smoke coming off of his back and head for the rest of the book – even when the battle is over.  I found this distracting.  Is he on fire?  What is happening here?

(Luke Cage:  “Uh, Spidey, I think your back and your hair are on fire.”)

Danny Rand and Shang-Chi showing up after the battle is over feels like Zells got this far in this issue and realized “Oh crap, I forgot about those guys!” and just had them randomly show up, and gave them some meta dialogue about it to make it seem like it was intentional.  This didn’t work for me at all, and just points out how inessential these two were to the entire story.

After the battle, Jackpot and Spider-Man never talk.  Not once.  No “Hey, are you all right?  I know you don’t have any actual powers except for that bracelet which gives you random powers, I’m just glad you weren’t killed since you have no invulnerability or super-strength or anything to really defend yourself against super-villains.  In fact, you shouldn’t be here … like, at all.”  Of all the people that Spidey should talk to after this battle, you’d think Jackpot (and Miles) would be high on that list.

Hey, remember when we were told multiple times that Fisk’s Law was too ingrained into the law books to ever be repealed?  Well, Zells hopes you don’t because after the fighting is over, we’re told “Hey, that law’s already been repealed, turns out it wasn’t that difficult to get that done after all.”  Couldn’t this have been done *before* Gang War started?  Of course not, because it needed to be something insurmountable to cause this story to happen in the first place.

(“Somehow, Palpatine returned.“)

The Peter/Randy scene is nice but it would mean more if we had seen them being friends throughout this run instead of just being told that they’re friends.  Besides Peter planning and carrying out Randy’s bachelor party, have they interacted at all? (feel free to roast me in the comments if I’m forgetting major interactions in previous issues)  I feel like they had more interactions in that Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man mini-series where Peter goes to California and fights a demon bear, and Randy and Janice show up and they hang out together briefly.

Remember when Tombstone told Spider-Man that he had burned his bridges with all the criminals and gang members in New York by publicly helping Spider-Man?  Apparently Zells hopes we don’t either, because Tombstone is now the head crime-lord and every other criminal doesn’t care, even though Tombstone went out of his way to say that no gang member would ever work with him or trust him again after he helped Spidey.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the elephant in the room, by which I mean the mysterious figure in purple boots from the end of ASM #38 (legacy 932).  This person was in the shadows, intimating that their reveal would be a big surprise.  Some people (ok, me) suspected this might be the newly-evil Norman Osborn, since in the Lee/Ditko days his primary goal was not to kill Spider-Man, but to become the crime-boss of New York (also, purple boots!).  So the idea of a gang war taking place would be something he’d be interested in.  But I guess this mysterious figure was Madame Masque after all, which is kind of disappointing.  And if you look at those pages a sigil is shot at Silvermane, which explains why he suddenly attacks Count Nefaria and then rips his own head off.  But for me, this just feels like a misdirect that didn’t work and wasn’t properly explained.

(That doesn’t look like Madame Masque, or a woman at all.  That’s a Norman Osborn shaped figure if I ever saw one.)

What happened to Hammerhead?  Is he still chained up in Madame Masque’s basement?  He was such an important character at the start of this story, and while I liked the subversion of expectations that he was taken out by his nameless girlfriend, I assumed he would return later in the story to have some sort of impact (I mean, Silvermane and Count Nefaria had more of a presence in this issue than Hammerhead).  But he’s disappeared, just like Janice.

Finally, nothing that happened in this Gang War story was as wonderful as this, from the best Gang War Spider-Man story ever told:

(Put this in the new Daredevil TV series, you cowards!)

 

WHAT THIS ISSUE/EVENT MEANT OVERALL

What was the point of this event?  What is different now than before it started?

Well, lots of things have changed.  Tombstone is the head crime lord of New York.  Wait, wasn’t he that before this story started?  Well, now he wants to kill Spider-Man.  Wait, didn’t he want to do that already?

At least Janice has disappeared.  Or been imprisoned.  Or is dead.  That should matter, right?  I guess it matters to Randy.  Oh wait, they had already broken up before this story.

At least Spidey got revenge for Randy being shot.  Oh wait, no he didn’t.  He still has no idea that was Hammerhead and not Madame Masque.

Well, Fisk Law is off the books.  But it never really had an impact on this book until Gang War started and we were told it needed to be gotten rid of, even though Spidey had already broken that law for multiple previous issues and it never mattered.

Well, at least this event is over.⁽⁸⁾

 

GRADE

C-

I was tempted to go with a D/D+, but despite all my nitpicks, it’s not that terrible.  It’s just … there.

This is the rare time when I actually would have liked if this issue had been double-sized, or at least longer.  Too many things felt like they were rushed, or crammed in at the end.  And as far as the status quo from before Gang War started, has it changed that much to justify this story?  Not in my opinion.

 

NEXT TIME, IN AN ALL-NEW ISSUE OF AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …

Spidey’s in the rain?  I got nothing.  I’m sure solicits have said what’s happening after Gang War, but I have no idea.  Don’t get wet, Mark!

 

FOOTNOTES

(1)  I still think this should be “Electra” – something to differentiate her from the original Electro, who is still active?  Justice for Max Dillon.

(2)  I have no idea what Count Nefaria’s powers are.  The only comic I’ve ever read with him in it before this event was Uncanny X-Men #94, notable for being the first regular-title issue of the “new” X-Men team.

(3)  Narrator:  Nobody demanded this.

(4)  According to the Marvel Wiki, Silvermane in his cyborg form has superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability and senses.  Nothing about laser beams shooting out of his hands.  So put this down to new enhancements from Madame Masque or Rabble.

(5)  Has it, though?

(6)  This would have been so much better if Randy had suddenly sat up from his coma and said “I would like a pint of stout”.  I’m assuming no one besides me gets this reference.  If you do, let me know in the comments.

(7)  It actually *is* the end.

(8)  To be continued in Daredevil:  Gang War #4!