Craig’s Critique: Amazing Spider-Man #62 (Legacy #956): “The 8 Deaths of Spider-Man. Part 2: Out Of Space” (1)

NOTE:  this issue will not be at my LCS until next week, so I had to make my own banner image combining Puddin’ and this issue.  Flawless!

Spidey, now with magical powers, breaks into Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Santorum with the help of Black Cat and … Dr. Strange?  The children of Cyttorak discuss how they will win this covenant!  Oscorp is no more!  Spidey fights a magical man-sized bug at a baseball field!  All this plus … a demonic girl on a tricycle?

(This suit will definitely appear in the next Insomniac Spider-Man game.)

CREDITS

Writer:  Joe Kelly

Penciler:  Ed McGuinness

Inkers:  Cliff Rathburn, Mark Farmer & Wade Von Grawbadger

Colorists:  Marcio Menyz & Erick Arciniega

Letterer:  VC’s Joe Caramagna

 

PREVIOUSLY IN AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …

Joe Kelly started his run ⁽²⁾ with Spider-Man being chosen by Dr. Doom, Sorcerer Supreme, to help him.  Spidey refuses and spends time with Aunt May, Randy and Shay to remind the readers of what a loser he is.  After an obligatory appearance by Spider-Boy (to remind anyone not reading that book that this character does exist) Spidey is attacked by Cyntros.  Realizing that this is the task Doom asked him about, Spidey accepts Doom’s offer and becomes “Earth’s new champion in the Covenant of Cyttorak”, along with a new suit, a cloak, and 8 magic reeds that will bring him back to life after being killed.  Spidey wins but is killed.  But don’t worry, he gets better – he shows Phil Coulson (who is Death now?) one of the 8 reeds and is brought back to life, just as Dr. Strange’s astral projection appears and tells Spidey that he’ll have to defeat the remaining scions of Cytorrak, likely dying 7 more times.

 

SUMMARY

Peter is taking a shower as he remembers being killed – painfully – in the previous issue.

Later Spider-Man is breaking into the Sanctum Santorum with the help of the astral projection of Dr. Strange and the Black Cat.  They steal a magic book, which Spidey plans to read to increase his magical powers.  Black Cat leaves, allowing Strange to tell Spidey that this covenant is rigged in Cytorrak’s favor and he will likely die 7 more times.

(I see what you did with the graffiti there, McGuinness.  Stop that.)

Meanwhile, in the Crimson Cosmos, Morlun and the Inheritors the Scions of Cytorrak stand around and argue about who will fight Doom’s chosen champion.

(These are our villains for this story?  Oh, boy.)

Back in Peter’s apartment, he’s reading the stolen book while Norman Osborn, who doesn’t want to have anything to do with this magical stuff, tells him that he’s shut down Oscorp and plans to start over.

(Someone should remind Norman that he once participated in a magic ceremony called “The Gathering of Five”.)

Peter realizes he’s late to meet May and leaves, and is instantly transported to Citi Field⁽³⁾ , appearing in his Magic-Spider outfit, to battle Cyperion, who claims that if Spidey can touch him once then he will be conquered.

(I know nothing about them, but Cyperion looks like a Micronaut to me.)

They fight, but Spidey realizes that Cyperion has the ability to transport him/parts of him to “the infinitely divisible space between us”.  While shrinking into the sub-atomic realm, Spidey uses magic and science to grow to an infinite size and stretch across the entire universe and back again to touch Cyperion, killing himself in the process, using up another reed.

(“Oh My God!  You killed Spider-Man!  You bastards! (pause) Anyway …”)

Later Peter is at a restaurant with Randy and Shay.  Peter is not paying attention, especially when a little red girl with devil horns on a tricycle appears.

(Is the “TUFFY” on the tricycle a reference to something?)

TO BE CONTINUED!

 

INITIAL RESPONSE

Ok, I’m going to star this off by talking about Beyond (bet you didn’t see that coming).

Everyone remembers the Beyond arc, right?  Spidey was critically injured, so while he recovered Ben Reilly took over as Spider-Man and he became the main character.  I wasn’t reviewing ASM on the website during that story, but I was on the podcast a couple (?) of times to review some issues.  I said at the time that I did not like the concept of Beyond, but it wasn’t fair when reviewing and grading an individual issue to say “I don’t like the idea of Beyond so that factors into this issue’s grade”.

I’m experiencing the same thing with The 8 Deaths of Spider-Man.  As a story, I don’t like this.  This is not a Spider-Man story I’m interested in.  I’m not even sure it’s a Spider-Man story.  Yes, Spidey has been involved in mystic stories before, but they are the exception, not the norm.  Yes, Spidey has had new powers before – the Captain Universe powers during Acts of Vengeance – but even then he was still involved in *Spider-Man* stuff.  This … this feels like Spidey has been placed in a Dr. Strange story.

But as I did with individual Beyond issues, I will try to review these issues as individual issues and not let my feelings on the overall story concept affect my review.

That being said … I did not like this issue.  At all.  I just don’t care about anything going on here.  Even during the lows of the Zells run, I cared⁽⁴⁾.  But for this, I just don’t.

 

WHAT I LIKED

The art is nice.  McGuinness is great as usual.

I will admit that I didn’t notice on my first read that Spidey has 6 arms here.

(Would have been nice to have Spidey mention having had 6 arms before here.)

While I don’t like what they’re actually doing, I do like that we are seeing supporting characters from the previous run – Norman, Randy and Shay.  I assumed that during this story it would be entirely about this mystical story and we wouldn’t see any supporting characters continuing from the previous issues so it’s nice to see them appearing here.

I don’t like good-Norman, but I do like that they’re actually doing something with him here.  Shutting down Oscorp is a big deal and should lead to something with him.  I did like how he’s completely uninterested in this entire magic plot and is only interested in talking about Oscorp and himself.

Kevin.

(I’m rooting for these two crazy kids.)

I did not realize who Kevin was when I first read this issue, but when I skimmed the previous issue for my “Previously” section I realized that this is the guy that Spidey saves at the start of the previous issue.  So for him to show up here – if only for one panel – was fun.  This feels very Joe Kelly-ish.  Now I’m hoping that Kevin shows up in every issue of T8DOSM.

(Just a reminder of who Kevin is from the previous issue.)

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE

Sigh.  I just don’t care about this story.

Peter died in the previous issue, and all we get is one panel of him thinking about it in the shower, and that’s it.  This should be something traumatic.  And that’s a HUGE problem with this story⁽⁵⁾.  It’s called “The 8 Deaths Of Spider-Man”.  He has 8 magical reeds that will bring him back to life after he dies during this Covenant.  This story is 8 issues⁽⁶⁾.  We know that Spidey is going die 6 more times, likely once in each issue.  And we know that each time he dies he is going to defeat the enemy because he has to die in the next issue.  So what’s the point in caring about the outcome of each issue?  We know he’s going to die and come back.  I was watching a reaction video to Deadpool and Wolverine this past week, and during the fight in the car, the reactor  said “These guys are both virtually immortal so what is the point here?”  And that’s what’s happening here.  We know Spidey is going to die in each issue and come back to life, and he’s going to win each battle because he has to go onto the next issue … where he’ll die and come back to life again.  Why should we care?

While it’s nice to see Black Cat again as a non-romantic ally, their dialogue here makes no sense.  Felicia literally broke up with Spidey during the Zells run, and yet here she’s talking as if she wants a relationship with him and that he had broke up with her.

(“Why don’t you want to be in a relationship with me?  Well yes, I did just break up with you …”)

We get introduced to the Scions of Cytorrak – the enemies for this story, and for the two pages where we see them sitting around arguing with each other, I was getting flashbacks to Morlun and the Inheritors during Spider-Verse.  This is not a good thing.  I didn’t care about the Inheritors, and I don’t care about these people.

Norman saying that he doesn’t believe in magic – he literally participated in a magic ceremony to give him great power.  Also, his sins were recently taken away by a magic shotgun, and transported into Peter by a magic spear.  Norman believes in magic.

The battle with Cyperion – again, I have no idea who this, so why should I care?  Spidey does use some science together with magic, which is nice, but he literally dies here … again … and it’s like it happens off panel.  This is only the second death of this story and it’s like the story itself is already bored with the idea of Spidey dying.  The only thing that happens is that Peter’s eyes turn blue for a moment.

(“Don’t it make your brown eyes blue?”  Ask your parents, kids.)

While it’s … “nice” that Shay is still here – if only that the book didn’t instantly forget about her – her only function seems to be to remind Peter about what a bad boyfriend he is.  And why is Randy there with them?  Are Randy and Shay friends?  Do they even know each other?  Since when?  Are they a throuple?  Honestly, that would be more interesting than what we’re getting here.

And while we’re talking about Randy, he’s appeared in two issues in this story and he’s acting like his fiancée’s father didn’t try to kill her and she didn’t leave the city, seemingly forever.  This should be all he is thinking about, and yet if you skipped the Zells run and were just reading this you would have no idea this had just happened to him.  It seems like he’s only here to remind us of how bad a friend/boyfriend Peter is.

(“Janice who?”  Also, Shay’s hair by Randy’s face makes it look like he has a weird moustache/soul patch.)

 

WHAT THIS ISSUE MEANT OVERALL

It’s the second issue of this 8-part story and I’m already bored with the overall plot/concept.  I know Spidey is going to die in every issue, and he will defeat each enemy because he has to go on to the next issue so he can die again.  What is the point?  Why should I care?

Come on, Kelly – prove me wrong.  Make me care about this story.

 

GRADE

D

If you couldn’t already tell, I really didn’t like this issue.  It’s not that it’s bad (it is, but not objectively bad like some of the Zells stories were) but I just don’t care, which is a really bad thing for a comic book.  At least during some of the bad Zells stories I still cared (a bit) about the stories and characters.  But here – for this issue and the overall story, I don’t.  This just isn’t a Spider-Man story.  Why okayed this?

 

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

Spider-Man dies!  Again!  Good luck to the new reviewer.  Hopefully we have someone on the job by then.

 

FOOTNOTES

(1)  Actual issue titles?  Have I time-travelled back to the 1990s?

(2)  “Run” is generous.  This is an 8-issue story and then Kelly is gone.  And he’s not actually writing every issue.  This is basically a limited series that has been shoved into ASM.

(3)  I assume this is where this happens.  I know that Citi Field is an actual baseball field in New York, but surprisingly my baseball knowledge is what I get from pop culture, not actual sports knowledge.

(4)  I mean, not a lot, but at least a little bit.  More than I did here.

(5)  I know I said I was going to try not to let my thoughts on the overall story factor into my review of this issue.  I am failing already.

(6)  Is this correct?  I thought I heard this story was 8 issues, which would make sense from the title.