Gwen Stacy is back! That girls has quite the busy schedule for a corpse. You know what else is back? Spidey in a cross-over/tie-in! So sit back and let’s get all judgey here with our review of
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Story Title: My Girlfriend, My Executioner!*
Writer: Zeb Wells
Artist: Nick Dragotta
Colorist: Marco Menyz
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga
Cover Artists: John Romita, Jr, Scott Hanna, and Marco Menyz
Asst. Editor: Lindsey Cohick and Kaeden McGahey
Editor: Nick Lowe
Dear reader, Ian is upon me and despite the rage of the wind, Brad won’t let me into the Crawlspace hurricane bunker until I get this review out. Plus Chi-Town keeps sending me Facebook messages saying I’m a slackard. I to say that they are correct in doing so. I have been neglecting my duties too much here and deserve their critical correction. I must remember what I taught Neil all those years ago before he dropped out of college – Comics first; work, school, family second. I am a sorry suck-egg mule** And I’m not just saying that because my comics reviewer idol, the late Crazy Chris, is standing right outside my window giving me some judgey look. Well, I think it is Crazy Chris. It’s a bit hard to tell since there is all this red stuff coming from his head. Could be light. Could be red bubbles. Could be blood. Really hard to tell. Also, I really have no idea what Crazy Chris looks like since he was on the podcast pre-YouTube days. Whatever the case, it’s quite unnerving and a bit crazy town banana pants.
I hope you’ll (and Chris here) will forgive me if I break the usual format and approach this step by step instead.
We open with a news report and Peter on a phone call with Iron Man to get all the information that we need about the cross-over with Judgment Day. Apparently, some Celestial woke up after a particularly bad nap and decided to judge everyone by taking the form of someone they love. For Peter that person is Gwen Stacy.
OK, I must come clean here and say that the previous issue did nothing to inspire me to pick up this one and hearing that it was going to be another tie-in did nothing to motivate me. That’s not why this review is late, just a commentary on what tie-ins do for me. They obviously work to boost readership, but even JRjr decided not to show up for this one. The art is not really my thing here and speaking of JRjr, he did the cover and that Gwen Stacy looks more like a Gwen Stacy cosplayer on meth. Still a thousand times better than I could do, mind you.
Anyway, we learn some key facts here:
- Not everyone is being judged at the same time. We see this when only one of the two anchors is freaking out and Iron Man himself does not seem to be seeing anyone here.
- Peter is FREAKED OUT – Look at those eyes! We see whites around ALL FOUR SIDES of his iris. Don’t worry, I won’t go into another six page description of the art of sanpaku like I did for the review of issue 61
What passed? If we are going to bring back Gwen, at least they didn’t try to tease us here that she was going to be back for good or that we had another clone. It was the celestial looking like her. What failed? *sees Chris banging on my window outside* Well, ‘fail’ is a harsh word, by which I mean what may, on the surface, didn’t seem like it made sense. With that understanding in mind, I would say why did Peter call Iron Man of all people? The Avengers are not on his side at the moment and Iron Man has not really been on his side since Civil War. Maybe he couldn’t reach Captain America. Maybe he called the Avengers hotline and it was forwarded to Iron Man. Maybe Peter was in such a shock that he just said, “Screw it,” and asked for help. It’s not out of the range of probability, so I’ll overlook starting my Spider-Man comic with Iron Man.***
Next we get a series of events where Peter tries to look good in front of his judge. He is really bad at it and says things that imply he isn’t doing these things because he is a good person at heart, but rather only because he doesn’t want to get caught (which really visits the theme of one of my favorite books, Lord of the Flies – Are we good people who occasionally do bad things or are we bad people who only do good things because we are made to do so by laws? And I’m going to come out and say it – Jack’s a little punk that deserves to . . . Well, Chris is making frantic gestures, so I think I should just get on with the review – like I always do, I want to add.
Let’s do a quick run down of each person Peter tries to impress Gwen with:
Randy – The guy is really hard up on friends. Why else would he depend on Peter of all people to help him with his wedding tux? I love that Randy is so much in love that he could not care less about some celestial mucking about. It is here that we learn no one can see other people’s judges.
Aunt May – She shows us a different side to the judgment. Instead of running around trying to prove we are good people, Aunt May knows she is and has nothing to worry about with the verdict. Plus, she likes having the form of Ben around.
I like the art here. Peter sees the images in the panels, but this last one, with the Ben Parker judge, is panel-less and we can see his red bubbly stuff floating up through the gutters of the other panels. That’s a clever layout.
The question here is – Why didn’t Peter’s judge take on the form of Uncle Ben? If he did, we get a whole different story. If Ben is here, Peter feels the guilt, but would want to address it more with Ben. Ben represents the failure of inaction. Plus, he’s come to terms with Ben’s ghost/memory several times. Gwen, on the other hand, represents the failure of action. Because of his life choice to be Spider-Man, Gwen was put at risk. This could be foreshadowing that MJ is away from Peter due to his Spider-Man proclivities. I think we can also surmise that the judge took the form of Gwen rather than Ben because of Peter’s state of mind. He is off his game. Whatever happened that six months ago has thrown him. He’s second guessing himself. He’s in a slump. Seeing Gwen will antagonize that, causing him to respond. Seeing Ben would potentially give him comfort.
JJJ – Well, Jonah is taking the whole judgment thing a lot more freaky than Peter is. The two of them are sooo subtle when it comes to showing their forgiving and regret. I’m sure the celestial couldn’t see through these cleverly disguised actions. We do not get to see JJJ’s judge, but I assume it is Marla. Any other guesses?
Ben – This lets us know that Peter still worries about Ben and has been trying to reach out to him by coming to this spot of theirs. It may also foreshadow Ben’s return. It also demonstrates that you can do all the forgiveness and try to make up with others all you want to, but in the end, sometimes it is not enough or eventually, it is up to the other individual that was hurt. The point is not whose fault Ben’s condition is, but that there is a history between them and both are at fault for not ending up like that cool What If where they were roommates and share their life.
Also, I want to give credit to the artist again. Red funky stuff aside, Celestial-Gwen’s facial expressions throughout this give clues to what the celestial is wanting to see. They are not in-your-face, but effective and powerful nonetheless. It took my second reading to appreciate that. Compare this image with the one above:
Miles – A nice check-in here. Celestial-Gwen approves.
And then Peter tries to go to sleep while Gwen stands there watching in a not-at-all creepy fashion that really puts elves on the shelves and Big Brother to shame.
The next day, the red stuff is gone. I believe this means that she is done gathering data and is maybe compiling the final verdict, but she still seems to be watching, so it makes little sense to me why the red stuff is gone. My first impression on Peter’s reluctance to go to work was that his unreliable nature just came through despite her being there, but later we see he is very much afraid of Gwen seeing him work for Norman. I am going to come back to that in more detail later.
Kamala – I’m not sure why we have Kamala at Norman’s company. I assume that eventually she will help Peter when he needs someone (especially if he cannot rely on the good will of the other superhero community). Maybe she is needed there for her own story (though I don’t think she has her on title right now, does she?). Or maybe she is infiltrating Norman’s business to see if he truly is cleansed. Or maybe it is just Wells showing that these characters are in a shared universe and since Captain Marvel used to work at the same place Peter did, then Ms. Marvel should too. I’ve read a lot of her issues and for the little that we get to see her, she feels in character. For those of you unfamiliar with Ms. Marvel, her comic book personality is a lot like Tom Holland’s MCU Spider-Man.
Her Celestial-Captain Marvel is NOT please with her. Check out this face:
Norman – Peter freaks out here partly because he doesn’t want Celestial-Gwen to know he’s working for Norman. This is both interesting and odd.
It’s odd because why would Celestial-Gwen care? Norman didn’t throw Celestial-Gwen off the bridge; he threw Gwen. This is not her. Also, if the celestial can look inside Peter to get this image, then wouldn’t know that Peter works for Norman? And why does the celestial freak out and have an angsty emo-attack at the site of Norman? The only thing that makes sense to me is that the celestial has the ability to take on not just the form of the person, but also the mindset. It is judging everyone through the eyes of person they project as. If that is the case, then Aunt May has it made (unless Ben finds out about her many loves since his death). If also the case, then why is Kamala’s judge looking so angry?
And guys, I’m trying hard not to go on another eye rant, but these eyes are KILLING ME!
Speaking of eyes, Crazy Chris is really looking angry out there in all that wind. Let me wrap this up.
The big pay off for this book comes at the end. Not when the celestial confirms that Peter passed the test or even when Peter gets a chance to see the REAL Gwen one more time – which in itself is interesting since weren’t we told that the Dan Slott Clone Saga Gwen was indeed the real one, soul and all? But here, this is obviously the Gwen that was thrown off the bridge and has been in some sort of stasis ever since. Maybe Slott was wrong (but then that opens a whole other can of worms about the Lizard’s boy (but then, Wells and Lowe don’t seem to remember anything that happened with the Lizard in Spencer’s run)). Maybe the celestial is toying with Peter and making him believe he is talking to the real Gwen. Who cares? Not Chi-Town (since it’s not MJ) and not the rest of us (since it’s not Whitman).
The pay off comes with Norman witnessing it. He can see Gwen there and we can see he is being tormented by Gwen.
Holy cow! Look at that Celestial-Gwen! Does anyone else wish we had gotten THAT story instead?
So what happens tomorrow? What about the people who were judged to be sorry suck-egg mules? I don’t know. I would like to find out, but not enough to spend more money on AXE: Judgment Day.
Final Grade
C+
It’s a tie-in, but it’s done correctly in that we aren’t having to go off and participate in the Avengers comic here. This is like those Inferno tie-ins that just show how this event is falling out over the Marvel universe. It is unfortunate that we had two tie-ins in a row, but this one works regardless. Plus we get a little more about the six months. Whatever Peter and Norman teamed up for, it was for getting MJ back, not for fighting whatever bad guy was out there. Not a lot, but at least some progression on that front. Plus, while I did not care for all the art, there were some extremely well art-thingees in here.
I hope this makes up for the late review and I hope Brad can find it in his heart to forgive me and most of all, I hope Celestial-Crazy-Chris here will not judge me too harshly. Wait a minute. The more I look at him, the less it looks like Chris and more like my neighbor Tom who desperately needs my help to get out of this storm. Oops. OK, I really need to go! Chi-Town has you next issue!
* Yeah, the Marvel office doesn’t do those anymore. But never fear, folks, I’ve got your six!
** My mother used to say that phrase. I asked her once what it meant and she the only thing worse than a suck-egg dog would be a suck-egg mule. She stopped her explanation there as if that explained everything and I never asked again.
*** I don’t hate Iron Man and don’t particularly mind his influence over Peter in the MCU. It’s just set in 616 that Iron Man and Peter do not get along.
‘Nuff Said!
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@Jack Brooks – Ha! Ha! If I were reviewing Daredevil that would be perfect!
If you ever want to change the column title, call, it the “The Alford Plea.” Mark is serving a life-sentence of Spidey fandom, but he exercises his right to criticize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea
@Evan and @Aqu@
Evan – It most certainly counts!
Aqu@ – I get it and now that you’ve weighed in too, I am satisfied that Chi-Town has been properly rebuked for his misguided and hurtful comments. 🙂
LOL Don’t worry, Mark, I appreciated your parallel, it was funny.
It’s just that being 3-months behind with the reading, I feel I haven’t much to say until I read the issue for myself. I also try to stay as spoiler-free as possible.
@Mark — I also meant to add that if your Judgey Celestial is Crazy Chris, I think you’re lucky. Mine is one of my old teachers who’s giving me that “you’re-not-living-up-to-your-potential” look.
(A few weeks ago I was helping a college student who shared the same last name as my fourth-grade teacher, and when I mentioned that to her, she got on her phone and texted her aunt, who happened to be the same person. She told her aunt my name, and, while on one hand I’m amazed and flattered that she remembered me after over thirty years, her response left me feeling a little chagrinned: “Is he a writer?”)
Does leaving comments on the very best Spider-man website count?
@Evan – glad you made it through with no damage. We kept getting flood warnings over the phone, but no real issue with it here. In fact, I would say we didn’t have any more flooding than whatever puddles normally accumulate in the rain.
I’m with you on being doubtful that this reveal will be worth it. I don’t see how it can live up to the set up.
I don’t remember the abandoned test tubes that Paul does, but then again, that whole end issue pissed me off so much that I’ve dumped most of it out of my head to make room for something less irritating (which, believe it or not, includes those vexatious comments from my good buddy Chi-Town).
Love the title – as always!
@Mark — I’m glad you got through the hurricane okay and that any damage your home sustained was minimal. My street looked like a river, but it drained surprisingly quickly. The street adjacent to mine looked like a lake far after my street cleared up, but the the family of egrets that was wading around there must have loved it. My power blinked three times, and the wifi went out intermittently, but I was very lucky. I hope any other readers affected by the storm are safe, as well.
Even if circumstances forced you to stray from your new review template, it was just as good a review as ever! If time travel is involved with Peter’s “big mistake,” that makes me a little more invested, though I still do like the retroactive reveal after six months. I just don’t see the pay off being worth it, though hopefully I will be proved wrong.
Regarding Paul Penna’s theory, I must not be remembering correctly in that I thought one of the results of Nick Spencer’s Kindred story (and part of the whole point of the run) was to undo Sins Past. Where there Norman/Gwen offspring clones remaining at the end after all? I wonder how I missed that. But if so, so much for undoing Sins Past, I guess. I doubt that this accounts for Mary Jane’s children, but time travel would be a clever way to explain that. I wonder what the Crawlspace Odds are for that. At least a little bit more than crack cocaine, I’d say.
Here’s my story title submission:
“Gwen will the tie-ins end?”
@Chi-Town
Phoning it in? Phoning it in? Did you not appreciate the clever parallel I made with Celestial-Crazy-Chris and Celestial-Gwen? Geez! Pearls before swine! Where’s Evan or Aqu@? They’ll set the matter straight!
As for the Gwen and Norman bit – Norman doesn’t see Peter’s Gwen when he comes out to the laboratory floor. He only sees Gwen when the celestial makes her appear for real. That is supposed to be the real Gwen so can be seen by all. Notice that she doesn’t seem to have any memories at all of the Slott/Jackal reincarnation which was supposed to house the real soul of the creature cloned. I wonder what that means for the Lizard’s boy?
Wow…way to phone it in there, Mark! I give this one a D-. No sure how Norman saw Gwen talking to Peter and Peter didn’t see Uncle Ben beside Aunt May. It’s assumed that “whatever” Peter did was to get back Mary Jane…however, it’s ASSUMED that’s the case. Is it before or after Paul? Who is that glowing guy at the end of the Beyond arc. It’s all jumbled in this series and mixed in with crossover events.
@Sthenurus and @Paul
Sthenurus – This is just a question since I have not read the main story – is it possible that we are only seeing the one moment as a snapshot of the celestial judgment since I’m sure they are packing in a lot of characters, or is it clear that that’s all the interaction they have with the celestial?
Paul – No hate here. I don’t want the Stacy twins revisited in any form, but it is a explanation that works and is more than I have now that my Mysterio theory seems to be blown. Well thought out. I hope you’re incorrect!
@marc
In the main series, the celestial just shows up, say one sentence or make one offer, then passes judgement and leaves.
Let’s pick daredevil. The celestial shows up as Jesus, give DD the thumb down. Matt weeps, says “I know” and carries on saving lives. The celestial judges him worthy (one of the most beautiful panel in the main event)
It’s not a long drawn out thing.
Also, since Gwen was in this issue, I’ll throw out the one weird MJ’s new family theory I had. I have no idea who Paul is, but in the Kindred finale there were two kids whose fate we don’t currently know. It’s one of the many plot point from the Kindred saga which remains unresolved.
When Norman stumbled in the Osborn Mansion in Europe, he discovered the next Gabriel and Sarah growing in tubes. Even though the adult pair that were inhabited by Kindred died, those two embryonic Stacy twins were still alive by the end of the arc.
Now, only Norman knew about them, but it’s possible that MJ could’ve found out, and adopted them alongside Paul.
Do I think it’s likely? Probably not. But it is important to note that for some reason Gabriel Stacy looks like Peter, just like MJ’s new little boy does (I know the out of universe reasons, but in-universe after they changed who Gabriel’s dad was, they still had him resemble Peter). And if you dyed Sarah’s hair red, then she would look a lot like MJ. And it is established that the twins grow quickly, so it’d make sense that they’d be the age of MJ’s kids six months later.
It’s the one already established plot point that I can think of that’d explain the children.
I expect, instead, that the kids will be part of a new plot unrelated to anything that has gone before. But logically if Norman has had his sins removed, and he was looking for redemption, he’d want to do right by this version of Gabriel and Sarah, since biologically, they are still his children.
So, hey, I’m sure you guys will hate me for it (as most people want the Stacy twins gone), but I’m throwing this theory out there.
I thought this issue was good. I didn’t love the art style, but I think that’s a simple matter of personal preference. It is well drawn.
Again, this run seems to be at its best during the tie-in issues. No plot points being strung out, over many issues. Stuff actually happens. And Peter feels like Peter.
As much as Peter misses Uncle Ben, Gwen will always be his biggest failure. And while he knows the Celestial isn’t really Gwen, he can’t help but act like she is. His guilt is that strong. It isn’t rational, but when it comes to Gwen, Peter isn’t rational. It felt very human, very real.
The only thing I’d criticize at all, is that the issue is so well done, I wish we’d had more. I think I would’ve preferred this story told over two issues. The real Gwen showed up for literally a moment. I wish she’d stuck around for an hour, or even a day. I wish she’d gotten to take a look at what life is really like for Peter now.
I’m glad that her return was only temporary, though. Gwen, whether she brought back like this, or as a clone, is always the teenage girl she was when she died. Because of that, she’ll always feel like a snapshot from the past, and she simply doesn’t belong.
That’s why I still remain frustrated that they killed off Joyce Delaney, because she was a version of Gwen that got to grow up. Yes, she had a lot of bad continuity, but so do most characters that have been around as long as she had. Yet, she was always treated as a loose end, rather than an interesting character in her own right. Wasted story potential.
Anyway, getting back to this issue, I think Gwen was handled very well. Certainly better than MJ has been handled so far in this run.
Hey guys, finally emerged from the Crawlspace bunker. Debris everywhere, but no trees down and we finally have power back. You guys have some interesting comments about it, so I’ll try to tackle them all here:
Jack – good eyes on that reflection
Michael, Sthenurus, and Steve – You mentioned that perhaps MJ was dead and time travel was involved. Could be and that I want to bring back up Franz29’s take all the way back to that panel at the end of the Beyond arc. Franz29 said he thought the light being was there for MJ and I liked that idea then and am really liking it now. Hopefully Wells will start to drop a few more clues. It’s frustrating because either he’s not giving us enough to even speculate or I’m just too dense to notice them. Whatever it is, it involves a cosmic-type being who points at either Peter or MJ and says a trail of blood leads to one of them (or both). Peter is involved in some sort of massive explosion. Whatever it was took six months of normal time. Superheroes are irritated by something he did. He stole from FF. No one would help him do what he needed/thought he needed/wanted to do, so he turned to Norman. They failed. MJ is now in some sort of relationship with Paul, has two children who call her mom, and does not want to or cannot see and interact with Peter. Paul is probably not Mysterio trying to keep her safe. Paul and MJ are perfect for each other. Did I miss anything?
Sthenurus – I haven’t kept up with the Judgment Day. How are the judges working there?
Robin MB – I’ll say the majority are a tad higher than meh for me. For the most part, I enjoy the individual issues (though the break with 900, Hellfire, and Judgment Day are unfortunate stops in this narrative – reminds me of Friendly Neighborhood’s start). The thing is, I have no motivation to pick up the next issues other than I am supposed to review them. I don’t know why other than I think Spencer’s last issue knocked me off track and while Wells is doing a good job, it just isn’t enough. Beyond was a good story that was both bad timing and wrong title (you put that in Spectacular and I think it is a hit). It wasn’t the umph we needed to cleanse the palate of Kindred’s reveal. The Tombstone and Vulture stories are solid (also fantastic Spectacular stories), but the interruptions and this mystery with snail’s pace movement (especially this close to Kindred’s long arc) is just a cloud over the enjoyment of the thing.
Just read all 10 issues back to back. Finally having read it all I cam say this run is mainly been meh. Good ideas but heavily muddled by stuff I don’t care about like Paul or X-Men
I liked this issue but it doesn’t work with the way the celestial judges people in the main event. So that’s an automatic fail for me. Which sucks cause I really liked the issue itself and how Peter connects with his loved ones. That’s my Peter. Kind, forgiving, inspiring.
Also the MJ tidbit. I guess Norman wanted to attone for Gwen death by bringing MJ back. Hence why he helped Peter.
Pretty interesting tid bit about the 6 months that went unmentioned. Did MJ possibly die?
Re: why Gwen and not Ben: Well, Wells’ ending required Norman to see someone he hurt. But in-universe, Peter is conflicted about working for Norman, so he needed to see someone whose life Norman ruined. The two obvious choices are Gwen and Harry, and Peter’s feelings about Harry are probably conflicted now since he knows that the whole Kindred mess would have never happened if Harry hadn’t been too ashamed to tell Peter about the twins.
Jonah mentions an ex-wife. Since when does JJJ have an ex-wife? He’s usually depicted as being twice widowed- John’s mom and Marla.
Re Kamala: It’s been confirmed that she’ll be a part of Dark Web.
After hearing the dialogue between Peter and “Gwen”, I’m more convinced than ever that time travel is involved with what happened to MJ. Something happened to MJ (she died or was trapped in the past, etc.), Peter wanted to use time travel to fix it, the other heroes refused because tampering with the past is dangerous and Norman helped Peter steal the FF’s time machine to try and fix it.
I notice that Norman is reflected in the mirror, but Gwenestial is not.
I hate what they’re doing with Peter & MJ. But in what other company is the motto to *not* give the majority of customers what they say they want?