AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #639
“One Moment in Time, Chapter Two: Something New”
Writer: Joe Quesada
Penciler: Paolo Rivera and Joe Quesada
Inker: Paolo Rivera and Danny Miki
Colorist: Paolo Rivera and Richard Isanove
“Spidey Sundays”
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Marcos Martin
Inker: Marcos Martin
Colorist: Muntsa Vicente
Cover Art: Paolo Rivera
Variant Cover 1: Joe Quesada, Danny Miki, and Richard Isanove
Variant Cover 2: Joe Quesada
Be warned – there are SPOILERS ahead!
After last issue’s debacle, Quesada pushes forward with the next chapter of the story that promises to reveal everything we need to know about Spider-Man’s Brand New Day continuity.
Speaking of last issue, I should probably take a moment to address the previous review. Actually, I already addressed the matter here, so go ahead and read that, since I’m too lazy to reformat it for this paragraph. Besides, I’m much more interested in addressing the response to the review, including the perception that I’m somehow not entitled to have an opinion because I’m a “reviewer.”
That’s silly. Reviews are, by definition, opinion pieces. More importantly, this is a FAN SITE. This isn’t CBR or Newsarama. I take significant time out of my Wednesdays to write these reviews – for free – to provide a point of view and entertainment for the readers. Somehow, a large number of boneheads seem to have missed that point completely. Here are some choice quotes responding to the review:
“Some blogger with a bad on for the post OMD status quo hated this book, so we’re sure it’s terrible? Is that how this works.”
“Bit surprised I’m the only one here who reviewed the actual issue.”
“This guy should open his window, stick his head out, and then go ahead and jump.”
I still can’t get over that last one. I should kill myself for having the audacity to express a strong opinion?
So when you read this review today, remember that you’re allowed to think what you want, when you want – and so am I. You can agree or disagree with my opinion all you want, but that doesn’t mean that I have no right to express it.
(Oh, and to that dude that said I should kill myself: do me a favor and go eat some rat poison.)
Anyway, on with the review!
The Plot
In the present day, Mary Jane and Peter continue to talk about the circumstances of their past. Mary Jane promises to reveal an untold tale of her own if Peter continues to spill the beans, so he continues the tale from the point at which the previous issue ended. Spidey has come to the realization that he’s left Mary Jane at the altar and angstily (is that a word?) prowls the city looking for her. She’s not at her apartment, and looking for her elsewhere is futile, so he returns to his apartment in Chelsea. There, he finds Mary Jane – and after a short argument, she asks him to abandon his Spider-Man identity. After the obvious refusal, she storms out. A few days later, she has lunch with her Aunt Anna in Bryant Park, and Anna tries to convince her to stay with Peter. That night, Mary Jane visits Peter and agrees to come back to him, with the proviso that she can never bring a child into his troubled life and thus will never marry him. Back in the present day, we learn that the events of Civil War and Back in Black occurred and that they both remember it. The divergent point, we learn in a flashback, is that Aunt May died and was revived by the efforts of Peter himself.
The Good
This truly is a tale of two issues.
Paolo Rivera gets a bigger chunk of the pie this time, providing art for the bulk of the story. No longer bound to previous source material, his artwork is, in a word, absolufabulotastic. His linework is slick, his Mary Jane is the picture of loveliness, and his Spider-Man is smooth and elegant. His coloring is also worth nothing – the balance of warm and cool colors is brilliant. There are scenes in which the color palette moves to pastels, and others in which the colors are cold and dark. Rivera puts in a virtuoso performance that is simply a joy to look at.
Throughout the first half of the story, Quesada stays away from his tendency to overstuff his writing with annoying exposition and “reality slaps” (as the great George Berryman calls them) and gives us a good MJ-centric character study. She has an arc of emotions that are both believable and raw. She’s hurt by the embarrassment of her wedding but troubled by her continued love for Peter. Rivera’s ability to draw subtle facial expressions makes this work – I can’t make it clear enough how important he is to making the first half of the issue so good. And really, this was more a Mary Jane story than a Spider-Man story.
The scene outside of Peter’s door is, for me, the best part of the issue. We all say and do things that we feel bad about afterwards, and Mary Jane’s regret over asking Peter to abandon his superheroics is a very real moment. This scene is also emblematic of how I felt reading this issue up to that point – I was surprised by how emotionally engaging the story was.
To that point, this was truly A material. I was actually smiling reading up to this point …
The Bad
…and then it went to hell again.
Amazingly, you can literally split the issue down the physical midway point – everything goes downhill when you cross the staple in the middle of the comic. The reality slaps start coming fast and hard.
The first problem comes from the absolute boondoggle of logic that Mary Jane throws at Peter in this scene. I’ll let the panels do the talking for me here.
Wow. Just, wow. First of all, this is a real insult to anybody that’s a fan of Spider-Girl (a character that, not coincidentally, is going the way of the dodo very soon, to the point of having her very name taken away from her and reassigned to another character in an effort to make us forget she ever existed). Second, the concept that the only reason to get married would be to have children is so stuck in the 1950s that I actually chuckled reading it. “That can’t be the explanation,” I thought. “That’s just too stupid to be real. Is this a dream sequence?” Sorry brain, it’s not.
The rest of the issue is an explanation of what happened from Civil War onward, the period of Spider-Man’s history that became the most muddled by One More Day. We learn that everything proceeded as we saw up until about the midway point of One More Day, at which time the timeline completely diverges. Aunt May dies in the hospital temporarily, and the doctors give up trying to resuscitate her, but Peter pushes through and compresses her chest himself, causing her to spring to life. Apparently, the old bag must have adamantium bones, because her ribcage didn’t immediately shatter when Peter was doing some spider-strength-enhanced compressions. FALCON PAAAAAWNCH!!! (Obviously, this revival was Mephisto-assisted, but the point still stands. It’s dumber than a bag of doorknobs.) More importantly, though, the scene just underscores how idiotic the plot of One More Day was. All the geniuses in the Marvel Universe can’t save a woman from a gunshot wound, but slamming her in the chest can? Still, I have to begrudgingly give credit to Quesada for coming through on the promise of answers, because this issue had them in spades.
The Ugly
Thankfully, the Ugly of this issue is reserved only for the people unfortunate enough to have obtained the variant cover. Just look at that thing. It looks like Mary Jane is taking an epic dump in front of a backdrop of New York. Eww.
The Bottom Line
This is a tough issue to grade, because of its strange fluctuation in quality. I’m going to give it a positive score on the strength of the artwork and the great first half of the story, and in recognition of the fact that they are doing what they promised to do for a change. I don’t like the ideas – especially the backhanded slap at Spider-Girl fans – but they weren’t enough to completely negate the issue’s merits. 3 out of 5 webheads.
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You’re being a bit disingenuous with your comments about people who didn’t like your review. A lot of the comments on the CBR thread (where you’ve cherrypicked some quotes to suit your purpose) were more about the attack on the fans who like ASM’s current direction.
Ha. BEHOLD!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Gd8NBIma-zo/TF12L7FSiMI/AAAAAAAAOWI/8rTovUopgJI/s1600/meanwhile.jpg
If Peter and Mayday were watching this taking place.
@Mav- hahahahaha. “I did not hit her. It’s not true. It’s BULLSHIT. I did not hit her. I did nahhhht. Oh hi, Harry.”
For the CPR, maybe Quesada is a “Baywatch” fan.
There is an episode, where a surgeon’s daughter has drowned in the pool.
The female lifeguard pushes the father and the ex-boyfriend (also a doctor) away, so that
the current boyfriend can resuscitate the girl. “He’s a lifeguard!”
I know that Quesada takes a bullet from all the angry fans, but he would not nor COULD NOT make such a change to a company’s flagship character without the APPROVAL of the people in charge of Marvel Comics Inc.
If people want to get mad, then get mad at the owners of Marvel Comics (or at least, the older ones… not Dysney), because it’s been pretty clear since 1993 that Marvel Comics has wanted a single Spider-Man…
So shit on Quesada all you want, but he’s not the only architect in the grand scheme of things…
Spider-Man has suffered from some bad writing for most of the time the last 20 years or so, and this joke of a story is a new low. Which really only is to expect when you have someone writing, not because he has a great story to tell, but because he is out on his own personal agenda and changing things to satisfy his supersized ego. Imagine if someone took any novel and rewrote it because he/she didn’t like the ending or something. It’s not what I call creative writing. And I think any respectable writer would agree that the writer’s own feelings NEVER should take control over a story.
If the variant cover had Peter instead of MJ, it’d be a great ‘The Room’ parody.
“You’re tearing me apart Quesada!”
… so if we get married, we can’t have kids… and if you can’t have kids, we can’t get married?
SWEET CHRISTMAS!!!
And the overall thing about this whole bit of mess still stands… split him from MJ, pair him up with anybody else, and the thought of settling down and raising a family will never happen? Are you sure? I thought worthwhile relationships did involve progression, not just wall to wall, break into hotel room ****ing…
Although I like the idea of making her the one who made the deal… that way, Pete won’t feel guilty, and he’ll never tell Aunt May what happened…
… btw, that was a lie. No I DIDN’T like that.
… can someone remind me again why she made the deal in the first place? Didn’t it involve her wanting him to “be the hero she always knew he was?” So why tell him to give it up?
The worst part to me is the drawing style, there is a panel where MJ does not even look human, she was angry at that point but that is not a reason to draw her that bad
Gerard – Ah okay. Nice feature! ^_^
If Peter had the power to simply save Aunt May, then wouldn’t that be Mephisto’s kick in the balls to Peter?
He tricks them into giving up their marriage for nothing…
That’s what some of us have been looking for… the negative aspect to making deals with the devil…
🙂
@Sano: That’s not a glitch — the post was set to allow Trackbacks, which links to posts that reference the review. 🙂
anybody who likes OMIT should open his window, stick his head out, and then go ahead and jump
^I was posting on another thread while having this page open so not entirely sure how the above glitch happened lol! I moderate the Comic Book Thread in another forum. Anywah please delete if you want. Or blame Mephisto. 😛
The people wondering about how having no baby doesn’t jive with the Clone Saga should just forget to even try to figure this crap out, One Omit In Time (TM) is incomprehensible and poorly written, and Marvel has mistreated this character for many years now. Do yourself a favor and find a new book replace this crap with every month. I love Spider-Man, he is my favorite comic character ever, but have long stopped buying ASM and will never do so again. As far as I’m concerned, Peter retired in the mid 90’s to raise his kid with MJ, and all this crap has been some alternate reality. With a few exceptions, there really haven’t been any good spider man stories told in the last 15 years or so.
I think a 3 out of 5 is very favorable, too favorable in my opinion. At most I would give it a 2 out of 5 and then only because of Rivera’s art and the impassioned speech MJ makes in the hallway outside of Peter’s door. The rest of it, crap.
MJ leaves the church, but makes no move to call Peter to find out where he is or what happened? Even overhearing Harry’s opinion on what Pete said at his bachelor party should not have pushed her so far that she was not worried. I could see her having doubts as to Pete’s motivation for not showing up, but after all the years she’s known Peter she knows about the infamous Parker luck and knows he’s Spidey. The characteristic reaction from MJ would have been worry, concern for Pete and what happened to him. I mean she was late to her own wedding so it’s not like she is without guilt to some degree herself too. When they finally meet in Pete’s apartment she doesn’t even give him a chance to explain?!? Even when she sees he’s obviously hurt she lashes out?!? Totally out of character for her. I can understand she was angry and hurt over him not showing, but that should have flown in the light of the fact he was hurt and should have at least bought Pete the chance to explain. Instead she asks him to quit. While I could see her doing that, she knew his answer before he could utter it. She knows how deeply ingrained his personal sense of responsibility is, especially given what happened to Uncle Ben, so she had to know he couldn’t give up his duty as Spider Man. Instead of a more characteristic reaction we get an explosion of anger and her storming out?
The whole explaination of marriage only being to bring kids into the world is just so ridiculous. A piece of paper is not necessary to bear children and why it may be played off that this is MJ’s personal belief, how is it she and Pete have never discussed this or her desire for children. All the years they’ve known each other they’ve never discussed it? I find that hard to believe. So instead they decide to live together because she loves him to much to be without him? Seems that the current storyline does not bear out the depth of that love.
I still don’t buy that no one, not Doc Strange, not Reed Richards, not Tony Stark, not a single person in the Marvel U could save May. So we suspend our disbelief, she is dying, she is flat lining and medical personal try the paddles to bring her back. Nothing works, she’s gone, yet chest compressions from Peter bring her back? B.S.! Ok, let’s explain it away as Mephisto twisting those threads of fate, so why could he not do that by providing Doc Strange or Reed Richards with the inspiration for something that would save May? That would be a lot more believable than Spider Chest Compressions.
This book was so bad, though admittedly not quite as bad as the Devil Bird, Devil Brick, Fat Guy issue, but it was a darn close second.
I am glad I didn’t drop money on it, but instead read a friends copy. If I had shelled out for this book I would be pissed.
Thanks for the review since there’s no way I’m reading this issue. MJ not wanting to get married because of the possiblity of children and Spider-Man saving Aunt May instead of say Mr. Negative… I mean seriously wow. JQ should never ever write another comic book again.
Harry’s death has already been explained in great detail, and for perhaps the one thousandth time, his return had nothing to do with OMD. He wasn’t dead to begin with. It was explained in, I think, Amazing Spidey #583.
This issue has me scratching my head in bewilderment. Let me get this straight…..so, there was NO baby during the Clone Saga???? Then WHY did Peter pass on the Spider-man mantle to Ben Reilly??? The Clone Saga would HAVE TO be altered in some way because of this!!! I mean, think about Ben’s last sentence to Peter about telling his neice about her “uncle ben” and everything leading up to that event. These are the type of answers that haven’t been addressed yet, and the ones I would like explained the most! Does this mean the Clone Saga has been drastically changed? Does this mean Ben had a different fate at the end of the story…? What would his last words to Peter have been now????
So Harry’s alive now how? Some of these questions aren’t answered just by saying everything else happened but peter and mj were “just dating”. In fact, its a bigger slap in the face because its an admission that there was nothing wrong with the stories that took place while spidey was married except that they happened AND he was married. does mj being a girlfriend make her less suseptible to danger? if anyone thinks so, go ask gwen stacey.
I honestly don’t understand why people care so much about MJ’s explanation for not wanting to get married. If you want to get married and have kids, or not have kids, great, good for you. That doesn’t make it ‘ridiculous’ if somebody else doesn’t view marriage in the same way. When you come down to it, marriage is just a ceremony and a piece of paper saying that you’re married. There’s nothing tangible about it. It’s not some mysterious force that envelops the people and makes them one. Two people can love each other and be together without being married. There are some that would argue that such a course could actually save the romance in the relationship, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is that just because the explanation wouldn’t work for you in the same situation doesn’t mean it couldn’t work for these two characters. Also, to the poster who said that the Clone Saga couldn’t have happened without MJ getting pregnant…uh…what? Miles Warren could only make multiple clones of Peter Parker if his wife was pregnant? The only thing it really changes (other than all the talk of the upcoming baby) is Seward Trainer’s pretext for having Peter and Ben test each other to discover which of them was the clone. If you recall, he did so because of some ‘abnormalities’ he’d discovered in the baby’s blood, and raised the possibility that one of its parents could be a clone. That’s really all that needs to change for the story to still work. Also, Spider-Girl fans need to stop taking everything so personally. You were lucky you got more than twenty issues out of her. That book was one of the lowest selling at Marvel for years, and it was relaunched not once, but TWICE, because a small but vocal group of fans kept pestering them with letters, and then Tom Defalco said ‘Hoo HAH!’ a bunch of times and it got made. Seriously, be grateful for what you got.
Lmao at ‘The Ugly’ what horrible artwork.
Part 1 had a lot going against it. It basically took the Spider-man Annual #21 and spat on it (I could go grosser than that, but you get the point) by reprinting it and tweak to fit this story. At least Part 2 can fail on its own merits.
In spite of the overall crappiness of OMIT, I have to say that part 2 was a lot better than part 1 … in my opinion…
does the book actually reference mephisto’s influence at saving May? as someone who has done cpr a few times, spider strength or not, Pete’s breaking her bones. plus, cpr won’t bring you back from a coma like that, unless you have demonic aid. ;P
The 3rd comment pretty much sums it up.
I actually disagree with ya Gerard, and think this issue was no better than the previous one.
Mainly because its told as an MJ story, and that reiterates the main problem many people have been having with BND as a whole: the characterization of Peter Parker. Peter’s not there. Oh he’s at the start of the story, but during all of MJ’s angsting we just see scant images of Spider-Man on television. And expositionally we’re told he hasn’t left his room besides webslinging. To me, its not good enough to just say how miserable Peter is, you really need to show it. This isn’t a miniseries, this is ASM and it has to be about Peter Parker. Not Harry Osborn, not Carlie Cooper, not Mary Jane. What the fuck was going on in his brain throughout the issue when we were seeing Mary Jane? Why aren’t we being shown that? We know MJ puts a lot of thought into their future, but by not seeing Peter’s thoughts, it comes off (to me anyway) as Peter either not thinking enough about it or at all.
This issue, this arc needs to be about both Peter and MJ. Do what JMS did and show both characters’s thought processes in the aftermath of the wedding. Don’t just show MJ and her doubts and her dumb reasonings on getting married and what kids are for. Show Peter’s as well. But we didn’t get that here, because of we did then either we’d see Peter’s long-time need to get married or we wouldn’t see more implications of MJ being the bad guy by not coming to terms with him and Spider-Man. I hated that aspect, and while its not the script it is the writing, and I thought it made this issue suck hard.
Well this was definetly better than last issue, but I still think 3 out of 5 is a little generous….at this point I’m just ready for this story to be over. At least this book was a lot of fun to look at….
I don’t understand Joe Quesada. He blatently has his company promise big changes to readers (new and old) that he has no intention of really doing. THere was no unmasking story, but more to the point he produces what is called the ‘worst comic issue of all time’ then he repeatidly goes back and points to it like a child who just spilled paint all over the floor and says ‘Look what I did’ and has no idea that it’s wrong to just keep promising new things to readers and not put the work in on it, to not make it a decent story because apparently there are things two years down the road which are supposed to more important. That’s a terrihble way of writing. Joe should of grown a brain and stop promising explanations to bad stories that never made sense to begin with.
Ofcourse this is terrible. That’s the quality of work Joe Quesada will be known for after he is gone.
This issue is clearly way better than the first one. I’m actually surprised Joe gave us a good story but as always it does go to hell eventually. I still wonder what the hell Joe was thinking about getting married only to have kids. I checked out all that stuff about that upcoming ‘Big Time’ era. I believe it’s called Big Time because it’s an admission that OMD and BND failed big time and that Marvel will try to make it up big time.
Unmarried people, i should have said, but maybe my original sentence still stands.
Unmarried children don’t have children? I live in Kentucky, so i know that isn’t true…
When exactly did MJ say in Original Reality that her motive for marrying Peter was to have children? Seems to me that that is a motivation that would have far pre-dated any devil pigeons or Legion of Bricks. Oh, I know — she didn’t.
Because there is no such thing as a married couple that doesn’t have kids. Nope, just doesn’t happen. *eyeroll
The stupidness of the marriage only to have kids line really really bugged the hell outta me Gerard, I couldn’t even enjoy the first half of the issue because I knew what it was leading to and it was leading to a god awful explanation in which they were together but not married.
If only I could of read this issue in a complete vaccum.
To be fair, we’ve seen Peter perform CPR on normal people before without seriously injuring them.
“Oh noes, I’ve been found out! Smear campaigners, back in the car, somebody talked!”
At least you admitted it.
Oh noes, I’ve been found out! Smear campaigners, back in the car, somebody talked!
“Holy shit a PASSING GRADE? ON OMIT? FROM CRAWLSPACE!?!?!?!?”
Wow, you sound like someone with an agenda to smear this site.
Saying the Clone Saga happened without MJ being pregnant is like saying the Master Planner storyline happened with a healthy Aunt May.
Holy shit a PASSING GRADE? ON OMIT? FROM CRAWLSPACE!?!?!?!?
I need to report to BD. Somebody has hacked into Gerald’s account and misusing his name!
It gets a 0 from me, worse Spiderman story since one more day