THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #557 Review

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #557
TITLE: “Dead of Winter”
WRITER: Zeb Wells
PENCILS: Chris Bachalo

INKS: Townsend, Irwin, Faucher, Mendoza and Vey
COLORS: Antonio Fabela & Chris Bachalo
Reviewed By: Crazy Chris

PLOT:

Rabin must make a female sacrifice before he can bond with his deity, and Carlie’s on the menu. The mad mathematician drives her to the deity, who is busy pummeling Spider-Man. Before Rabin can kill Carlie and complete the ritual, Vern and his homeless friends arrive to bombard the gruesome god with Molotov cocktails. Spider-Man tosses his web cartages into the fire so they explode into a mass of goop that holds the deity long enough for the stellar alignment to end, forcing the creature to return to his home dimension. Spider-Man kicks Rabin’s ass and all is well.

THOUGHTS:

Zeb Wells convinces me that the brand new writers can tell great Spider-Man tales; however, he’s come nowhere close to demonstrating that the altered status quo can produce a great Peter Parker story. In fact, our hero’s civilian persona only appears for a few pages in this entire arc.

That’s probably why I like it so much. This story has no contrived “Parker Luck” and none of what Morb immortally dubbed as “creepy, stupid loser” Peter. It was just a cool Spider-Man story, and that’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for.

I liked the army of bums saving Spider-Man. Sometimes Spider-Man defeats his enemies with his intellect, and sometimes he does so with his strength, but this time he won just with good karma. After three months of Peter getting burned by his own stupidity and selfishness, an actual physical and moral victory feels especially satisfying.

Oh, and the panel-crossing Deity attacks were really fun. I wish they had done more with them.

FAVORITE QUOTE:

“Is this how you commune with your gods?”

“Y-Yes. And they told me to tell you to stop hitting me.”

RATING:

4 webheads out of 5. Amazing Spider-Man is now the Marvel comic with the highest issue numbers, and Zeb Wells makes the book worthy of that distinction. Sadly, he isn’t writing many installments in the near future. Bob Gale, on the other hand, has several more coming out in the next two months. Life is unfair.

REVIEWED BY: CrazyChris