Amazing Spider-Man #797- Peter and Norman’s Excellent Adventure, Pt 1

“Now, don’t say I don’t ever take you anywhere nice.”

With Dan Slott coming into the home stretch of his ten-year epic on Spider-Man, it’s only fitting that we begin with one last middle finger to his fanbase.

Amazing Spider-Man #797

“Go Down Swinging, Pt 1: The Loose End”

Writer: Dan Slott

Pencils: Stuart Immonen

Inks: Wade von Grawbadger

Colors: Marte Gracia

Editors: Nick Lowe and Devon Lewis

Plot:

Our story begins with Norman Osborn standing in front of a conspiracy board, talking to a hostage off-screen.

We then flashback to MJ’s apartment, where she and Peter are in the middle of a makeout session, and Peter is cockblocked by his own costume. Running off, (With Stormin’ Norman watching him as he leaves through the window) Peter fights some crime (Completed by, what else? Shenanigans!) and goes to work at the Daily Bugle, where he feels sorry for Ben Urich because everybody keeps dumping on him for his Goblin King nephew.

And where is everybody’s favorite Goblin, you may ask? Down in the sewers of New York, completely ignoring the fact that Silk cured him in her solo series! Ain’t continuity a pretty thing? Regardless, Norman comes down to say hello, and he gives Goblin King a rather heartbreaking revelation that he’s still Top Goblin.

Afterward, we find out Norman’s true hostage: J Jonah Jameson.

Thoughts:

Somebody shoot me, I liked an issue of Dan Slott’s run.

Now, bear in mind, I absolutely despise the MJ scene and all that it stands for, but aside from that there was a good deal of stuff to enjoy and it made a genuine page-turner. That said, it feels very much like an attempt to keep the mystery going long enough to get to ASM #800 that I won’t give everything top marks.

For art, our good man Stuart Immonen is back at it, and compared to the artist of the last two issues, Mike Hawthorne, Immonen’s art is a welcome return and will hopefully be up to the same snuff by the time Going Down Swinging ends. Wad von Grawbadger also comes back with a vengeance, delivering clean, crisp clean-up linework to Immonen’s pencils when he needs to, and cluttered ink jobs when he’s allowed the opportunity. Marte Gracia, I have a bit more of a problem with, just because I feel like his skins are, again, too shiny. Regardless, nothing bleeds out of the established lines, so I feel we could have had a massive bullet go into Immonen’s side, but thankfully we avoided this.

On a side note before talking about the greater plot details, I find Peter’s interaction with Jimmy (The purse snatcher) to be an absolute treat. It just helps reconnect Peter to a city he’s been away from too long, and having regular offenders Peter knows by name helps nail down that feeling.

Onto the story, I felt like Slott did a much better job than usual of keeping me invested than he had the potential of not doing. The mystery of who Green Goblin’s hostage was served for a genuine mystery, and though we had a selection of viable hostages, I was actually surprised by the end result. Sure, it would have been a lot easier to have Mary Jane be the hostage (And have Slott easily tarnish her character more.) but Jameson was a genuine wild card for his future in Amazing Spider-Man. That said, while the mystery was certainly there, it wasn’t on the level that Slott boasts about frequently; it certainly wasn’t “Holy cow, I’m totally blown away by this revelation!” It was more like:

If there’s anything I’m going to get mad over, it’s the Mary Jane scene. I’ve come to accept that the marriage is not coming back whatsoever by the time Slott’s run ends, especially with the new creative team just around the corner; at this point, Slott is just baiting readers; and at this point in Slott’s tenure, it’s gotten old and trite, and I want it to stop. I called it way back, and while I still got that people were upset at this revelation, I was disappointed, but not surprised.

There’s also a good number of subplots to keep tabs on the other supporting characters that have cropped up. While Ben Urich is making a return from the pages of Spider-Woman, we get more build-up to the Alchemax crew. Flash getting constantly and unwillingly dragged along is not necessarily an interesting idea, but the idea of getting dragged on a leash by Liz Allen (Note that she’s been slowly getting more and more sinister since Alchemax was first created in Superior Spider-Man) is an interesting idea. Compare and contrast how she was acting in Amazing Spider-Man (Vol 3) #16 to how she blackmails Agent Anti-Venom into doing her company’s dirty work; if Norman is manipulating things behind the scenes at Alchemax, this is a great example of subtle progression. If not, well, it’s nothing new.

I’m planning on writing a retrospective on Slott’s solo run once ASM 801 launches and this will definitely go down as one of the highlight issues of his run since he took the reins from the Think Tank. That said, it’s not exactly high praise, given that most of what he’s written has been utter schlock. But I actually mean it; it’s a good issue, and aside from the utterly wretched Mary Jane moments, it is definitely a good entry for Go Down Swinging.

Final Grade: B