Alford Notes: ASM 13/814

It’s it for poor Spidey and JJJ, folks, because from what I can tell from the last issue, there’s no way Spidey can get out of this one.  Join me for a review of what must be Spidey’s last adventure and let’s all hope he goes out better than the 10^th doctor!

 

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Story Title: Lifetime Achievement part 3

Writer: Nick Spencer

Penciler: Ryan Ottley

Inker: Cliff Rathburn

Colorist: Laura Martin and Andrew Crossley

Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga

Cover Artist: Ryan Ottley and Laura Martin

Designer: Anthony Gambino

Asst. Editor: Kathleen Wisneki

Editor: Nick Lowe

Published: January 16, 2019

 

Remedial ASM 101

Ol’ Jonie (as Kingy likes to call him) is up for a Lifetime Achievement Award given to him by the mayor of New York, as long as Spidey is there to present it.  Spider-Man tells JJJ there is no way he is going to do that when they get attacked by the Enforcers and then got through a JJJ museum (built by Arcade), reliving all of his greatest accomplishments (well, you could use that word for it).  And it was revealed that MJ is just a clone.*

 

The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test

So there is a Big Big Man (get it! Ha!) beating the living snot out of Spider-Man.  The Big Big Man completely defeats Spider-Man and pins him to the ground.  At that moment the Big Big Man opens and a Little Big Man exits – it’s Foswell!  Well, Foswell Jr.  He wants to re-awaken JJJ to his hatred of Spidey and reveals he has been waiting to get revenge for the death of his father, who, in his opinion, was unfairly framed as the Big Man by Spider-Man. He even gives JJJ the honors of shooting Spidey himself with the same gun that was used to kill his father.

JJJ admits  that he may have been a tad bit less than truthful when he last saw Foswell Jr at Foswell’s graveside. So, the Little Big Man decides to just shoot both JJJ and Spidey himself.  JJJ uses the old Spider Slayer remote to save the day then Spidey finally does something by getting the Big Big Man out of the building just before it explodes in the air.  JJJ has a character defining moment and follows it up by insulting Mayor Fisk in front of the press.  After (for all intents and purposes) losing his job, he gets a timely visit from Norah Winters.  We wrap up the issue with Black Ant (yes!) and Taskmaster capturing Scorpion.

POP QUIZ

So Spidey reminisces about the good old days when Foswell used to cosplay as a gangster.  What was his street name?

a. Stoolie
b. One Eye’d Jack
c. Patch
d. Matches Malone

Click the image to see the answer.

What Passed

Once again, Spencer does a masterful job displaying his ability to nail the characterization of a character.  In this case, J. Jonah Jameson.  While the character has changed his character-defining hatred of the wall crawler, Spencer shows how the character can still be Jonah at his core.  These two panels do a great job of it:

On top of that, I’m altogether interested in what Black Ant and Task Master have in store for us.

 

VWOTI (Vocabulary Word of the Issue)

Discombobulate: to be confused

Example Sentence: George left the Into the Spiderverse movie feeling quite discombobulated, being unable to line up his previous hatred of all things Ultimate with his love of this rather well-done piece of animation.

What Failed

There was way too much exposition in this issue, especially for the third issue in a (supposedly) three-part story.  I would have liked to have more put into the fight scene between Spidey and the Big Big Man.

Also, having JJJ save the day is fine, but after the past decade, it is rather unsatisfying.  At least Spidey got rid of the Big Big Man bomb better than Batman got rid of his bomb…

 

Analysis

I have mixed feeling here.  Spencer has been resetting the Spidey universe character by character.  First we get Peter and Spider-Man, then Boomerang, then MJ, then Cat, and now Jonah. Part of me is impressed with his ability to step in a systematically display who these characters are.  Part of me is irritated that he has to do it to begin with.  I crave more action.  The good news is that the satellite title Friendly Neighborhood seems to be in step with this approach and maybe we can, between the two of them, finally get the Spider-verse in order and get to telling good stories.  Some of these resets are taking too long.  The Black Cat story and this one could have been accomplished in two issues each, I believe.

I am intrigued by this mysterious job offer that Norah has for Peter and JJJ, but at this rate, I’ll find out what it is by next Christmas.

 

Dangling Threads

There are still a few things we are waiting to find out –

• Who is Centidemon?
• What is Nora’s new job?
• Is Peter taking classes at ESU or not?
• What’s going on with the Look Ups?
• What’s going on with Boomerang?
• What is Black Ant and Taskmaster up to?
• What’s taking Kraven so long to get to America? Customs issues?  TSA checkpoints?
• When is Deb Whitman coming back?

I’m all for having irons in the fire, but I’d like some to eventually be wrapped up before throwing more in.

 

Was it worth more than…

At three issues, it cost me $12 to read this story.  For that, I could have bought this luminol blood detection spray.  As I don’t have a lot of use for detecting where blood has been, I think I’ll keep the comics.  You may disagree depending on how much blood you find yourself surrounded by on a daily basis.

 

Extra Credit

OK, so bonus points to the first person to put in the comments section who the King Tut guy is that Black Ant and Taskmaster already caught.

 

Final Grade

I love Spencer’s ability to write great characters.  Just not feeling the story on this one.

B-

Of course, I think it is wonderful that my lowest grade in 13 issues has been a B-.

 

Your Turn

What grade do YOU give it?

Would love a quick explanation of what you liked or didn’t like in the comments section!  Did you love it?  Did you hate?  It’s all good – we’re all Spidey fans here!

 

What’s Next?

Who, other than most of New York, would want to punish J. Jonah Jameson?

 

Wait a minute?  Is this Lifetime Achievement part 4?  I don’t know.  And it looks like Rhino’s finished playing around with Miles (here and here for more on that from Grant) and still NO KRAVEN.

Nick Lowe has asked people to let the Spider office know how they are doing by sending an email to spideyoffice@marvel.com and to make sure you mark it “OK to print”.  If you get published, make sure to draw our attention to it!  Please make sure to mark OK to print since I don’t think people have been marking that.  Maybe they are getting flooded with letters, but they keep not having a letters page since nobody is marking them “OK to print”.

 

* OK, so MJ is not a clone.  I just threw that in there to mess with Chi-Town – who I should be thanking for helping me out with last month’s review instead of triggering him like that.  Well, as my students have pointed out time and time again – I’m a jerk.

‘Nuff Said!