Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #25 Review: The Bogenrieder Perspective

It’s an extra-sized issue of Spider-Man, and that means an extra-sized review from yours truly! As year two kicks off, can Spencer get us hooked for the journey ahead?

Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #25

“Opening Night”

Writer: Nick Spencer

Pencils: Ryan Ottley, Humberto Ramos, Patrick Gleason and Kev Walker

Inks: Patrick Gleason, Kev Walker

Colors: Nathan Fairbairn, Edgar Delgado, Dave Stewart and Laura Martin

Editor: Nick Lowe and Kathleen Wisneski

EiC: C.B. Cebulski

“Team Up”

Writer: Zeb Wells

Lineart: Todd Nuack

Colors: Rachelle Rosenberg

“Robo-Helpers”

Writer: Keaton Patti

Art: Dan Hipp

Plot:

“Opening Night”

Our issue begins right where the last issue left off; Kindred cornering the therapist after slaughtering Mysterio. However, it’s revealed that the therapist was indeed Mysterio reusing his old Ludwig Reinhart persona, and to Kindred’s anger, telling his therapist Kindred’s name to sell the piece. In retribution, Mysterio begins kicking his plan into gear, giving Mysterio a script.

Elsewhere, Peter is off looking for Doctor Connors, and consequently misses a play with MJ; never fear, because everybody’s favorite supporting cast member, Carlie Cooper (Yeah, right) is there on invite from MJ, who is friends/former rivals with the lead actress, Melanie Daniels. During the show, Electro(a) hijacks the show, holding Melanie hostage in a real-time streaming hostage. (Modern and not tacky? Spencer really is the master of “how do you do, fellow kids” writing!) Thanks to some quick thinking on MJ’s part, including a monologue and using Carlie as a punching bag (I’ll admit, I laughed), she manages to both save Melanie and capture Electro(a). This renewed spotlight puts her back in contact with her old agent, who offers her a leading role in a new film… helmed by Mysterio! (Shelectro is later freed by Beetle and the all-new, all-female Sinister Syndicate.)

Back to Peter, he convinces Doc Connors to take a leap of faith and leave his cardboard box, and get a new chip implanted to return home to his family. Peter, however, makes his own leap of faith, and chooses to join Dr. Connors’ class to properly earn his degree. In a speech to the class, Connors reveals his theory that the future is being destroyed when, not at all by coincidence, Spider-Man 2099 is found on a damaged oil rig.

Backups:

Peter and Jonah team up to discover a new threat from the Hostess homeworld, the Chromatic Men, and Spidey’s suit gets color-swapped; this leads him to recruit Doctor Strange. We never get a resolution.

Also, we watch a guy whose entire gimmick is feeding a bot everything of a specific topic force a bot to make a Spider-Man comic. The pigeons owe him favors.

Thoughts:

So, as is Marvel’s tradition per the industry collapsing, every 25 issues we need to have an overpriced issue with more pages and backup stories to justify the price tag. And every time it happens, I have to constantly question whether it’s worth making my wallet hurt for my Wednesday Warrior habits.

And for the first time ever, I feel like it was for the most part worth that price tag. While I don’t think “Opening Night” tops “One on One” in terms of entertainment value, Spencer works some real witchcraft to tell an entertaining story and set up the next year’s worth of stories. And now that he’s made some real progress in fixing the book, I’m hoping that he’ll dedicate more time to doing what he does best, which comes down to character and making the plot integral to their growth rather than the other way around, as opposed to one of the few major criticisms I’ve had of the new run. (Him spending too much time fixing everybody else’s mistakes instead of getting to tell his own stories, which isn’t his fault and really shouldn’t be held against him alone.)

For starters, the main story is focused on MJ, and I adore how she’s portrayed in this issue. Not only does she have a ton of agency and proves that she can be her own autonomous character instead of being tied at the hip to Peter, it shows that she’s not new to the superhuman scene, as well as using her skills as an actress and her behind-the-scenes knowledge to keikaku her way into defeating Electro without even lifting a finger to fight back. While I’m not necessarily thrilled about her returning to acting, I’m okay with it for one specific reason; the entire stuation of MJ getting back into acting is Mysterio, and everything is being engineered by Kindred to pigeonhole Peter into a specific position; this is fairly obvious part of the plan, and I wouldn’t be surprised if after finding out the truth MJ quits and finds a new position she’s more comfortable in. (I also have reason to suspect that Kindred engineered the Electro hostage-taking to set her up for this specific choice in career to thrust her back into the spotlight.)

This also ties into Kindred’s plan to, as revealed by Kindred staring into the mirrors of Peter’s Spider-friends, to divide and conquer him so that, as he has said before, “they can be alone together.” Leave him pigeonholed and on the defensive; fear is a helluva weapon, especially when you’re alone in the dark. But to quell those thinking it was just a prank, bro, the rats coming out of his body more or less confirm that this is the real deal. And even though Peter’s forte is street-level stuff, if this is truly going in the direction of fixing OMD, I’m all for this.

Before moving onto the secondary/counterpart story, I do want to address that I didn’t hate Carlie Cooper in this issue for her mere presence, and if Brad chooses to fire me for my opinion, so be it. I think that there are some issues with her appearance (The book continues the ever-lasting problem that Carlie’s hair color can’t stay consistent) but she works as a lackey for MJ and somebody to bounce off of in the absence of Peter. That, and her getting shocked and being visibly used as a punching bag is somewhat cathartic for those familiar with the BND era.

Moving on, I think Peter’s arc with Doctor Connors being resolved and given a new step is a welcome one; one of the things I wasn’t too keen on was Peter dragging his feet on giving Doctor Connors an answer, and I’m glad that he wrapped it up after three months of Hunted; I’m not sure if this will be added in to create more directions for Peter to be stretched out in, but it definitely gives him something to do going forward besides doing Spider-Man stuff.

I’m gonna be that guy and say that I wasn’t a big fan of Ramos returning, especially since I thought we were rid of him after Hunted. Regardless, he was there, and he was relegated more or less to a secondary story, as MJ had the spotlight for the most part. That said, I’m glad that Ottley got the majority of the page time for the main story, as he makes the art pop and works well with the environments Spencer has given him. (It’s great watching MJ and Carlie watch a play that centers around the F4, and allowed for Ottley to show off his ability to draw the F4 if he ever gets tired of drawing Spidey, though I’m sure right now he’s at the job of his dreams.)

Continuing on artists, this was the artistic debut of Patrick Gleason, known for being a company man for DC; the entire Crawlspace Discord was freaking out during C2E2 when it was announced Gleason was moving over to the  House of Recycled Ideas, and we all came to a general consensus that putting him on the flagship was a smart play by Marvel. His debut is an impressive one, showing his ability to draw a wide range of characters, as well as Dave Stewart providing some impressive and vibrant colors to coordinate. Kev Walker, whose work on Doctor Aphra I liked, felt a little off on the other hand, mostly because of the bulky lines and clunky character designs. (The designs for Scorpia and White Rabbit in partcular look way to thick for their standard designs, Scorpia in particular deviating from Dodson and Iszakke’s slimmer designs.)

I’m not sure what I want to say about the back up stories, because there’s really no substance to them. Zeb Wells did a solid, if mediocre job, with the main backup, and Nuack does good work, but the lack of a resolution and the rushed pacing leaves me wanting. Personally, I think it it should’ve gone through another round of editing. And the bot story is something I was doubting was made by an actual bot, because bot input is Keaton Patti’s specialty and I have this feeling he’s running out of things to put into the bot. Regardless, I got a good chuckle. Art was cute.

Was this what I really wanted for a milestone issue? A really great main story and two mediocre backups? Not really, I would have preferred more of the main story in the same vein as #1 especially now that the reveals from SDCC are out; but I appreciate what we got, and even if the backups weren’t really worth it, I still think my money was better spent here as opposed to the last 25 issue milestone. (Which was also 2 bucks more expensive. Ech)

Final Grade (Main Story): A

Back Up 1: C

Back Up 2: C