Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #29 Review: The Bogenrieder Perspective

In which Peter tries to catch a plane.

Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #29

“Arrivals/Departures”

Writer: Nick Spencer

Line Art: Francesco Manna

Colors: Carlos Lopez

Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna

Editors: Nick Lowe and Kathleen Wisneski

Editor-in-Chief: CB Cebulski

Plot:

As Peter encourages MJ to take the part made specially for her, he promises to see her off at the airport. Before that, he helps Aunt May to get the FEAST Center painted, and talks to her about MJ. Aunt May channels the fans and readers and says that she’s the one for Peter, out comes the character that Waid and Zdarsky tried to get me to care about, Teresa Parker, agent of… I forgot. She wrings Peter into her personal goal of freeing her ex-coworker/maybe boyfriend from the Chameleon, but they arrive too late before Dmitri’s memory extractor kills him.

As a consequence, Peter misses MJs flight, with Carlie taking her to the airport instead. As Peter calls her via FaceTime to wish her a good night, he hangs up to reveal his true reason for wanting to go to the airport with her: he wanted to ask her to marry him. As the issue closes, he thinks to himself, “Maybe some other day.”

Thoughts:

I think that this issue takes a lot of the previous complaints that Spencer has received on prior issues and takes the criticism to give us a genuine fix, and I think as a result it’s one of the strongest issues of his entire run. We’ve made comments before about how there’s too much emphasis on the supporting cast and Spider-Man instead of developing Peter’s personal life (As much as I love Boomerang, this ain’t Superior Foes) and so the emphasis is on Peter Parker, and only Peter Parker. (In fact, I think Spider-Man is mentioned only a couple times, in how Peter feels he’s being dragged into a cycle because Spider-Man as a concept forces it.) Peter might suit up, but his inner monologue is constantly talking about the people on the personal side of his life, and it’s further emphasized by him teaming up with Theresa, a person who knows both sides of his life but focuses on the mask and not the man, which is reflected by MJ who wants the man and not the mask. (Side note: can we take a moment and thank Spencer for not having MJ get ultra-upset and break up with Peter for doing the right thing? It’s nice to have Peter fail but not lose at every aspect in life. We all know who I’m talking about here.) I think Spencer absolutely understands and has fun with examining the very cyclical nature of comic books as a medium, and having it referenced in an almost meta sense is somewhat admirable, if not a little too on the nose.

Artwise, Francesco Manna does a solid job on taking over for previously-solicited Ryan Ottley. (Who I wish would stop getting pulled off for whatever reason, I think his style provides a uniqueness to Spidey amongst the crowd of Marvel books flooding the market.) If anything, the worst I can say about Manna is that he comes off as a poor man’s Stuart Immonen; and if the worst I can say about a person is that they’re a knock off of a fantastic artist while still being able to carry their own weight, then let them be a poor man’s version of an artist. His versions of Peter and MJ stood out to me, especially with the color work done by Carlos Lopez, who does solid if not anything particularly of note. Marte Gracia and Nathan Fairbairn are people who come to mind for ambitious, non-house style of coloring that emphasizes characters over backgrounds; it’s competent here, but I dunno if it really pushes any conventions.

We also got more use out of Carlie Cooper, who has been lingering around in the background (And I’ve been asking around seeing if people noticed that she’s only around when Peter isn’t, which makes me think that whether she knows it or not she’s some kind of flunky to Kindred in the same ballpark as Mysterio and Kingpin.) as an effective confidant for MJ. I wasn’t as blown away, however, by Teresa Parker, and she felt more like a lame attempt to remind us that she was here, and force Peter to get onto Chameleon’s trail. Speaking of, I have several theories about what Chameleon is looking for (And most if not all of them have ties to Superior Foes) and I’m fairly interested to see where it goes from here, if not lying on the backburner and wishing we could get more continuation at the forefront of Kindred’s plan. (While MJ leaving is all part of that plan, seeing more of Kindred every once in a while would be nice.) Aunt May also gets a lot of solid writing in the one scene she has, particularly her monologue about Peter and MJ’s relationship.

Speaking of, I guess it’s time to SPILL THAT WEDDING RING TEA, SIS!

Like the moron with too much free time I am, I did the math, and assuming that MJ’s first arc/mini ends with her returning to New York on the same month and before the last ASM issue that month, that means she’d be returning around or in ASM #40. If Peter proposes to her right then and there, they’d have ten issues worth of engagement time before what I’m guessing will be a big, oversized issue 50 to twist the knife to King’s Batman fiasco again, and enough Kindred shenanigans for the whole thing to be covered by the time the issue wraps. I know I’m doing a lot of spitballing and long-term predicting, but I’ve been on a roll with my predictions so far, and I think it says a lot that I’m genuinely excited and thinking things out long-term; it says something that I care.

ASM #29 is proof that the title has made a triumphant return to character-driven storytelling, and it’s proof that even when it becomes soap-opera in its storytelling, Spencer is a great enough storyteller to make me care regardless. I don’t expect high art or anything on this caliber for the Absolute Carnage tie-ins, but for the moment I’m willing to just sit here with something good, and hope it lasts and becomes something greater.

Final Grade: A