Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #42 Review: The Bogenrieder Perspective

Amazing Spider-Man? More like the Amazing [REDACTED], am I right?

Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #42

“True Companions, Pt 2”

Writer: Nick Spencer

Pencils: Ryan Ottley

Inks: Cliff Rathburn

Colors: Nathan Fairbairn

Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna

Editors: Nick Lowe and Kathleen Wisneski

Editor-in-Chief: CB Cebulski

Plot:

Rather than focusing on Peter and Boomerang, the plot diverts to show Gog’s own history. In his home dimension, he was a small and beloved pet of the prince of an alien race; however, he is Kal-El’d/Baby Yoda’d/Pokemon’d away during the evacuation of their planet via an invasion. Cue Amazing Spider-Man #103-104 where Kraven raises him, and Peter buries him in quicksand. Timeskip to Larsen’s Revenge of the Sinister Six, where Gog is the final member of Doc Ock’s gun-wielding Sinister Six. (1992 was a weird year, for better or worse. I would know, I didn’t even exist then.)

Peter implores Reed to send Gog home, and he does so… only for Gog’s home to be ravaged by war. Gog is briefly reunited with his boy Blu, but an explosion puts an end to that bit real quick, and the boy’s mother tearfully reveals that the Lifeline tablet is the cause of their woes. Shattering it, she asks Gog to go back to Earth-616 and protect the fragments.

And cue the present day.

Thoughts:

I think the easiest complaint to make about this issue (And one I’ve already made fun of in the byline) is that this book is less “The Amazing Spider-Man” and more “The Amazing Gog”, with Spider-Man only appearing for three or so pages to set up the preview. But, and I’m gonna be real here, this is arguably one of the single best issues of Spencer’s run; the Gibbon issue is a hard hurdle to catch up to, and even if ASM #42 doesn’t make it all the way, it certainly comes damn close.

Easily the MVPs of this issue go out to Ryan Ottley, Cliff Rathburn and Nathan Fairbairn, who carry the burden of making Gog’s entire life story easy to follow, especially with the minimalist and fragmented dialogue of our temporary main character; the team does a solid job recreating the encounters from previous runs of ASM, sometimes down to the exact detail. (With Larsen’s era, for better or worse, they even drew and colored in the guns correctly, which is a very good attention to detail.) The coloring is saturated at justs the right tone for a Spider-Man story, and the lighting is made excellent by the time of day and elements of costumes for the light to work with. (The explosion of Blu is the standout example for me, and serves as a solid view through Gog’s eyes of the world around him.)

That said, I would be remiss to point out that this is a spectacular tale that shows how good Spencer’s storytelling is, as well as his ability to relegate how much of the storytelling that he thinks the artist can take. While the story is clearly told in broken dialogue fitting of Gog’s monstrous nature, Ottley clearly carries the brunt of the storytelling potential, and it shows just how much faith Spencer has in Ottley. While I might not have said early on in Spencer’s run that Spencer and Ottley are a match made in heaven, I think it’s a statement I’m more prepared to state now. (Even to the point where if I didn’t know better they’re friends behind the scenes on the level of Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman.)

This is also something that Spencer truly gets ahead on as opposed to even the other writers nailing it at Marvel, and I’m willing to say he does it better than even the heavy hitters like Cates, Ewing or even Leah Williams; Spencer understands how to write a compelling villain, (Boomerang is an example of this in the current book, as well as all the main and background characters in Superior Foes) but take the blank spaces in their past and make them genuinely sympathetic, either through simply adding into the blank space, or recontextualizing the elements surrounding the events we’ve already seen as well as adding into the gaps of a character’s history.

That said, the biggest flaw of the issue, while small, is one that others have pointed out; this is more Gog than Peter, (While the titular character bookends the issue, he has very little impact on the story of Gog in the long run) and would have been a stronger grade for others  if it was a Point One issue instead of a main issue, much like the Gibbon issue. However, this one I’m willing to give a pass on: mostly because we give crap to Point One issues all the time, so it was something of a rock and a hard place for both Spencer and editorial alike.

That said? This is up there, with the Gibbon issue. Arguably one of the best of Spencer’s run, and I know I say that enough that the meaning may be diluted, but trust me. I honestly think this could be up one of the best, at the very least on a technical and emotional level. And while it’s disappointing that this may be the last we see of ASM for a good amount of time, and on a cliffhanger like this, I’m glad we got an issue like this to cap out during the quarantine.

Final Grade: A