Alford Notes: Amazing Spider-Man Sins Rising Prelude #1

A whole issue devoted to Sin-Eater’s story arc!  What sort of justice will we see here?  Grab your shotguns, dear reader, and let’s go all Inside Out on Stan Carter and see what makes him tick!

 

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Story Title:  Sins Rising Prelude

Writer: Nick Spencer

Artist: Guillermo Sanna

Colorist: Jordie Bellaire

Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga

Cover Artist: Ryan Ottley and Nathan Fairbairn

Asst. Editor: Kathleen Wisneki

Editor: Nick Lowe

Published: July 22, 2020

 

Remedial Sin-Eater

Kindred resurrected Sin-Eater to torture Peter a bit more.  Don’t know much about the original Sin-Eater saga?  Read this Cobwebs article repost.  Don’t know much about the second Sin-Eater saga?  Well, next week read the follow up Cobwebs.

However, I have a MAJOR issue with the recap page.  Those of you who know me already know where this is going.

What the heck, Nick Lowe?  It has been made decidedly clear early both in comic and in solicits that Kindred is a ‘he’. No, I’m not assuming his gender; it has been spelled out to us.  I’ll refrain from making the same argument yet again.

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

Sin-Eater relives his life in a time and reality-warped way, explaining where he came from and his motives for killing those he did.  After reliving his death, Kindred appears and informs him that he is not finished yet.

 

Instead of the usual pass/fail, let’s jump right into the Analysis.

Analysis

Stan Carter’s Background and Motivation – Nick Spencer is adding to the previous story (rather than retconning it) and gives us why Stan did what he did. His druggie parents and unforgiving grandfathers lead Stan to be raised in the Ozarks.  The grandfather is a pastor at a snake handling church and the people of the area practice the Sin-Eater ritual.  Typically, I do not like the religious-fanatic-goes-around-killing-people cliche, but it is tied deeply into Sin-Eater’s motif and I think we can fairly say that Stan’s future actions would have happened regardless of his religious experience.

The act of snake handling is performed in only a few churches nationwide, and most of them are found in the Appalachia region rather than the Ozarks.  The practice stems from Paul reaching for a piece of wood and getting bit by a viper, but does not have any ill effects.  Paul doesn’t then tell people to go and do likewise, which is why you do not see this performed in the majority of churches.  This came from George Hensley who was a former Methodist who decided that snake handling was a great way to test one’s faith in 1910.  He spread the practice until he died (of a snake bite) in 1955. Since 1919, 91 people have died from snake handling gone wrong.

In any case, the practice of sin-eating is found absolutely nowhere in the bible and comes largely from Wales, so this Ozarks community is a bit odd in its practice of religion.  Obviously, Spencer is working a bit overtime here to show us that this is an extreme religious community.  Stan witnesses this ritual and becomes obsessed with it, to point of saying that he never left the Ozarks even when he moved to New York.  Again, I think it is fair to say that this witness does not cause Stan to act the way he does, but it does give him the imagery to use when acting out his murders later.  But the religious motivation does make this panel from the original series have a bit of irony to it.

Rationale for his previous killings – in the original, there is no rationale given for why these people are killed other than he knows that they have sinned.  Peter David leads us to think that Sin-Eater is overly harsh in his judgement on people.  In fact, the judge he kills is presented as a friend of Matt Murdock. Here we get a glimpse into how his mind processed what happened.  DeWolff lied to him about his partner’s case.  The reverend told him about when he stole from the offering plate as a child.  The judge was having an affair.  It’s nice to fill in that gap, but we really do not need to know what his reasoning was as it was just an excuse.  Sin-Eater also kills an old man just to get away from Spider-Man, so his doing this as part of fighting the good fight is flawed.

Unreliable Narrator – I love this literary term.  Narrators who lie to you cause you to read deeper than usual.  There is a great issue (in PPTSSM, I believe), where JJJ, MJ, and Peter all tell what happened at a bank robbery. You can’t believe hardly anything JJJ or MJ say since they take all the glory for themselves and tout themselves as the hero of the day.  Stan here is an unreliable narrator, not because he is intentionally lying, but rather due to his warped way of processing reality.  What we see in his mind is his justification for doing what he did.  Take the druggie that killed his partner.  It is presented almost as if this guy was connected to the sin-eater he saw as a child.  Killing this guy prompts Stan to take up the role, a la The Santa Clause or On a Pale Horse.
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New Powers – in the original, Stan was just a guy with mildly enhanced strength and mental abilities (nothing Spidey couldn’t handle) and a shot gun that gave Spider-Man a complete run for his money.  Daredevil too, for that matter.  He got this because in his S.H.I.E.L.D. days, they gave him a drug based off of Phencyclidine (Angel Dust).  The original saga led us to believe it was the drug that pushed him over the deep end, but we can now see he was dancing on the edge already.  So now that Kindred has resurrected him and given him untold new powers (can he do what he did in the ASM 44 dream? Did he make that thing in the vault explode?), he will certainly be a threat to Spidey.  Plus, it seems clear that Stan is no longer in the driver’s seat.  More like tied up and dumped in the trunk.

Kindred – Well, the Sin-Eater is the embodiment of Kindred’s goal – causing Peter to face up to his sins, though I don’t think Kindred is wanting Sin-Eater to actually kill Peter, but perhaps those around him.  This guy’s role in Kindred’s scheme I understand, Mysterio not so much.

Spencer vs David – While I do not believe this is a Spencer vs David type things, but rather Nick Spencer honoring Peter David, I am curious if Spencer can capture what made David’s Sin-Eater so good.  The guy was just a dude with a shotgun, yet got one over on Daredevil by playing on the secret identity trope (Murdock paused to consider how to act to keep his identity secret and in that pause, Sin-Eater killed the judge) and got one over on Spider-Man by playing on the can’t-beat-me-because-my-powers-are-awesome trope (Spidey jumps out of the way of a shotgun blast thanks to his handy Spider-Sense, but in doing so, leaves an old man behind him in  the line of fire).  Can Spencer pull that same feel out, or does he have to if Sin-Eater now has extra powers?

Homework

My son Grant (famed Carnage-Swarm creator – “every bee has his own Carnage face!”) has informed me that Sin-Eater did appear in Axis: Carnage, back from the dead with new powers to consume the sins of all, but was defeated by Carnage since his sins were too much of an all-you-can-eat buffet.  Read the series (I’m going to have to) so you can see if Spencer is drawing from that mythos as well.  From this Prelude, it is not looking like it, but we won’t know unless we bite the bullet and do our homework.

Extra Credit

Find the issue number that JJJ/MJ/Peter bank robbery story was in and post it in the comments.  I want to reread it now!

 

Final Grade

It was a good issue and a nice romp through a lunatic’s mind.  But nothing new happened that we didn’t already know (Sin-Eater has already been tromping through the 616 universe – I was hoping to get some insight on that) aside from the grandfather and a few details about the people killed in the original saga.  Plus, the last ASM issue was a dream sequence, so I am more than ready for some story.  I’m looking for a drumette and only got a flap.

C+

 

‘Nuff Said!