Amazing Spider-Man #660 – Review

By: Fred Van Lente & Dan Slott (writers), Mike McKone & Stefano Caselli (art), Marte Gracia (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

Infestation back-up by: Slott (writer), Lee Garbett (pencils), Scott Hanna (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors) & Caramagna (letters)

Ghost Rider back-up by: Rob Williams (writer), Garbett (pencils), Alejandro Sicat (inks), Fabio D’Auria (colors), Caramagna (letters) & Pyle & Wacker (editors)

The Story: Spider-Man and the FF are forced to square off against the Sinister Six on a Caribbean island.

What’s Good: One of the minor problems I had with ASM #659 was that the Sinister Six just didn’t seem to be a big enough challenge for the Spidey + FF combo (especially once you toss in the FF kids).  I kinda looked at that cliffhanger last issue and thought, “Those bad guys are going to get a BAD beat down!”  Granted, the bad guys always get a beat-down, but the writers have to come up with ways to make the same old villains seem freshly threatening to the same old heroes who have kicked their asses hundreds of times over the decades and we’ve certainly seen Spidey clobber these guys before.  So, it was with some glee that I saw that the danger wasn’t quite as straightforward as it seemed last issue.  That shouldn’t be surprising since both Slott and Van Lente are really smart writers who simply don’t do pedestrian superhero comics, especially when one of the villains is Mysterio.

Basically any time Mysterio is in a comic, you know that whatever is being shown to you is NOT the true story and I should have known better.  But still, I didn’t anticipate the neat wrinkle that [SPOILER] Mysterio and Chameleon are the only SS members actually in the Caribbean while the rest of the villains are breaking into the Baxter Building and thereby setting up another cool cliffhanger.

It was also really nice to see that Carlie Cooper’s little tattoo adventure didn’t turn out the way it was broadcast in the last issue.  I didn’t see any way getting a Goblin tattoo would turn out well for her, so I’m glad she made a different (though still ironic) choice.  Knowing the dynamics of Peter’s love-life, you know that his time with Carlie is probably coming to an end and that’s a shame because I’m just starting to really like her.

Mike McKone guest stars on art and does a GREAT job.  His style shades much more toward the realism, but he has enough of a cartooning background to pull off some of these crazy scenes where the FF’s powers get all mixed up.

What’s Not So Good: I’m not a huge fan of misdirection in my comics.  I know it is a standard writing tool and I don’t mind when things are left unclear, but it does kinda bug me when you have a scene in #659 where Carlie is pretty clearly picking out the Goblin tattoo only to see that she finally got something else in this issue.  It just seems that talented writers like Slott and Van Lente shouldn’t have to resort to that blunt instrument of deliberately misleading the reader.  They’re too good for that and those two writers plus a nice artist like Caselli could have made a really neat scene that left Carlie’s tattoo choice ambiguous.

Amazing Spider-Man #659 – Review

By: Dan Slott (story), Fred Van Lente (script), Stefano Caselli (art), Marte Gracia (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

Bug Time Infestation intro by: Dan Slott (writer), Barry Kitson (art), Edgar Delgado (colors) & Caramagna (letters)

Ghost Rider team-up by: Rob Williams (writer), Lee Garbett (art), Alejandro Sicat (inks), Fabio D’Auria (colors), Caramagna (letters) & Pyle & Wacker (editors)

The Story: Spider-Man goes on a swashbuckling Caribbean adventure with the FF (the Future Foundation)…

What’s Good: I think we’ve found a couple of writers who would do a great job with the FF whenever Jonathan Hickman leaves the title.  Both Dan Slott’s story and Fred Van Lente’s script capture the fun, family dynamic that we’ve come to expect when Spidey interacts with the FF.  These are characters who are comfortable around each other because they’ve known each other for decades.  Heck, the FF all know Spidey’s true identity!  But, Spidey still interjects a slightly different and awkward feel into the group because he is new.  It’s kinda like the difference between knowing someone socially and staying at their home for a week and having them learn about your bathroom habits.

The story itself is fun as hell as the team finds themselves sucked into a Caribbean pirate adventure with the Thing playing dress up!  Basically they go down to the Caribbean to investigate some dimensional anomaly and end up running into zombie pirates guarding Blackbeard’s treasure.  And that is all fun, but this is very much a Van Lente script with his mix of pop culture references and high-level humor.  For example, we have Spider-Man and the Thing enjoying an ongoing Beastie Boys joke with the word “booty” (much to Sue Storm’s chagrin) and Reed Richards being called “Mr. Elongated Man” to which he tells the villager, “I hope you have good lawyers.”  It’s just a great little story that ends up with a bunch of Spidey villains and the FF kids getting into the fun.  Every page has something that makes you smile.

It looks like Van Lente learned how to toss softballs to Stefano Caselli during that Spider Slayer story arc a few months ago, because this art is a LOT tighter than that work was.  I really didn’t see a shaky panel anywhere and the highlight was when Caselli busted out some zombies that reminded me a lot of Rafael Albuquerque’s vampires in American Vampire.  In case you haven’t read my reviews of AV….that is high praise.  Nice coloring too!

Amazing Spider-Man #658 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Javier Pulido (art), Muntsa Vicente & Javier Rodriguez (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

Ghost Rider back-up by: Rob Williams (writer), Lee Garbett (pencils), Alejandro Sicat (inks), Fabio D’Auria (colors), Caramagna (letters), Pyle & Wacker (editors)

The Story: Now that Spidey has joined the FF, what will the first adventure hold? And will it cause any stress in his relationship with Carlie?

What’s Good: It really isn’t correct to say that a writer captures “the voice” of a fictional character.  After all, these are fictional characters and they have no voice other than what is given to them by the writer.  Sure, they can be more or less in sync with what other writers have done with a character in the past, but there really isn’t a correct interpretation of a character.  That being said, Dan Slott writes a great Peter Parker.  His Peter is smart, earnest, socially-awkward, optimistic and funny.  This is the way this reviewer likes to see the character portrayed because it’ll make for such a great contrast when Peter has to get all grim and gritty on a villain during a more serious story arc.

The basic plotline for this issue is: Spidey’s first FF mission.  Fun abounds as Spidey first tries out a costume that doesn’t go over too well with the Thing, but that is quickly forgotten as the gang starts taking on a trio of zany missions that involves them going to France (and having fun with a mime), the microverse and the FAR future.

This issue, we also welcome back Carlie Cooper after Peter’s love life had taken a several issue time-out.  I don’t know about you, but I just don’t feel like it’s a complete Spidey story without the love life angle.  Of course, Peter’s involvement with the FF is going to make it pretty difficult for him to maintain his secret identity and keep Carlie around.  It’ll be interesting to see whether Carlie uses her CSI-skills to figure out Peter’s secret life, and if she does, whether she’ll be understanding or not.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (writer), Lee Garbett, Pere Perez (artists), Alejandro Sicat and Walden Wong (inks)

The Story: Bruce Wayne arrives at the end of time, where those weird-eyed, fuzzy archivists help him along on the last leg of his journey through time and into the final steps of Darkseid’s plan to use him as a weapon. Superman, Rip Hunter and Green Lantern are stranded there, only moments away from catching up with Bruce. In the present….the JLA is waiting.

What’s Good: I know there are a few readers who argue that Batman needs the setting of Gotham to be an honest depiction (I’m usually one of those readers). Some have pilloried Morrison for sending essentially a regular guy in leather and spandex through time. However, Morrison did drop some thematic markers throughout the mini-series that he picked up here to good effect (in Tim Wayne’s mouth): It isn’t really fair that a regular guy has to fight gods. This is a deep statement that can be read in any number of ways. I really like that Morrison said it. The issue of scale in superhero comics is usually ignored (“Go get ’em Thor and…um…Hawkeye…” or “Superman, you check left! Wildcat, you cover right!”) which can really diminish a story in some ways. Morrison doesn’t solve the problem, but that nod to a basic flaw in comics made the end-of-time sequence really, really cool, as well as the psychedelic brushes with the New Gods mythos near the end. I also *loved* the nod to origin of Batman, with the hand on the bell, not knowing if he should ring or not for Alfred to come fix him up. This was very cool. It crystallized what Morrison had been doing with the bats throughout the series. There’s a lot more cool writing and story stuff, but we’re on word limits here, so I’ll stop for now.