Amazing Spider-Man #671 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos Cuevas & Victor Olazaba (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

The Story: A cure for the spider-infections is discovered, but the bad guys are surely going to try to destroy it.

Review: This story is rounding into shape nicely.  That’s appropriate because there’s only one more issue in the main Spider-Island story and Slott has positioned things very well for an exciting finish.  And, when you look back on this series, Slott has covered a lot of ground since New Yorkers first started getting spider powers a couple of months ago.  We started with the examination of great power/great responsibility when some of the new spiders turned to crime and others were more heroic.  Then we had all the relationship stuff between Peter and Carlie.  There was the shift of Big Bad from Jackal to the Queen.  Nice integration of the Venom and Anti-Venom stories and incorporation of the FF and Horizon labs.  Last issue we picked up some callbacks to Dan Slott’s Spider-Slayer arc (~#652) and we finally saw MJ getting some powers.  When you compare to other events (Fear Itself), this is what I want an event to be.

Now, everything isn’t perfect because some stories aren’t getting their time.  Carlie isn’t even mentioned in this issue and MJ having spider-powers only gets a couple of pages and then is dropped.  But, it’s hard to fault Slott too much for that.  They are legit problems with the issue, but I’d much prefer flaws arising from trying to do a little too much than a story-arc that just spins it wheels on one topic for 3 issues.

I’m still enjoying the art, but there are some awkward looking panels in here.  It just looks a little rushed in places.  It’s not “bad”, but there are panels where it looks like Ramos could have laid it out differently if he’d had more time to look at it and there are other places where the inkers give us some odd looking stuff too.  On the other hand, there are some awesome Ramos sequences like Spidey’s encounter with Firestar and Gravity.  Those pages are glorious.  It just looks a tad rushed is all…  But, even then, it’s mostly because of what we expect from Ramos and we’re not quite getting it in every single panel.  The story telling is still crisp and superb.

Amazing Spider-Man #669 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos Cuevas (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

The Story: Spider-Island is in full swing,  Will they find a cure for the infected folks?  Will Peter reveal his secret identity?  And who is the Big Bad who’s been working with Jackal?

What’s Good: Humberto Ramos is great.  He is such a good fit for a Spider-Man story because his art has so much bounce to it.  His characters have TONS of energy and in just about every panel, the characters are doing something.  It’s pretty rare to see a Ramos panel with a bunch of folks sitting still….even when they show a couple of people working on a computer, they are poised over the keyboard, ready to type furiously.  And, he’s a master of layouts.  He’s all over the place: grids, full bleeds, broken panel borders, no panel borders, backgrounds, no backgrounds… You can tell he’s both considering how to draw the action and how best to present that action so that the issue is maximally interesting.

And, Dan Slott is doing all kinds of fun stuff with the story too, especially his work with the Peter/Carlie relationship.  It’s natural to anticipate what’s next in comics and the future for their relationship has been in constant flux during this event due to what choices Peter is making about sharing his secret identity.  It is turning into a very fun cat-and-mouse story that is actually a little more entertaining than the Spider-Island story.  Hopefully, Slott keeps Peter with Carlie instead of sending him back to that trampy MJ.  And….how could Carlie not know that is Peter in the mask?  I mean, they’ve been intimate with each other, how would she not recognize him?

Amazing Spider-Man #667 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos Cuevas (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

The Story: Everyone in NYC is getting spider-powers.  Oh no!  It’s Spider-Island!!!

What’s Good: Honestly, the build-up to this Spider-Island mini-event hasn’t been that great, so expectations were a little tempered for this issue.  But, once you see the action begin, Spider-Island actually drills down to the essence of Peter Parker: With great power comes great responsibility.  We’ve always heard that as Peter Parker’s mantra, but suddenly in Spider-Island we get to see how a whole heap of other people behave once they have “great power”.  Some of them aren’t going to be nearly as benevolent as Peter.

But, some of them will do the right thing and that brings us to the Peter/Carlie Cooper relationship.  As teased last issue, Carlie gets spider-powers and it seems like her powers manifest earlier in time than the rest of borough’s.  This early manifestation is very important to the Peter/Carlie relationship because she immediately tells Peter about her new abilities.  Oh, there’s a lot of fun banter between the two about how Peter could perhaps design her a Spider-suit or Peter inwardly worrying that he may have somehow infected her with spider-powers as if it were an STD.  But the important thing for the “Peter Parker Love Life” is that she was immediately honest with Peter about her powers whereas Peter hasn’t been close to honest with her.  Basically, the Peter-Carlie relationship is dead now, it’s just that the axe hasn’t fallen yet (and may not fall for some time).  But, there can’t be any going back from her total openness and his partial truths.  It also seems to hint that Peter will be divulging his secret to Carlie at some point.

It was a real treat to get Humberto Ramos back on this issue.  He did such a stellar job on the first few issues of Dan Slott’s run (starting with #648) and the Free Comic Book Day issue.  In the intervening months, I’ve reread some of his earlier work and he really has taken his art to a new level recently.  And this issue has all the Ramos trademarks: energetic cartoony characters and very creative layouts and panel designs.  Love it!  It isn’t quite as tight as his earlier ASM issues, but that was 10/10 work and it’s really only a few panels that got away (but they seemed to be the splashier ones – esp the one with Dagger front and center).  Very nice colors by Edgar Delgado too.

Amazing Spider-Man 2011 Free Comic Book Day – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos Cuevas & Victor Olazaba (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

The Story: Does Spider-Man need a little something extra now that he’s lost his spider sense?

What’s Good: The Slott/Ramos team kicked off the “Big Time” arc for Amazing Spider-Man with issues #648, #649, #650 and #651 which were all outstanding issues.  So, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that putting those two back together leads to a pretty sweet product for Free Comic Book Day.  What they have generated is a comic that will be friendly both to the person who just came to FCBD and hasn’t been in a comic shop in years AND a comic that is pretty important to what Spidey is up to week-to-week.

It all starts with the recap page.  It is great that Marvel does these recap pages because it can be pretty easy to forget plot points OR just to need a general intro to the story if you’re new.  But, the one thing that ASM always does (presumably because editor Stephen Wacker wants it this way) is present the recap in a quicker format than in 3-4 long and boring paragraphs of text.  Here, we have Spidey telling us the story in 5 word balloons.  Brilliant!  This is great because it gives the reader the story and pulls them into a comic reading tempo in a way that blocks of text cannot do.

The story itself is pretty fun.  We start by joining a Spidey / Spider-Woman fight in mid-battle.  What’s this?  Why are two Avengers fighting?  Well, it’s because she is under the control of the Mandrill and his pheromones.  This whole scene has typically jaunty Slott writing and he comes up with a neat way to beat the Mandrill that is (a) effective, (b) typically embarrassing for Spidey and (c) establishes a running joke throughout the issue.  While this fight is going on, the pair are observed by Madame Web and Shang-Chi (a.k.a. Master of Kung-Fu).  They observe that while Spider-Woman clearly has been trained in multiple fighting styles, that Spidey is just fast and strong; and now — without his spider-sense — he is at a huge disadvantage.

So, the second act of the issue shows Shang-Chi instructing Spider-Man in the ways of Kung Fu and also begins to tease the upcoming Spider-Island mega-story.  By doing this, Marvel is giving everyone a lot of things to look forward to.  Wanna see Spidey doing some tight martial art action scenes?  I’m sure that’s coming up.

Ramos is one of the better artists working in comics today.  He does a great job with the basics of “how to tell a comic story” and it is always clear who is in the panel, where the action takes place and what is going on.  His cartooning style really helps with this because by not limiting himself to completely realistic anatomy, he can accentuate things to tell the story that he is after.   Another Ramos trademark is that he never wastes objects such as Spider-Woman’s hair or Shang-Chi’s sash that can billow to indicate motion, but he doesn’t overdue it and have sashes flapping around when characters are at rest.  I’ll also give Slott a little kudo for the art as I think he is very good as serving up meatballs to his artists because his comics are always well drawn.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Big Time (Hardcover)

Written by Dan Slott, Art by Humberto Ramos, Inks by Carlos Cuevas, Colors by Edgar Delgado

What more can anyone say about Spider-Man: Big Time? Seriously, I need to know because this was the newest thing my bookstore had in stock, so I’m trying to review it. But it’s kind of hard when the cover of the collection is filled with blurbs from Newsarama, Comic Book Resources, and some dude from a site called Weekly Comic Book Review. But here’s the difference between those reviews and this one—those were for single issues coming out every couple of weeks. Things change when they are recollected in a graphic novel form. Sometimes they get much better—like Shadowland—sometimes it turns into an incoherent mess.

So how does Big Time do as a graphic novel? Does it still have that spark? That magic? Is it still the perfect Marvel comic as our own Dean Stell claims it to be? No. Because now it’s also the perfect graphic novel. In fact, come the fall when I have to (I mean, it’s such an inconvenience) teach a graphic novel course, I’m using this trade for the superhero part of the course. It’s the best superhero writing in the last decade that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Civil War, Blackest Night, and other great stories would certainly work too, but with Big Time, I can finally show my students that superhero comics can have quality writing and still be fun. It doesn’t need to be depressing or make a statement or anything like that. Sure, there are other examples of this, but Big Time just hits every nail on the head.

Amazing Spider-Man #654.1 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos Cuevas (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

The Story: Flash Thompson is introduced as the all-new Venom.

What’s good: This is yet another example of great art making all the difference.  Just merely having Humberto Ramos doing pencils on this issue pushes this comic to a higher grade as a starting point.  I’ve gushed about his art plenty and if you’re interested in the details, go check out my reviews of ASM 648-650.  His loose and cartoony style is so effective at conveying the kinetic energy of a character like Venom.  The other thing that really puts Ramos’ art over the top are the great layouts and page designs such as one page where Flash dances with the fem fatale on this issue.  This comic is really well executed from an art standpoint.

And, the story isn’t too shabby either.  The concept of Flash as Venom is really cool.  We all know what a devious little bugger the Venom symbiote is and it is clearly a major problem when you put that symbiote together with someone like Mac Gargan.  It is going to be very interesting to see whether the symbiote will corrupt a good guy like Flash and what Flash will be willing to do to retain the symbiote since it allows him to walk again.  This particular issue has a done-in-one kinda feel to it as Flash/Venom goes out on a one-man hostage rescue mission.  The whole thing is well told and well paced by Slott and it is a very different type of superhero comic than we’re used to getting from Marvel.  This is almost more of a military/espionage comic.

A final note on how well these two creators seem to work together.  You can just tell that Slott must be very aware of what Ramos draws well when he is writing the script.  That makes a huge difference and there is a LOT to be said for a writer having trust in the artist to carry their part of the story.  Let’s hope that these two have plenty of opportunities to work together in the years to come.

Amazing Spider-Man #651 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos Cuevas & Joseph M. Damon (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

Scorpion back-up by : Dan Slott (writer), Stefano Caselli (pencils), Delgado (colors), Caramanga (letters) & Wacker (editor)

The Story: The story arc wraps up as Spidey & Black Cat try to reclaim the reverbium from Kingpin.

What’s Good: Another issue, another really fun Spider-Man story.  The thing I like best about Dan Slott’s writing is the tempo.  These stories just move along as a healthy clip without feeling rushed.  In this initial story arc of his solo-tenure on ASM, Slott has covered a lot of ground: Peter Parker has a new job, new girlfriend, new Hobgoblin and new status quo for Kingpin.  All that in four issues.  Spider-Man is supposed to be a roller coaster, not a scenic tour and Slott gets that.

Another thing he gets is writing single-issue comics.  I am so sick of comics that are “written for the trade” where there is almost no reference to anything in the story that could allow you to place it in time or continuity.  Not Slott (or his editor Wacker).  He makes a very self-aware joke in this issue referencing the new Tron movie.  I can’t tell you how much I love that because thing great thing about Marvel comics is that they aren’t taking place on Earth-4b in fictional cities like Metropolis….they take place in New York City and they should feel like they’re going on right now.  Bravo to you guys!  So what if it seems dated for the trade readers.  I can’t imagine a trade of a title like ASM is that evergreen anyway (meaning I doubt it continues to sell well year after year like Fables or The Walking Dead).

In terms of major plot developments, we have those too.  Interesting new status quo for Kingpin, eh?  I was pretty surprised to see this development happen here and not in the pages of a Daredevil comic.  I also like the new Hobgoblin.  He’s well fleshed out and a lot of fun to read (being a complete smart ass).

Ramos’ art continues to be a great fit for this series.  As much as I enjoy our more realistic artists, I think this exaggerated cartoon style is my favorite for Spider-Man (especially if Black Cat is going to be around).  Ramos’ characters are just so alive!  Every character in every panel feels like they are in motion.  Great stuff.

Amazing Spider-Man #650 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos Cuevas, Nikki Damon & Victor Olazaba (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

Marc Gargan back-up: Slott (writer), Neil Edwards (pencils), Scott Hanna (inks), Morry Hollowell (colors) & Chris Eliopoulos (letters)

The Story: A new Spidey-suit makes its debut, as Peter Parker gets ready to take on the new Hobgoblin.

What’s Good: Slott and Ramos are off to such a strong start on their run on ASM.  The days of the rotating Spidey-creators produced a lot of good stories and looking through my notes, the “average grade” for those stories was ~B, but Slott/Ramos have just taken this to another level.  They should be glad that there is no “comic creators’ union” because they would be getting a harsh talking to for making other creators look bad.

The story itself is just fast, well-paced fun.  It starts out with a very well done action sequence with Spidey tangling with the new Hobgoblin, but the middle and latter part of the issue do great stuff with Peter’s supporting cast.  But, the stuff that really stands out to me are the scenes in Peter’s lab at his new job.  I love how Slott is making use of Peter’s science background and these scenes could consist of nothing but Peter spouting some techno-babble while working on some “stuff”.  But, Slott uses MJ and Carlie in a really clever scene that features Peter and Carlie talking WAY over the top of MJ’s head about science stuff.  This is way more effective that any jabbering about flux-capacitors could be.

Oh…and you might have heard…there is a new Spidey-costume.  You can see it on the cover art and if you’ve followed online teasers or message boards, you’ve probably already seen opinions about what/why this costume is here.  My favorite speculation was that it was for some sort of tie-in with the TRON movie.  Ha!  Turns out the costume has a very specific and sensible purpose, although I do wonder how Slott will make this costume go away because if I were Spidey, THIS would be my permanent costume forever.

I hate to say that Ramos is “killing it” on the art, because I think that is such an unimaginative thing to say, but it is really true in this case.  I love his exaggerated cartooning style because it allows him to be freed from the constraints of physics and anatomy in a way that a more realistic artist cannot.  When they draw a character with a leg that is too long it just looks screwed up, but when Ramos does it, it just screams that these characters are alive.  Ramos is truly one of the modern masters at this style (along with Chris Bachalo) and I think this run on ASM is as good as anything I’ve ever seen from him.   He draws a great Spidey, a great Peter Parker, a great Carlie Cooper, a great Black Cat. I kinda feel sorry for the artist on the next arc.  Why can’t Ramos and Bachalo just alternate arcs?

Amazing Spider-Man #649 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos Cuevas (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Tom Brennan (Associate Editor)

The Story: Hobgoblin is back, but is it the Hobgoblin we’ve been expecting.

What’s Good: This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for good Spider-Man comics.  My comic happiness meter is somewhat tied to the quality of the Spider-Man comics.  When they’re good, I’m happy and enjoy the hobby.  When they’re not so good, it really just bums me out.  So, we should all be very thankful for what Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos are feeding us right now.

A vital element of good Spidey stories is the emotional roller coaster.  The guy has a hectic life, so the story needs to keep moving like an overcaffinated jackal.  Slott does a great job with this as he rarely spends more than a page or two on any particular story element.  It is just a wonderful job of pacing that allows him to make great use of the 30-page format to tell a LOT of story. We cover a lot of ground: we learn who the Hobgoblin is, see Spidey & Black Cat save Norah from some bikers, touch on Peter’s love life, see Peter’s first day on the job at Horizon labs, Captain Steve needling Jonah, the saga of Mac Gargan and a great cliffhanger.  Through it all, it hits all the emotional notes that you want in a Spider-Man story.  There’s even a great emotional high for Aunt May in here.  So there!

Amazing Spider-Man #648 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Humberto Ramos (pencils), Carlos Cuevas (inks), Edgar Delgado (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

Spider-Girl back-up by: Paul Tobin (writer), Clayton Henry (art), Chris Sotomayor (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Nathan Crosby (editor)

The Story: Spidey enters the Big Time with Avengers action that was better than anything that has been in the actual Avengers comics, science prowess, love and a new job.

What’s Good: This is the perfect Marvel comic book.  It has everything: Iconic character?  Check.  Big action?  Check.  Guest stars that make sense for the story?  Check.  Good characterization?  Check.  Creative use of classic villains?  Check.  Outstanding art?  Check.  Friendly to a new reader while not dumbing it down for long-timers?  Check.   Absence of decompressed storytelling and endless talking heads?  Check.  And this is the biggie…  Feels tied into today’s Marvel Universe?  BIG CHECK.

This comic really has it all.  What makes Spider-Man special are the contrasts.  In this issue we see him function as an Avenger, issuing orders (in typical “aw shucks” mode) to Thor and Iron-Man and using his genius-level brain to solve a problem that is befuddling Reed Richards and Tony Stark.  But, after this reminder of what a powerful hero Spider-Man is, we see that Peter Parker is broke and has nowhere to sleep.  Not even his friends really want to let him crash because he’s gone to the well too often.

What makes Peter special is that he COULD be Tony Stark and have the riches and women, but his sense of responsibility to be Spider-Man requires him to make sacrifices that make his private life so painful.  When is the last time that Tony Stark stood up a dinner date because he was beating up muggers?  This is why we cheer for Peter Parker and love it when things occasionally go right for him.  And they do start to swing his way in this issue….in a big way.  Not that it’ll last, but we can enjoy the moment.  As we transition from the Spidey “brain trust” of rotating writers to Dan Slott doing all the writing, it is so nice to see how clearly Slott understands why Spidey is special.

Humberto Ramos’ art is up to the task of telling this story with Slott.  Between he and Cuevas (on inks) they have made a really nice looking comic.  The characters are very nicely drawn in a cartooning style that works so much better for superheroes than any sort of photorealism.  There is great variety of line thickness, perspective, panel and layouts.  It is also very nice how they do the little things like not abusing splash pages and breaking panel borders in effective ways.  Bravo.