Amazing Spider-Man #691 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Giuseppe Camuncoli & Mario Del Pennino (pencils), Klaus Janson & Daniel Green (inks), Frank D’Armata (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

The Story: The Lizard has turned most of the Horizon Labs employees into lizards and things look bleak for the remaining humans.

A few things: 1). Interesting spin on the Lizard. – Perhaps someone who has read all the Spider-Man comic books will correct me, but this seems like a pretty unique spin on the Lizard and Curt Connors.  During the course of this story arc, Dan Slot has had a lot of fun playing mix and match with the personas and the bodies.  It’s almost like Slott is repeatedly rolling a d4 to see what combination of Lizard/Conners personality mixes with which lizard/human body.  It all comes to a pretty tragic end for the character by the end of the issue.  If superhero comics insist on continually gluing retreads on ancient villains, they should do it as Slott has here where he’s really trying to reach for something cool and fresh.

Amazing Spider-Man #690 – Review

By: Dan Slott (writer), Giuseppe Camuncoli (pencils), Klaus Janson, Daniel Green & Camuncoli (inks), Frank D’Armata (colors), Chris Eliopoulos, Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

The Story: The saga of a lizard in man’s clothing continues.

A few things: 1). Slott found the “go” button. – This was a really fun issue that recalled the magic from the beginning of Dan Slott’s ASM run (~20 months ago).  The stories have all been quality since then, but I found myself not enjoying them quite as much; it was as if those early stories were a 10/10 and the others were an 8/10.  I attributed some of it to whether Humberto Ramos was doing the art, but I think another thing might have been some of the writing.  This issue just had a “snap” to it that has been missing for awhile.  This issue felt like Slott had a BLAST writing it and was fully engaged.  I don’t know what goes on in the guy’s private life, but we all have times when we’re doing a “competent” job at work and other times when we transcend.  Stuff throws you off: fight with your wife, sick dog, new boss, etc.  The sad thing about superhero comics is that when the stories get down to the “competent” level, they start to feel like glorified fan-fiction….as in, “I could totally write this stuff.”  An issue like this one makes me realize that there is a reason why Dan Slott is a professional writer and the rest of us aren’t.