Amazing Spider-Man #679 – Review

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

The Story: Time is almost up!  How can Spidey prevent the future destruction of New York?

Five Things: 

1. This is how to pace superhero stories! – Slott really understands how to keep it snappy.  Last issue presented the problem (that a New York without Spidery-Man for a day gets destroyed) and this issue fully resolves the problem.  Done!  Finished!  Move on!  Yet, Slott still manages to keep the story slightly complex by weaving in little things from earlier issues and leaving some tasty tidbits for future storylines.  THIS is the kind of storytelling that made me fall in love with comics as a kid in Uncanny X-Men.  Those old Chris Claremont stories always had long term plot threads like Rogue’s newness to the team or Storm losing her powers or Cyclops struggling with the loss of Jean Grey, but…..when those X-Men fought the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, THAT story only lasted for a couple of issues and then we moved on to something else.  I love that Slott doesn’t feel the need to ALWAYS subject us to 6 months long storylines.

2. Great art from Ramos and company. – Man….is this art team nailing it!  Honestly, as I get older, I find I MUCH prefer art that is more stylized and cartoony, especially for a character like Spider-Man.  Ramos is able to wring so much personality out of the smallest characters and he uses it to greatly enhance his graphic storytelling.  Of course, he does a wonderfully energetic Spidey.  That’s nothing new.  But, I’m looking at the double-page layout of the Jameson/Silver Sable parade (which looks ‘less than’ on an iPad, I must say) and am just amazed at the little things: the tourists snapping pictures, the cops holding the crowd back, the purposeful stomp of the secret service agents guarding the limo and the subtle change that Silver Sable goes through as she shifts from waving at the crowd to silently telling her guards to snap to it.  Great stuff.

3. The importance of Peter being Peter. – Ha.  You thought that the key to saving NYC was Spidey taking down some purse-snatchers?  Or stopping a bombing?  Ha!  I love that Slott is also illustrating how important Peter Parker is and how sometimes we need Peter to use his brain instead of punching things. [As an aside: You KNOW that Spidey & Silver Sable defusing the bomb COULD have been an entire 4th issue in a traditional 6 issue story arc, right?  Thank you Mrs. Slott, Ramos and Wacker for not subjecting us to that.]

Amazing Spider-Man #678 – Review

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

The Story: A new time-hopping Spidey story kicks off.

Five Things:

1. Time travel done right. – This is how time travel should happen, right?  At the very least, this is the less common way for fiction to look at time travel.  Usually characters just bounce into the future and see future versions of themselves wandering around.  This time travel treats the individual more like a constant and when Peter visits the future, he literally skips ahead, and so he wasn’t there in the interim.  And this shows us what happens when Spidey takes a single day off.  It’s bad folks!  This really puts a new wrinkle on the whole “great responsibility” idea, huh?

2. Really fun art. – This probably wasn’t my favorite art from a Ramos-led art team, but it’s still pretty hot (the difference is that I think I prefer Carlos Cuevas inking him).  The big thing about Ramos is the energy of his art and that usually takes the form of a twisting and turning Spidey, but in this issue he shows how much energy he can bring to Peter Parker.  Even the standing around characters in this issue seem lively and vital.  I can think of many realistic artists who would have fumbled this issue (stiff and boring!).  And, Ramos also gives us a great double-pager on the title page of the issue: What a good street scene!

3. Going back to the fun elements of Big Time. – When Dan Slott kicked off his run with the Big Time run back in ASM #648, he introduced a lot of FUN to the Peter Parker’s life.  Namely, he gave him a serious job where he made good money and could afford to buy stuff.  As Big Time matured into Spider Island, it isn’t so much that the FUN went away, but it had to take a back seat to the schemes of the Queen and Jackal.  Now that we’re done with that mega-arc, we can go back to seeing Peter Parker being happy and he doesn’t get much happier than when he’s at Horizon Labs, working on a new invention.

Thunderbolts #159 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (writer), Declan Shalvey (art), Frank Martin (colors) & Albert Deschesne (letters)

Moonstone story by: Joe Caramagna (writer), Valentine de Landro (art), Chris Sotomayor (colors) & Deschesne (letters)

Ghost/John Walker story by: Jen Van Meter (writer), Eric Canete (art), Fabio D’Auria (colors) & Dave Sharpe (letters)

Crossbones story by: Frank Tieri (writer), Matthew Southworth (art) & Sharpe (letters)

The Story: A medley of stories detailing events on the Raft after it is destroyed by Juggernaut’s Fear Itself Hammer.

What’s Good: For one thing, this is a pretty fat issue.  Checking in at 40 pages for its $4.99 price, you’re getting a double-sized comic for less than double-price.  And none of the 40 pages is junky crap like an old reprinted Thunderbolts story.  Nice one…

This is effectively a Thunderbolts anthology.  I love anthologies, but it isn’t uncommon to get some crummy stories that you just need to skip.  That’s not a problem in this issue as all of the stories are between “solid” and “quite good”.  And, because these four stories are both bulky and from widely different parts of the Raft, it really drives home the enormity of the crisis.  It also continues the general strength of the Fear Itself tie-ins.  This issue adds a lot of local flavor to Marvel’s summer event.

For regular T-bolts readers, the star of the issue will be the Parker/Shalvey Underbolts story.  When we last left these characters, they were contemplating just running for it instead of continuing to serve as “heroes”.  Here we see them helping out with rescue efforts but also building in their own little insurance policy for the future.  This is just classic T-bolts storytelling since these characters are villains and you never want them to feel “safe”.

The other stories all have their moments such as Marvel letterer Joe Caramagna showing us what happens when the female and male prisoners come into contact without any chaperones present or how effectively the anarchist Ghost and the former US Agent, John Walker team-up (and build a grudging respect).