Amazing Spider-Man #564 – Review

By Dan Slott, Marc Guggenheim, Bob Gale (writers), Paulo Siquiera (pencils and inks), Amilton Santos (inks), Antonio Fabela (colors)

Whatever you do, do *not* buy this book. If there was ever a sense of duping your readership, this is it. Marvel and Spidey’s “Brain Trust”  of writers should be ashamed of themselves. Remember Dan Slott’s fun-filled “Free Comic Book Day” issue of Amazing Spider-Man titled, Swing Shift? Remember how fun it was and how it brought back a lot of the core elements that made Spider-Man such a fun book?

I remember it well. The art was spectacular, the dialogue was hilarious, and being a free comic in itself was the icing on the cake. Earlier this year, Marvel reprinted the same story but charged $3.99 for the comic. Granted, they threw in a lot of goodies, changed the dialogue, and added in nice supplemental material, but in the end, fans were paying $3.99 for a reprint. A REPRINT!

With Amazing Spider-Man #564 Marvel and its writers have done the unthinkable. They’ve basically retold the same exact story we saw in Swing Shift (again), but this time three times in the same issue. And yes, I understand they’re using a horrible gimmick (derived from Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon) of attempting to tell the story from three different perspectives, but it doesn’t matter. We’re still getting a retreaded story three times, and attention Spider-Man writers: It’s not funny anymore.

Todd McFarlane isn’t a great writer himself, but his Perceptions story arc in the adjectiveless Spider-Man was more entertaining and original than this turd. I really can’t believe the level of arrogance and/or ignorance I’ve seen from this editorial team. Avoid this issue like the plague and come back next week when (hopefully) we get “new” story. The only redeeming factor is Paulo Siquiera’s art. At least it’s pretty to look at.

Brand New Day, my ass. (Grade: F+)

A Second Opinion

I wrote the following review before reading Jason’s, and I’m not quite inclined to be as negative as he was. Though I should mention that I haven’t read Swing Shift nor seen Rashomon.

While there may not have been too much to complain about in this issue, it certainly wasn’t memorable either. Taking a page from the movie Vantage Point, the story within is told three times, each from a different point of view (namely Spider-Man, Vin Gonzales, and Overdrive). The entire story is really one long chase scene as Overdrive tries to escape Spider-Man, and Vin futilely tries to capture them both. We also see that Overdrive was attempting to steal something for Mr. Negative. If anything, the purpose of this issue was to serve as a reminder that Mr. Negative and Overdrive are still out there, and that we will get more stories from them eventually. If these were appealing characters, this knowledge might excite me, but seeing as how neither one interests me, I really don’t care whether or not we learn more about them.

The art isn’t exactly unforgettable either. Don’t get me wrong, Paulo Siquiera’s pencils are solid, his action and “spider-poses” are well conveyed, backgrounds are lush fill instead of being devoid of objects, and the facial expressions are lifelike for the most part. If anything, the only complaint I have about his work is that Peter looks somewhat childish. I know Marvel wants to convey Peter Parker as being young, but certainly not as young as he looks here. Still, this only consists of three panels, so therefore only a small flaw and forgivable. But despite an overall good job in art, it still isn’t spectacular, just average.

Looking back, this review sounds a bit negative, but I did not intend it to sound that way. There is certainly nothing majorly wrong with this issue, but it feels like an average read to me. Even Spidey’s humor, which is funny, isn’t anything that I’ll be remembering for a long time. So anyone who regularly reads Spider-Man will probably get this and get some run of the mill entertainment. But to those who choose not to pick this up, you won’t be missing out on anything. (Grade: C)

-M. Staples

Amazing Spider-Man: Swing Shift #1 (Director’s Cut)

By: Dan Slott (Writer), Phil Jimenez (Pencils)

Okay a bit of a complaint here. When this story first debuted last May, it was a free comic (it was Marvel’s offering for Free Comic Book Day 2007). So, I find it a little ironic that this book’s cover price not for the normal $2.99 but $3.99! Talk about pricey! Okay, so what do we get out of this Director’s Cut? Well, we get some lines of dialogue that are in tune with Brand New Day’s status quo and an appearance by Mr. Negative. Story’s virtually the same as the FCBD issue, so no complaints there; it’s a fantastic read.

What drives up the cover price of this book is all material thrown in at the end of the book. First we get Tom Breevort’s original manifesto that he devised for Spider-Man’s Brand New Day revamp. It’s goes into all the details of the changes we’ve now seen. Next is what looks like a Power Point Presentation that acts as a dossier on Spider-Man’s new cast. It goes into the details of each new villain and supporting character and actually answers a lot of questions readers currently have. Also, from the looks of it, this dossier seems to confirm that Jackpot is most likely NOT Mary Jane.

There’s also some other characters in the dossier that will make you go back through the Swing Shift’s story for another glance. Slott cleverly inserted more new cast members into this issue’s story than we originally thought. This is all going to make Spider-Man very interesting over the next year. For people following Brand New Day, this is something you should probably pick up – even if you already own the original issue. (Grade: A-)

– J. Montes