Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #30 (471) Review

Amazing Spider-Man 30
PLOT: Peter goes out for a night of web-slinging to blow off steam after Mary Jane’s departure. He takes out his frustration on an abandon building, ultimately demolishing it. The next day as Peter Parker he wanders past his old high school and chases a group of bullies who were tormenting a geeky boy. For his trouble he catches the ire of the boy and a PE teacher from the school who explains to Peter than the boy must learn to stand up for himself.
I gave the details on this as it greatly effected Peter and he does need a way to make a living. That night, as Spider-Man, Peter frightens the three bullies as they try to steal a car. Afterwards he meets an enigmatic stranger named Ezekiel who knows Spidey’s secret identity and also has spider powers. Ezekiel poses a question that casts doubts about Peter’s (and our) understanding of Spidey’s origin. From there we are introduced to a new super-villain, Morlun, who seems Morbius like and was feeding in some way on an unknown super-hero from Germany. Having depleted his captive he is ready to search out a replacement, namely Spider-Man.
LIKES: Well here it is, as the cliché goes, the dawning of a new era for everyone’s favorite Web-Crawler. J. Michael Straczynski has arrived. While I would prefer that Marvel return to portraying Spidey as an adult with a wife and child (after all he did age during the Stan Lee years through high school and into college) I guess we are stuck with the idea of Peter as the eternal twenty something, unlucky at love and unable to earn a living. (Check out Joe Quesada’s comments on the Marvel.com message boards that having Spidey grow older, get married and have a child was a terrible mistake.) JMS begins at the very heart of the Spider-Man mythos by questioning his origin. Ezekiel seems to have the identical powers and plenty of knowledge of Spidey. Whether he’s the real deal or not remains to be seen but the premise is intriguing.
The demolition of the abandoned building is a good sequence and a natural response by Peter to MJ’s leaving. The high school bit foreshadows events in Peter’s civilian life and JMS makes Peter’s interest here entirely plausible. Until more is revealed about Morlun I can’t judge how effective he will be as a new villain. However, if he’s a vampire he’ll never be referred to as one as long as his book keeps the seal of approval from the Comics Code Authority. Vampires are a no-no under the code. As usual, Romita, Jr.’s artwork boarders on stunning. At least know he appears to have a writer worthy of his talents. Finally the return of the original “Amazing Spider-Man” logo to the cover is a great and long overdue move.
DISLIKES: I will give JMS the benefit of the doubt here but he is traveling down a slippery slope toying with Spidey’s origin as Peter’s whole psyche and character is tied to it. Of course this depends on exactly how he toys with it. How and why the spider came to bite Peter could be different from what we and he believed without changing the dynamic behind Uncle Ben’s death. As I said before I do not like the idea of keeping Peter perpetually twenty something and down on his luck. The basic idea behind the book has always been Peter’s struggle to live a normal life while also living up to the responsibilities of his spider powers. Having him move on to become a husband and a father would be a natural extension of this and something rare in comics. Enough with all that. Back to JMS. He obviously wants to be bold, which is good, but he also needs to tread carefully in some areas.
RATING:  web-heads out of 5 (now rating on a scale of 5 for a little more leeway)