Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #309 Review.

Writer:  Chip Zdarsky

Artists: Chris Bachalo

Editors:  Nick Lowe

E.I.C:  C.B. Cebulski

Crawlspace Reviewer: Chi-Town Spidey

Crawlspace E.I.C: Brad Douglas

Sandman didn’t die, well he did..kinda.  His future self took over this body and Spider-Man is his number one target.  Our Sandman tries to warn Spidey that his future self is taking control and eventually does.  Future Sandman fights Spider-Man and is winning and Present Sandman collects his fears and rebuilds himself on the beach that he died at and now there are two Sandmen fighting each other.  As the two Sandmen fight each other with Spider-Man caught in the middle, Spidey makes a call to the Fantastic Four and Johnny, Herrbie, and the Thing work on a device to send the future Sandman back to where he came from.  The human torch saves the day and Spider-Man.  Spider-Man recovers in the hospital, and Sandman shows up to discuss what the future Sandman was talking about and how frightening it’ll be when Sandman lives forever.

UGH!  Didn’t we get past this Time Travel shenanigans?!  It’s pack to move the plot along.  It’s the second to last story Zdarsky is up to so this felt “blah” at best.  It was honestly hard to read this when Amazing Spider-Man comic has gotten so much better.  Reviews by Crawlspacer’s Dark Mark and Neil, check them out!!!  I thought for his last story Zdarsky would pull out all the A-game creative juices he could think of, but this is more like a C- at best.  Jonah really seems to be Zdarsky’s ace in the hole.  He has heavily played him out during this entire run, next to Teressa.  It’s actually nice to see Peter fight back against Jonah at times.

The old status quo is still here in the book.  By that I mean Peter needs help in order to get saved.  He’s barely holding his own.  I know what your saying “Hold on there Chi-Town, he fighting the BEACH!”  Yeah I know, he also fought the Tri-Sentinal over in Amazing and won that…BY HIMSELF AND DID THAT BEING ONLY HALF OF WHO HE IS.  What really won me over in this issue was Bachalo’s art which surprises me!  It just fits in this issue and his giant monster Sandmen are great!  I could see this guys art drawing monsters all day.  Still not digging on how he draws people, but giant crazy looking Monsters?…YES!

Issue 310 marks the end of ZDarsky’s run on Spect.  We’ll see what he has to show us as he closes the curtain.

GRADE: C-