Spidey continues to go on a drug trip! Young Peter acts out against Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Itsy Bitsy fights Spidey, saves him, and also has the hots for him? And the Hobgoblin finally suits up.
(Those black arms/claws are kind of creepy.)
CREDITS
Writer: Joe Kelly
Artist: Pepe Larraz
Color Artist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
PREVIOUSLY IN AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …
Spidey is infected with something that causes him to see all of his foes about to attack him, which causes him to lash out at them, causing lots of destruction. He finds himself suddenly appearing at his new job, then on top of the Rand building being attacked by the Green Goblin, only to have Norman Osborn show up and reveal that he’s been infected by biological agents causing delusions and hallucinations. Spidey ignores Norman’s advice and goes to Ravencroft only to find that the unconscious Rhino is about to be attacked by … Itsy Bitsy!
SUMMARY
In a flashback, young Peter is talking back to Aunt May, who notices that he’s wearing Uncle Ben’s army jacket. Suddenly May physically attacks him, revealing that this is a drug-influenced version of this memory as Spidey fights Itsy Bitsy (IB).
(I gotta be honest – this would be a version of Aunt May that I be interested in seeing in the ongoing comics.)
Spidey fights IB as he tries to keep both Rhino and Shay safe while seeing memories of May, Ben and Brian Nehring. The drugs affect Spidey enough that IB is able to knock him out.
But instead of killing Spidey, IB takes him to a bridge where she reveals that the drugs in him are the same ones that were in the Rhino, and that she doesn’t want to kill him but her “boss” wants him to. She warns him to let this go or she will kill him. She then licks his face(1) and pushes him into the river.
Later Peter manages to steal some clothes, change into them, make it to May’s apartment, where he collapses.
(To be fair, Aunt May has probably seen Peter in a worse condition than this.)
We have another flashback of young Peter acting out against Ben and May, who are upset that Peter stole Ben’s jacket. Peter lashes out at them, with Ben saying that he can leave if he doesn’t want to live here anymore.
May goes to check on Peter the next morning but he’s already left to see Norman, who patches him up. Norman says he can’t give Peter any more anti-psychotics and that he’ll have to tough it out.
(The solution to “drugs” is not always “more drugs”.)
Norman tells Peter about IB attacking the beverage testing of an FDA facility, which gives him the idea that Rhino may have been poisoned by the drugs by drinking them from a can of Queen’s Cola.
Peter goes to see Brian and has him test a can of Queens Cola for a biological agent, trying to convince him that he was accidentally roofied as a way of saving his job.
Later Spidey goes to the Queens Cola plant and discovers it’s a drug lab. But after giving away his position by speaking his inner monologue out loud, he’s attacked by … the Hobgoblin!
(Oh, look … it’s the wings and flaming sword – yay! … said no one ever)
TO BE CONTINUED!
INITIAL RESPONSE
Despite the flashbacks – which I don’t agree with at all – this was a pretty good issue. It progressed the overall story and mystery, introduced Itsy Bitsy for those who did not read the Spider-Man/Deadpool series(2), and brought the Hobgoblin back in a big way.
WHAT I LIKED
I was negative on the art in issue #1. I don’t know if it’s gotten better, or if it’s growing on me, but I liked it more here.
While I don’t agree with the flashbacks (more of that in the next section), I do like how they were intercut with the present-day scenes. Spidey’s mind is being affected by this biological agent and it’s causing him to see flashbacks while trying to focus on what’s happening around him. And they’re altering the flashbacks to make them worse than what actually happened. And he’s aware enough to realize this is happening instead of questioning his actual memories. And I also like how they look compared to the present-day panels.
(Hot take: all flashbacks should be in black & white.)
Brief tangent – I did not read the Spider-Man/Deadpool series. I bought the first two issues and then my comicshop missed the third issue, so I asked them to get me a copy and held off reading issues 4 onward until I got that. It took longer than expected to get that missing issue so eventually I just forgot about that book and never read any subsequent issues. I don’t even remember if I eventually got that missing issue. I heard good things about the series so I should go back and read it. Anyway, long story short(3), I have no knowledge of Itsy Bitsy. But this issue did enough to let me know (I think) what I need to know about the character.
I do like how the biological agent affecting Peter does not have an easy fix and is not resolved immediately. It’s kind of like Peter’s “nothing matters so why bother?” phase in the 8 Deaths story – that was a big problem that took more than a single issue to resolve. Here’s hoping they come up with a better resolution to this agent problem than Kelly did for the emo-Peter problem – although it’ll probably just me “it eventually wore off and went away”.
Spidey is shown to be smart in figuring out how Rhino (and himself) could have been “poisoned” by this agent – although he does suggest that the biological agent may be affecting his deductive processes (like Sherlock Holmes using cocaine).
(It took me a few glances to realize this panel is upside-down.)
I did laugh at the reveal that Spidey’s inner monologue at the drug lab was him actually talking out loud, which he didn’t realize he was doing because of the agent affecting him.
(This is like in video games where the main character talks out loud all the time – because they’re talking to the player.”)
It’s always nice to see the Hobgoblin.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
The flashbacks. I really don’t buy that young Peter was ever like this. Nothing in all of the stories we’ve seen or heard over the decades of Peter as a child makes me think he would do things like steal from May and Ben, talk back to them like this, etc. Yes, I understand that young kids can sometimes latch onto a friend who is a bad influence. But Peter is someone we have been told over and over and over did not have any friends growing up. He didn’t make actual friends until he got his powers and started gaining self confidence as Spider-Man, which caused him to start talking back to his classmates as Peter and standing up for himself. Before then he was always shy and nervous, described as “Midtown’s only professional wallflower”. So I don’t buy that he had this friend Brian that we never heard about before, and that friendship would cause Peter to pull pranks in school, steal from Uncle Ben and Aunt May, and yell at them, saying the things he says to them in this issue. This is not working for me. At all.
(What part of Peter’s history should make me think that Peter would ever say this or act like this?)
So IB is a creation of Spidey’s and Deadpool’s DNA, which kind of makes her their offspring. And somehow this has her attracted to him? This reminds me of Silk’s initial appearances, and also the movie Splice, where scientists Adrian Brody and (Canada’s sweetheart) Sarah Polley create a creature using Polley’s DNA and raise it like a child, but later in the film Brody has sex with it. It doesn’t work there, and IB being attracted to Spidey doesn’t work either.
(No, just .. no.)
I thought Norman had returned to Oscorp to make up for his evil deeds, but now he seems to just be Peter’s “guy in the chair” who helps him out. At least we get a few panels of Norman smirking when talking about being good – just make him evil already!
Just reveal that Brian – the friend we never heard of before – is the secret villain behind all of this. That’s where this is going, right?
Finally, there’s the gaslighting of Marvel trying to convince the readers that Peter and Shay were never exclusive boyfriend/girlfriend – so Peter cheating on her with Felicia during the 8 Deaths story was ok. This is insulting and not working on me at all. That issue that was all Peter and Shay on a date at a restaurant – that was two people who were “just friends”?
(Yeah, Peter and Shay were only “friends”. Right.)
WEIRD PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Remember in my issue #1 review where I went off on a tangent about “Queen’s Cola” appearing so many times the background? I was right about Kevin being a key figure in the 8DoSM story, and I was right about Queen’s Cola.
LETTERS PAGE SHENANIGANS
Only 2 letters this time, and only one of them is about the actual 8 Deaths story, and it only talks about Peter’s emo-phase being an analogy for real-world crippling depression. Which I never thought of, and I would like to give the writers the benefit of the doubt that this is what they were going for … but I’m not buying it. Plus, actual depression is something that requires actual therapy to fix, so this just reminded me of the terrible way they resolved this for Peter in 8DoSM. “Oh, bad things happen to people, but we can each do things to change what will happen. It’s not like I didn’t learn that the night Uncle Ben died ~15 years ago. So all those negative feelings are gone now. So I don’t feel so defeated anymore. I was feeling terrible …”
WHAT THIS ISSUE MEANT OVERALL
This was a good continuation of this story, revealing more of the mystery, with Spidey fighting IB, dealing with the biological agent, and the Hobgoblin making an appearance in costume.
Still nothing more about Hellgate. Glad we had that backup in the first issue!
GRADE
B
This is a good issue, not a great one. And for modern ASM, that’s not very common. This grade would be higher if not for the flashbacks – they are not working for me at all. This kid we see in them does not feel like Peter Parker at all. Am I alone in thinking this? Feel free to let me know in the comments how wrong I am.
NEXT TIME, IN AN ALL-NEW ISSUE OF AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …
I can’t remember the last time I read an issue with Spidey fighting the Hobgoblin. So I’m looking forward to this.
FOOTNOTES
(1) Is Itsy Bitsy actually Norah Winters?
@Mark, Dark Lord of the Alford:
I’ll put the bad grammar down to Peter’s drug-addled brain.
While I agree about Peter having a temper, the instances you mention take place *after* he gets his powers and is Spider-Man. But we’re told that pre-powers Peter acted out, had a temper, yelled at May and Ben. Every previous depiction of pre-powers Peter – from AF #15 to flashbacks over the years – have told us that Peter was a kind, sweet, shy boy who didn’t have any friends except for May and Ben. For us to believe that he had a phase where he acted like how these flashbacks are showing us make NO sense.
When Peter got his powers he started acting more confident – standing up to Flash and his bullies where before he would just remain silent and take it. Being Spider-Man gave him the confidence to fight back, and yes, lose his temper. But no way would pre-powers Peter ever act like this.
Dang! I missed commenting on this earlier. That said, I have nothing of note to add other than it really bothered me that Aunt May used poor grammar in that opening splash page. Poison hallucination or not, I expect better of her.
I do agree 100% about the Peter being a rebel without a cause in middle school. However, I will play devil’s advocate and point out that in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, we did often see Peter have quite the temper and lash out – especially during the Peter David Spec Spidey run. So I guess an argument can be made that that was always there and this Brian kid found a way to tap into it for a short time. That wild deviation of behavior under his influence would certainly validate Aunt May’s reaction to him offering Peter a job.
But I still don’t like it.
@Zachary Joiner:
Right, but wasn’t that a mind-controlled Kinglsey and Ned as Hobgoblins? Controlled by Queen Goblin? I was thinking of a Hobgoblin who was 100% in control and enacting his own schemes.
@Evan Berry:
Thanks, this depiction of young Peter seems to fly in the face of everything we’ve ever seen of pre-powers Peter. Not just the “having friends” part but that he would ever say these things to May and Ben and act this way around them. Even post-power/pre-hero Peter still loved them and wanted to take care of them with his newfound wealth. The idea that Peter would ever steal from them, or talk back to them like he does here – it feels like a completely different character.
“Hey, Craig was right!” It’s not to the level of CrazyChris figuring out that Mason Banks was really Norman Osborn, or that Otto had taken over Peter’s body, or Fake Mike figuring out MJ was Venom, but I’ll take what I can get.
Hobgoblin and Spidey faught back towards the beginning of the wells run
Wouldn’t you know it? My comment posted twice, with the exception of my final sentence. Sorry about that!
@Hornacek – You are definitely not alone in your experience of the flashback’s interpretation of young Peter. Not only the way that he spoke to Aunt May and Uncle Ben, but the fact that he was hanging around with the “bad” kids felt like mischaracterization to me. I never thought of Peter that way. I guess if Peter had been bitten by the spider before he lashed out at Ben and May (thereby at least having a stronger tendency to stand up for himself), that would make a little sense, but there’s no indication that that is the case. I am clearly no expert, but it seems to me that if a writer has to change a character’s history to suit the story, then he’s telling the wrong story.
When I read this and got to the part about the Queen’s Cola, I thought, “Hey, Craig was right!” I guess you’ll have to print out some stickers or make a stamp with that phrase, like the ones that Mark uses.
Finally, I hope that this comment posts. The last few comments I’ve posted have not appeared — They seem to error out or time out before they upload to the page. I commented on that Sandman panel of the day a while back about lore and the frustration I feel when writers change it on a whim just to suit a story, and how much I loved that Nick Spencer creatively and organically made changes or added explanations rather than just treating events as if they had never happened. I felt like, for once, I articulated my thoughts pretty incisively, so I was sad that it didn’t post.
I guess here we have a case where, instead of ignoring past events on the one hand or organically addressing them on the other, Joe Kelly is outright creating them. Just like Dan Slott, and, frankly, that’s crazy town banana pants.
@Hornacek – You are definitely not alone in your experience of the flashback’s interpretation of young Peter. Not only the way that he spoke to Aunt May and Uncle Ben, but the fact that he was hanging around with the “bad” kids felt like mischaracterization to me. I never thought of Peter that way. I guess if Peter had been bitten by the spider before he lashed out at Ben and May (thereby at least having a stronger tendency to stand up for himself), that would make a little sense, but there’s no indication that that is the case. I am clearly no expert, but it seems to me that if a writer has to change a character’s history to suit the story, then he’s telling the wrong story.
When I read this and got to the part about the Queen’s Cola, I thought, “Hey, Craig was right!” I guess you’ll have to print out some stickers or make a stamp with that phrase, like the ones that Mark uses.
Finally, I hope that this comment posts. The last few comments I’ve posted have not appeared — They seem to error out before they upload to the page. I commented on that Sandman panel of the day a while back about lore and the frustration I feel when writers change it on a whim just to suit a story, and how much I loved that Nick Spencer creatively and organically made changes or added explanations rather than just treating events as if they had never happened. I felt like, for once, I articulated my thoughts pretty incisively, so I was sad that it didn’t post.
I guess here we have a case where, instead of ignoring past events on the one hand or organically addressing them on the other, Joe Kelly is outright creating them.
@Aqu: I have not read any Astonishing SM so I have no opinion here.
Don’t know a thing about this new run and still has to finish the previous cycle, but as a lucky (citation needed) member of Marvel Unlimited I’ll say this: as much as I hate Infinity Comics, Astonishing Spider-man is the Spider-man series the main title should be. (or at least it was until the confrontation with MJ… From there onward, judgment pending.)