NOTE: If you are only interested in the review, click here. But if you want an explanation of the banner image, and what’s going on with me, grab some tissues and read on …
It’s with a heavy heart that I have to share that Puddin’ crossed the rainbow bridge today. I won’t go into too much details but she’s had a sore under her chin and a round lump on the side of her neck under her fur for months now. It was too expensive to remove them, and the vet said with her being a senior cat (~17 years) he wasn’t sure she would survive the surgery anyway.
She was still doing all of her usual things – eating, drinking, following me from room to room, letting me place comic books on her and taking pictures. But the lump on her neck was causing her to eat less. The vet said that he could prescribe some medication to make her feel better, but the situation would not get better and would only get worse. We both made the decision to let her go.
Eventually I’ll get another cat(s). But for right now, my home feels very empty right now.
AND NOW, THE REVIEW
Jonah’s podcast is struggling for listeners. A disaster in another country caused by superhumans killed 9000 people. Mayor Luke Cage struggles to make New Yorkers feel safe. Cormac continues to act like the perfect son to Aunt May. Spidey tries to calm down New Yorkers on both sides of the conflict. Norman and Maira make dinner plans. All of this, plus … Spidey decides this is the moment to introduce Raelith the Wretched to the public???
(Warning: this sized moustache does not appear in this issue. Also, this cover feels like a homage to another cover, any ideas?)
CREDITS
Writer: Joe Kelly
Artist: Simone Di Meo
Color Artist: Edgardo Delgado
Letterer: vc’s Joe Caramagna
PREVIOUSLY IN AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …
Spidey and Ravage fought to a stalemate, when Peter revealed to Cormac that he was willing to tell Aunt May EVERYTHING – he’s Spider-Man, Cormac is Ravage, and what Cormac did to her. Cormac agreed to let Aunt May go home and not alter her mind again with Peter vowing to rebuild his relationship with her. Meanwhile, Spider-Gwen is allowing Norman Osborn to confine her until she determines why she ran amok and destroyed public property. Finally, Spider-Man watches a screen in Times Square showing Red Hulk blowing himself up and killing thousands.
SUMMARY
We see what Jonah has been doing for the past month – discussing with Norah Winters how his Threats N Menaces podcast has been losing viewers, while his co-star Hermes Crenshaw gains viewers with his conspiracies. Jonah has been calling Peter during this month leaving him voicemails about what’s going on with Spider-Man.
(“Parker! I need to talk to you. I need to complain to someone about the Bugle wasting precious space with extra large headlines!”)
Jonah and Hermes are podcasting live, debating the last month of Spider-News(1) when Norah interrupts with breaking news. We get a recap of Avengers: Armageddon with Red Hulk fighting the Avengers in Plesetsk(2). Red Hulk blew himself up, killing thousands of people.
(“The Red Hulk blew up” is not a sentence I thought I’d ever be reading in a Marvel comicbook.)
Peter is watching this news at his apartment with Raelith the Wretched, Glitch and Symbie. He is distraught because Tony Stark asked him to go on that mission but Peter refused. He decides some web-swinging will do him good, and Raelith the Wretched convinces him to let her join him.
(Raelith the Wretched, don’t make me start to like you!)
Back with Jonah, he continues podcasting, talking about the Thunderbolt Ross that he knew who was a good man, but his powers turned him into a monster.
(“What a terrible tragedy … say, what do you think about the Red Room?” Hermes Crenshaw, professional podcaster, ladies and gentlemen.)
At City Hall, Mayor Luke Cage is talking to Secretary of State Brooke about the situation.
(I only wish my mayor looked this good.)
As Jonah continues podcasting, Spidey and Raelith the Wretched webswing through the city as civilians on both sides of the issue argue.
At May and Big Ric’s apartment, Aunt May is getting situated after moving back home from Cormac’s mansion.
(May has literally known Cormac for less than a month. She’s acting like she’s raised him from birth.)
On a nearby rooftop, Spidey is monitoring a listening device pointed at May’s apartment so he can keep tabs on her. Raelith the Wretched offers to kill Cormac for him, to which Peter does not say “yes”, but he does not say “no”.
At Maira Osmani-Milton’s apartment, Kenji is listening to Jameson’s podcast telling his mother that he’s not going to school because no one is going due to the crisis. She calls Norman to continue their conversation about her son.
(Super-suave Norman doesn’t even have to call the ladies – they call him.)
Mayor Cage gives a press conference where he announces an expansion of law enforcement powers, led by Agent Griffyn and Damage Control.
(I foresee nothing bad coming from this.)
The civilians on both sides of the issue look like they’re ready to fight when Spidey shows up. He introduces Raelith the Wretched to the crowd, telling them that he told her that New York was the best city in the universe, where people still get along. His words calm everyone down.
(“Can’t we all just get along?”)
While this is happening, Jonah ends his podcast episode by saying that Spider-Man is “a menace”.
(“Dramatization. May not have happened.”)
After Jonah’s podcast ends, Norah tells him that he’s gone viral and that he’s “back”.
Later, Jonah calls Peter and leaves another voicemail, telling him to meet him for supper. But Jonah is webbed up … Itsy Bitsy!
(“Oh good, Itsy Bitsy is back” … said by no one. Except Joe Kelly, likely.)
INITIAL RESPONSE
This is a weird issue. It’s all about the fallout from Avengers: Armageddon, which most people (myself included) did not read. So it has to do a lot of work to summarize what happened in that book and why it’s relevant here. But while it doesn’t explain everything (they say Red Hulk blew up – is that something that he does? Is he dead, or does he explode and reconstitute himself, like Nitro?) it does give you just enough info to know the bare bones of what happened, and why it matters to this book.
Not much happens in this issue, but after the Ravage 3-parter, it’s nice to take a moment to breathe and check in with a bunch of characters/plots, setting up things that will matter in upcoming arcs.
WHAT I LIKED
Jonah is written very well here. We haven’t seen him (I think) since his conversation with Spider-Norman, and this feels like the first time we’ve checked in with his podcasting job in forever. I liked how his podcast was interwoven with the pages focused on the other characters. And while he does call Spider-Man “a menace” at the end of the issue, I don’t feel like this is a reversion of the character (which we are definitely getting with Aunt May – more on that later). This is Jonah recognizing that, based on recent events, superpowered individuals can sometimes cause more trouble than they solve, and need to be held accountable. And through all of this, he’s still reaching out to Peter, who has been ghosting him for so long, I was afraid Jonah was going to use that as justification for reverting to full-blown “Spider-Man is a menace!” mode.
I have not been a fan of any of Peter’s alien friends, especially Raelith the Wretched. But I feel like this issue was her best usage so far. Her manic-pixie-dream-girl-ness was muted and she was used as a way for Spidey to talk to normal New Yorkers about how New York is a great city. And she did make me laugh when she offered to kill Cormac for Peter.
(The silent panel really sells the joke here.)
While I’m not interested in all of the subplots, we actually took the time to check in on multiple characters, which feels like this doesn’t happen in this book very often. That was much appreciated.
We had multiple panels of the blonde bearded guy arguing with the Peter lookalike and I thought they were going to come to blows and cause a riot, so I liked how Spidey’s words calmed the situation down and got them to all pay respect to the victims of Plesetsk (and let’s be honest, most of them had probably never heard of Plesetsk before today).
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
If you didn’t read Avengers: Armageddon then this issue can seem to come out of nowhere. Yes, sometimes it annoys me when major city/world events happen in other books and aren’t mentioned in the book I’m reading.(3) So while I liked how this was acknowledged here, it does seem to bring all of the other plots in this book to a halt while we deal with something from another book – a book that Spider-Man is barely in.
Every time Norah Winters appears (which isn’t often) and she’s still seen as successful, I ask myself “How?” And “Why her?”
(“Do the podcasting!” CEO (?) of Threats N Menaces Norah Winters, everyone.)
Jonah tells Peter’s voicemail that Peter’s “ex” called him to talk about what happened to Aunt May. Is he talking about Shay? If he was talking about MJ he would say her name, so I’m assuming he’s talking about Shay here.(4) But why would Shay call Jonah of all people? I guess Shay is friends with Aunt Anna, and she knows that Jonah and May are related, but it feels very random for her to call him.
(Shay’s appearances in the book for the past few months.)
Why did they give Jonah a full moustache here? He’s had the short moustache for decades. Do they think we/I wouldn’t notice?
Hey, remember that Hermes guy from the Hellgate backup way back at the start of Kelly’s run? Apparently he’s Jonah’s podcast cohost. Wasn’t he some archeological guy in that story? But now he’s all about every type of conspiracy? Why is he still around?
(This must be Jonah’s version of hell.)
I have nothing much to say about Symbie except that he is only in one panel of this issue and that’s one panel too much.
(Seriously, why is this thing getting its own one-shot?)
My biggest con with this issue is small, but it’s a huge disservice to the character. Only May’s memories of Peter were removed, all of her other memories are the same. So for her to be saying “that terrible Spider-Man” to Cormac is SO OLD! It was tiresome in the 1970s, and every decade since then. We have had many stories where May has made her peace with Spidey. He has literally saved her life many times. For Kelly to write her as a doddering old woman who thinks Spidey is “terrible” is so very dated. Can you imagine *any* MCU Aunt May acting this way about Spider-Man?
(Even in the 1970s we were rolling her eyes whenever Aunt May talked like this.)
While I like the idea of Peter keeping track of May and her interactions with Cormac, the idea of him putting a spy camera/recorder/whatever monitoring her apartment is a little creepy.
(“Excuse me while I setup this device to record everything happening between my aunt and her boyfriend in her apartment. Oh, I didn’t think this through.”)
While I liked having many other subplots mentioned, I really don’t care about Maira, Kinji or her dinner plans with Norman.
Even with all of these subplots, we couldn’t take a moment to see what Hellgate has been up to while his planet is about to be destroyed and Spidey is the only hope of saving it?
(What Hellgate has been doing.)
LETTERS PAGE SHENANIGANS
According to Nick Lowe, Itsy Bitsy is “the most dangerous woman on the planet”. Take that as you will.
WHAT THIS ISSUE MEANT OVERALL
Like I said, this is mostly a catch-up/filler issue between arcs, and also catching us up on major events in the Marvel universe. With Spidey now appearing the new Avengers book, it wouldn’t make sense for this book to completely ignore his part on that team, so we’ll have to mention what’s going on with the Avengers and other major Marvel events for the time being. And this issue allowed us to take the time to check in on other subplots/characters. Not a lot happens here, but that’s not a bad thing when we just finished an arc where a LOT happened.
And it looks like the next arc is going to be Itsy Bitsy, not of our many other subplots (I did laugh when Jonah brought up Spore and basically asked “What happened to that guy?” Kelly asking himself the question he should have already answered.
GRADE
B
Some good stuff in this issue. Checking in with other characters/subplots, Jonah is used very well here, along with Spidey and (shockingly) Raelith the Wretched. It’s just that if you didn’t read Avengers: Armageddon this can feel like it came out of nowhere.
NEXT TIME, IN AN ALL-NEW ISSUE OF AMAZING SPIDER-MAN …
(Avengers tie-in?)
FOOTNOTES
(1) “Bring the funny!” – Brad Douglas.
(2) Not a country, but a region in Russia. First appeared in Avengers: Armageddon #2 so not somewhere we would have heard of before.
(3) For example, were there any New York based books that had everything be normal while the Inferno event was taking place, when the entire city was taken over by demons and the undead?
(4) If not Shay or MJ, then who is Jonah talking about here?
