Amazing Spider-Man #790 Review: The Bogenrieder Perspective

… I honestly don’t know what to say right now. I dunno, I’ll just use some meta humor and get on with this schtick.

Here’s a forced, but admittedly witty remark about Legacy and how Dan Slott should leave the title.

Let’s just get this over with.

Amazing Spider-Man #790

“Fall of Parker, Pt 2: Breaking Point”

Writers: Dan Slott and Christos Gage

Pencils: Stuart Immonen

Inks: Wade von Grawbadger

Colors: Marte Gracia

Editors: Nick Lowe and Devin Lewis

Plot:

Now, this is the story all about how Peter Parker found his life flip-turned upside down. So if you would, take a moment and just sit right there, I’ll tell you how it’s all Peter’s fault because he deflects his responsibilities onto others now.

Not exactly the most rhythmically competent song, huh?

So it turns out that Parker Industries is going to have to sell the Baxter Building because Peter is an incompetent moron. Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, isn’t happy, while Clash plans to steal some of his tech from when he worked at PI. After a lame and contrived fight scene after Johnny blows a fuse, they get an alert that Clash and his goons are raiding the place.

After another fight where Clash inexplicably mops the floor with both Spidey and Torch, he accidentally almost levels the building and the city with an overloaded energy source. Working together because the plot demands it, they manage to stop the device from going boom. Harry quits, fed up with Peter’s dumping off of his responsibilities, and I guess he goes to work for Liz Allan now that they’re bumping again.

Having a nice lunch on top of the Baxter Building, Peter and Johnny have a heart-to-heart, and the issue ends with Peter getting an offer from Robbie to be the Bugle’s new science writer.

Thoughts:  

I’ve got nothing.

I know that’s me pulling a Peter Parker and deflecting my job onto Mark, but I’m just seriously baffled by how so much happened in this issue, but it feels like nothing happened.

I guess I’ll just what’s objectively good out of the way because I’m not sure how to feel about everything else. Stuart Immonen must have a hell of a recovery because he got back into form this issue. I don’t know what happened for 789, but I’m glad he’s back… mostly. His Peter Parker still leaves something to be desired, but his heroes in costume are exceptionally well-done. Human Torch, in particular, looks phenomenal, with fire coloring courtesy of Marte Gracia. I think that he functions best on metal and fire characters (Hence, why he excels on titles like Invincible Iron Man but struggles on titles like this.) but everything else needs to ghost-colored and re-shaded before it gets shipped out.

Christos Gage is, as per usual, an automatic bump up. I do find it kind of telling that Slott hasn’t even cleared the first barrier of Legacy without having to crawl back to Gage, but I won’t complain. Dialogue flows a lot smoother now that Gage has returned, but still has a very cartoonish feel. I guess it’s reminiscent of Slott’s dialogue, but at this point, it feels like Gage is ghostwriting for Slott when it comes down to the finer details. There’s a conspiracy theory that, during the production of Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Steve Lieber ghostwrote the structure of the story while Nick Spencer handled the bigger picture. (Given that Nick Spencer can handle writing by himself (see: Astonishing Ant-Man) I tend to not believe it) And I think that conspiracy might have some relevance to Slott and Gage’s dynamic. At this point, having Gage take over as the main writer wouldn’t change much; he pretty much does the nitty-gritty as far as I can tell.

Another thing I really enjoyed was the characterizations of Clash and Human Torch. Gage does a really good job with him (as per usual) portraying him as a Robin-Hood-esque rogue who doesn’t even want to steal everything; just what was his, and that’s fairly admirable. Likewise, Johnny Storm gets some much appreciated love, especially given his overall lack of use in the greater MU (Just now getting a spotlight in Uncanny Avengers (Which has pretty much always been a stealth Rogue and Deadpool title) and sharing a main character slot with Ben Grimm in the recently revived Marvel Two-in-One.) and I commend Slott for being one of a handful of writers to consistently use Johnny in guest appearances over a length of time.

However, he seems to be recycling plotlines, namely the Human Torch getting mad at Peter for something involving the Baxter Building, and there being a generator that goes awry akin to Big Time. It just feels lazy, especially when we’re in a phase (Namely, the Legacy relaunch) where we should be experiencing new things with a tinge of nostalgia, rather than bringing back what we loved about Marvel, to begin with.

I recognize that this review was extraordinarily late. But, my head kept spinning trying to find something to say about this issue, I know so much happened, but it felt like so little. I guess the status quo is going somewhere, and that’s good, but I don’t feel like we’re going anywhere. It’s more of the same, and that just sucks right now.

Final Grade: C-