Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #57 (498) Review

Amazing Spider-Man #57 (#498)
Happy Birthday Part-One
Writers: J. Michael Straczynski
Penciler: John Romita Jr.
Inker: Scott Hanna
PLOT: JMS is back on writing duties for Amazing Spider-Man. This is the first issue of a three-part story-arc, which will be concluded, in a historic issue #500. This book has a bit of everything. It begins with a hilarious interaction between Peter, his students, and the school administration. It leads to an interesting dinner conversation between Peter, Aunt May, and MJ about the nature of people. Peter and MJ are a lot more comfortable with each other, and there is red lightening. Yup, red lightening. While in bed, Peter notices the weird lightening and knows that there is something amiss in New York City. He quickly suits up and scurries off to see an awesome display of Earth’s mightiest heroes try to push back an army of The Mindless Ones.
Peter joins in on the battle, but even the heroes continue to have great difficulty with the sheer numbers of these transdimensional creatures. Reed Richards comes to the battle scene with a plan to send these creatures back to the dimension they came from. With the help of his machine, and the powers of all the heroes, they zap the creatures into a black hole. Once that is done, a worried Doctor Strange comes in and informs them that they have made a grave mistake. They have in fact brought back the dreaded villain known as Dormammu.
LIKES: What remarkable book. It’s been along time since I read something this entertaining. Peter’s interactions with his supporting characters were good to see, especially his continued relationship with MJ. But the battle scene against The Mindless Ones was truly remarkable, especially when accompanied by JRjr’s art. The two page spread introducing Spider-Man to the battle was awesome, as well as the final page featuring Dormammu. I’m very excited about the next issue coming out.
DISLIKES: First, I thought we were told that Ezekiel would play an important part in these next three issues, but he was nowhere to be seen. Also, this book felt like a crossover issue rather than a Spider-Man issue with all these Marvel heroes involved, and even though I like Dormammu, I hope he is not the main villain Spidey will be facing in issue #500. Hes more of a Doctor Strange villain rather than a Spider-Man villain. I would personally prefer a new bad guy than him. One last thing, Thor did not look like the Thor that we are used to seeing in the books, and what the heck is a shirt and tie Cyclops doing in the middle of all this?
RATING: 4 and 1/2 webheads out of 5. Well, we definitely got started off with bang towards the road to Amazing Spider-Man #500. I can’t wait to see what the heck Dormammu has to do with Spider-Man.
Reviewed by AC-WEB (Ariel Chaidez)