REVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man #51

Web Of Zeb

The Main Spider-Man book has been of a fluctuating quality for some time now, in large part due to the odd plots and bizarre situations the title character finds himself in. Take this issue for example Peter Parker, the titular Spider-Man, is now a bizarre mashup of his crime-fighting persona and his mortal enemy, the Green Goblin, a Clone of Spider-Man, Ben Riley, who formerly went by the Scarlet Spider, is now the overly edgy Chasm and the hits just keep on coming. I know it must be tough to keep coming up with biweekly stories to keep the webslinger’s life fresh, but these arcs are so bad I can’t ever see them adapting any of the current ideas into cartoons or movies.

Writer Zeb Wells knows how to write Spider-Man and his cast. In fact, I think he’s fantastic at it. The characters are all on point: Dr Octopuss is shrewd and pretentious, Kraven is honourable and shown to respect his history with Spider-Man, and Norman Osborn is cruel and calculating. I can’t stress enough the writer of TASM (The Amazing Spider-Man) knows what he’s doing when it comes to the actual characters, but knowing how pieces move is only half the battle. You also have to be able to make good plays with your pieces. The plots in TASM have been lacking and are so frequently off-kilter from the norm of Spider-Man that it feels too out there with characters either being mind-controlled or being possessed to shake up a status quo. While everything I’m reading is technically in character, with snappy dialogue coloured by the cast’s personalities, the events are just groan-worthy.

The Only Thing Amazing About this Book is the Art

While I’ve made it pretty clear I’m not a fan of the plot here, the art is actually the stand-out feature here. Heroes and villians are rendered in iconic detail with fresh but familiar looks using colours and shading that actually pops. One page, in particular, is when a lineup of powerful heroes from Wolverine to Captain America shows up, and they are done such wonderful justice by artists Ed McGuinness and Todd Nauck, along with the inkers and colourists. The spread page where the Avengers line up to throw down with evil Spidey is so good it could have been the cover for this issue.

A Chasm Too Deep

At the end of the day, the idea of a Goblin-ized Spider-Man does not interest me. Spider-Man had his corruption arc with Venom, and there it worked, given the slime’s parasitic nature and thought given to the mechanics of how the black ooze actually worked, eventually becoming a fully formed character of its own. Goblin-Spider is much akin to The Batman Who Laughs from DC’s Dark Nights: Metal event, and it wasn’t more interesting there either. Evil versions of the hero, like Owlman or black suit Spider-Man, keep what people love about the hero but twist their morals, while Goblin-Spider and The Laughing Batman just lazily smash the hero and villain into a composite mess.

‘The art is on point, and the character writing is good, but the plot leaves a lot to be desired.’

Final Score 2/5

PUBLISHER: Marvel Comics
WRITER: Zeb Wells
ART: Ed Mcguinness & Todd Nauck
COLORS: Marcio Menyz, Erick Arciniega & Bryan Valenza