REVIEW: Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows

STORY BY:Â Dan Slott
ART BY:Â Adam Kubert, John Dell
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Dan Slott is certainly no stranger to messing with Peter Parker’s life. During his extensive body of Spider-work, we have seen all sorts of crazy stuff happen including body swapping and mind type shenanigans. So it’s no great surprise that, with Secret Wars, we are able to have another round of temporary paradigm shifting stories.

Peter has it all. Hot wife, young daughter, the ability to make money taking what is essentially selfies. However, there seems to be a hero shortage. The lack of street level help leads Peter to the Avengers and as coincidence or Parker luck has it, all the inmates break free from prison meaning that Venom is on the trail of Parker. Â Foregoing the Avengers, Peter rushes home to have one more battle with his erstwhile “greatest foe”, choosing the responsibility of family over that of being a hero.

Scott is obviously familiar with how Peter thinks and the dialogue in the book is pretty much what you would expect from a writer who has spent as much time with Peter as Slott has. Â Even moving into the larger Marvel Universe, Cap and Iron Man are correct and present. But it is the conversation between Peter and MJ at the dinner table that makes me smile. Any parent will recognize the need to spell things out.

Adam Kubert is on art duties, alongside Jon Dell on inks and I have to say, the book does look good. Not great. Good. That wouldn’t normally be an issue for me, but with the Kubert’s I do expect more. On the positive note everyone looks like they should, there is a great panel of Spider-Man coming in through a window and the splash page of Venom on the couch is equally as strong but other than that nothing really sticks out. Â The fight between the Avengers and the big bad does seem a little messy and throughout the book there are a couple of lazy panels. The colours look great. Whether it is the sedate moments or in the middle of a burning building, Justin Ponsor’s work add depth to proceedings.

I liked the title of the book. Â With Peter and MJ on the cover, it’s a flashback moment to their wedding. Â But as it turns out, that is not the vow that may end up getting renewed. Â I haven’t read any Spider-Man since Superior Spider-Man #2 and it had been a while prior to that. This issue reminded me why I used to love Spider-Man books, but also why I stopped reading them. That said, this is a good slice of “what could be” in the midst of Secret Wars and of course the recently announced All New Marvel reboot, re-image or restart.

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Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network