Review: The Amazing Spider-Man #14

STORY

This comic is weaving lots of story threads all in this one issue. Kraven the Hunter seeks out Arcade to build him something, Aunt May is dealing with financial fallout after the death of her husband Jay Jameson’s recent death, the Lizard is struggling with family issues and mercenaries the Black Ant and Taskmaster are hunting down criminals and imprisoning them for unknown reasons. I don’t know how Nick Spencer manages to make all these plots work at once but somehow he does and in doing so gives us some nice character development along the way.

Each subplot adds key elements to the overall plot. Arcade is on the phone wishing for the good old days when other villains would call him up to order custom death traps. Lamenting that these days villains just go straight for the kill, that villainy seems to have lost some of the fun of the old days and it’s just all about revenge. The Lizard has managed to resurrect his family through cloning but they have also had to become part lizard to survive. Connors keeps them hidden in their home in the sewers but this causes great conflict between his son Billy and himself as Billy just wants to live a normal life. Billy rightly points out that the world above is quite used to the abnormal which leaves one to wonder, is the Lizard protecting his family from the world or the world from his family.

Aunt May is dealing well with her husband’s death with surprising ease and demonstrates that she is able to deal with difficult situations of all sorts with wit, grace and determination. However as much as I like to see a strong May as opposed to the old fearful May, she is way too cool in my opinion. She doesn’t come across as a grieving widow. She doesn’t seem to express any loss and she’s unflinching in the face of thugs and Super-Villains. She only loses her cool when her Jay’s lawyer expresses affection for her and compared to everything else she does her reaction comes across as an overreaction, even becoming a bite spiteful. It just feels out of character somewhat.

Peter has been offered, through Conners, a position at the university lab and he actually expresses my own thoughts about his personal story in this comic. It feels like elements of the comic regressing back to the early days of Spider-Man. Broke Peter, going to school, Aunt May single and struggling, it all just to familiar. It’s an oddly meta moment that makes me wonder if these decisions are more from editorial than the writer himself and he took a bit of a shot here.

ART

My biggest problem with this book lies with the art though. Normally I’m quite the fan of Chris Bachalo but something has gone wrong here. I’m a fan of his art style and enjoy the way he renders things and people but this is just strange. Characters either look extremely young or extremely old. Peter looks like a kid not an adult in his id twenties. Anyone older than that looks ready old folks home. Bachalo’s colors are just dull! Everything is just kinda gray and dirty looking. It’s all so muted I’d think is was directed by Zack Snyder. His Chris’s take on the Lizard is horrendous. His head is the size of his torso, making him look more like a toad than anything resembling a lizard.

There are some real issues with storytelling as well. The fight scenes are poorly choreographed and clumsy looking. During a family fight amongst the Conner’s, Peter doesn’t look shocked embarrassed for his host but just calmly takes a drink. At least MJ and Mr and Mrs Conners look upset. In one panel Kraven’s spear knocks off Arcade’s hat but in the next it has magically pierced it. I don’t get it, I loved Bachalo’s work in Dr Strange last year but this…

FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s not bad but it could have been better. 2.5 stars!

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

REVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man 14

Writer:Â Nick Spencer
Art:Â Chris Bachalo
Colors:Â Chris Bachalo
Inkers: Al Vey, Wayne Faucher, John Livesay, Tim Townsend