Comics Amazing Spider-Man #624 spoilers/dicussion

[stillanerd]

All right, I'll start this off by saying what I thought about this issue, as usual:

Spoiler

*Once again, the art by Paul Azaceta is leaves something to be desired. Again, his pencils look the best whenever he’s doing night scenes or when there’s supposed to be darkness. However, day time scenes really point out some of the flaws, and again, there seems to be a real lack of dynamism or energy in the action scenes, and Spidey looks particularly dumpy looking at times. Not to mention, some of the faces just look really off in some panels., although certainly, the close-ups of the Red Vulture do look quite menacing.

*And once again, Mark Waid’s script is very tight, fast-paced, and very focused. Although he really needs to work on his Spider-Man quips. For instance, the beginning sequence, in which Spidey rambles on as though he was a sportscaster giving the play-by-play, it’s just strung out for way too long. It’s like watching a skit from Saturday Night Live in which the gag keeps getting drawn out to the point where the timing is completely off and you just wish for the skit to end because it’s no longer funny--if it was ever funny to begin with. What’s more, it just feels unfinished and anti-climatic, since the only fight between Spidey and the Red Vulture happens at the beginning and Spidey fails to properly track him down since he removed the spider-tracer Spidey plants on him during the fight. So, I guess, this is supposed to set-up the Red Vulture’s inevitable return for “round three” in a future issue.

*Also, we get the full story behind Jimmy’s transformation into the “Red Vulture.” While I appreciate the fact that it’s linked to the same equipment that was instrumental in creating the Scorpion and the Human Fly, again, I’m not sure whether we are supposed to feel sorry for Jimmy in this instance or not. After all, he was a criminal and a “cleaner” before this, and was the guy who went to his superiors with the idea of creating their own “Vulture” in the first place before they decided to use him as a guinea pig instead. Other than that, there’s no other insights into the “Red Vulture” beyond his criminal lifestyle. Heck, even though we knew Tony Soprano and the other members of his crew were bad guys in The Sopranos, at least they had some shred of humanity and decent qualities to them for the audience to relate to them on some level.

*Speaking of sympathy, the one guy out of this entire issue who I actually believe was the most noble was actually J. Jonah Jameson. The way it’s written, he’s willing to stand by the truth no matter what personal cost it is to him, and truly blames himself for what happened to the security guard that tried to protect him; as Peter said, even he is surprised whenever he sees Jameson show signs of human decency. To be fair, Jameson did a pretty “dickish” move publicly denouncing an humiliating Peter at the press conference, especially since Peter is right there on the stage with him. Why he didn't just privately tell Peter that he was fired for doctoring the photos, I really don't know and it was not addressed in this issue. But considering how Peter’s doctored photograph DID make the front page in Frontline and the press corp did believe Peter was the guy who helped to save Jonah his job, Jameson really didn’t have any other choice BUT to publicly denounce Peter, regardless of his personal feelings and professional history with him. And he does say that its all the more heartbreaking for him BECAUSE it was Peter. Course, you would think that there would already be an inherit conflict of interest due to the fact that Peter is working for the mayor’s office AND for a newspaper at the same time, but I’ll let that go.

*Ah yes, the firing and blacklisting of Peter Parker. I know he’s supposed to be the hero of this book, and that yes it’s a credit to Waid to show that Peter is infallible and imperfect, but I’m sorry--what Peter did here was not only unethical, it was downright stupid. Yes, he was willing to help Jonah out because he didn’t want him to have his reputation tarnished by a lie, but one cannot use lies in order to tell the truth. Plus Peter himself knew it was a mistake of him to blurt out to that Lubeck guy that he took the photo that would help Jameson, so at some level he knew what he was doing was wrong and dishonest. And for a guy who has been taking photographs for years and is supposed to have one of the more higher IQ’s, among superheroes, you would think he’d do a more credible job using Photoshop, especially since Jameson was able to spot the immediate difference right away. So really, Peter has nobody but himself to blame for this and he knows it. Worse, thanks to fact he has his mask off while feeling sorry for himself as he watched the Bugle rubble being carted away, the Red Vulture now knows what he looks like, so that’s another boneheaded move on his part. So don’t expect me to cry any tears of sympathy for him, and if we were supposed to, then Waid certainly failed in that regard. And it occurs to me: why would a mere photo showing Jonah fighting the Red Vulture clear his name anyway? Wouldn't someone conclude "Well you were only fighting back to protect yourself because the Red Vulture wanted revenge for you creating him"?

So again, while this two-parter was very tightly plotted and fast-paced, it just felt really unsatisfying to me, as though it were more incomplete than anything else. Granted, it is setting up some more plots which will be addressed further down the road, but would have liked a bit more resolution with regards to Spidey and the “Red Vulture” at least. Not to mention I really don’t think Azaceta, although not really all that bad, just doesn’t seem to have the right style for a book like Amazing Spider-Man.

 

[Spider-Man '92]

Personally enjoyed this two-parter. No, it's nothing all in all that special, and it won't be something I remember with much recognition years from now, but I thought it was decent. I like the growth of the story at the present, and hope it gets even more in-depth.