Saturday, October 07, 2006

24 Hour Comics Reviewing Day, Hour Seven: Amazing Spider-Man #535

Amazing Spider-Man #535AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #535: This comic is fun. What's that? Bully giving a fun rating to a Civil War tie-in? What's going on here? What kind of topsy-turvy world is this? Black is white and up is down and butter is margarine! What's going on here? Well, Peter finally is as mad as heck and not takin' it any more is what happened, it is! Somebody at my local comic book store said they were glad that Spider-Man finally "grew a pair" which kinda made me scratch my little stuffed-fulla-beans head an' puzzled me no end. I looked though the entire comic several times and I don't see Spider-Man growing two of anything. He does sprout those creepy mechanical stingers that Iron Man whipped up in the lab for him, but I count three o' those, not two. So that bemuses me. But what delights me is the tipping point of the Parker/Stark relationship in which Peter simply can't stand back and watch Tony and Reed act so out of character even one more issue. There's some delightfully in character work here on Peter as his first thoughts are to ensure the safety of May and M.J. (although maybe he mighta had better timing so as to wait until they actually were safe before he went barreling armor-first into his boss), and it's a wonderful leap to your hooves, cheering out loud moment when Spider-Man stops being a pawn and starts acting according to his conscience and his heart. I still argue that Iron Man and Mister Fantastic (whose flashback seems so non-canon it's suspicious) are presented so OOC that golly, it better be the Space Phantom or Psycho-Man pulling the strings, but thank you, Marvel, for at least and at last giving Webhead a conscience and the impetus to act on it. You go, Spidey! Give him a punch for me.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I take it they're saving the innevitable Iron-Man-has-an-override-control-for-spideys-new-costume revelation for the main series?


Hmmm, "The Innevitable Iron Man." Good names for a mini-series, that.

Michael Fountain: Blood for Ink said...

I'm hoping that Peter anticipated the override and already disconnected it. I then want to see some of that "proportional strength of a spider" used to peel off Tony's face plate and armor.