Amazing Spider-Man Renews Hope by Going Back to Formula

If you read the past seven years of Amazing Spider-Man (starting at the Nick Spencer/Ryan Ottley run), it’s evidently clear that there have been various attempts at trying to make Peter Parker a real everyman again – not a blank slate anyone can project onto, but someone who accurately represents the individual of the present day.

Unfortunately, within the last two runs, there isn’t enough of a balance between Peter Parker and Spider-Man to flesh out Peter as a person. In both cases, there’s too much Spider-Man, too much focus on the action and the heroics, too little on the man underneath. On some level, I understand. After all, the initial assumption is that the action is why we’re here. Still, the truth is, the reason why the older Amazing Spider-Man is worth reading, the reason why Peter Parker has stuck with people for generations, is because of the focus on Peter himself, on his life. Without caring about Peter, how can I care about Spider-Man?

When Eight Deaths of Spider-Man was first announced, I took a sabbatical from Amazing Spider-Man until the start of the next run. When I found out Joe Kelly (writer on Eight Deaths and former Spider-Man writer from the Brand New Day era, among other things) was going to be helming the book, I decided to binge all of Eight Deaths before the start of the new run. After years of disappointment with the title, I wanted to know if there was a light at the end of the tunnel. 

Eight Deaths was a good taste of the potential of a Joe Kelly Spider-Man run. Sure, by the end it gets a little too crazy, but I appreciated the focus on Peter Parker and his supporting cast (between his and Justina Ireland’s scripts). It seemed to me that we were finally getting to a point where writers actually remember that to care about Spider-Man, we need to care about Peter Parker. 

I was going to read the run regardless, to be fair. I give all runs a fair shake during their first arc, and furthermore, it was Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia (House of X, Blood Hunt) on the art, how could I not!? Eight Deaths was just the added bonus (shoutout issue #65).

And then I finally got to read Issue #1, and let me just say…

I haven’t been this hopeful about an Amazing Spider-Man run in a long time.

Sure, there’s been the various amount of times I’ve talked about the good bits of the Wells run, but those came and went, small moments in the broader sea of an admittedly weak book (that I still do enjoy… in parts), but I very much did not like the first issue of that run. This one, however, really got me.

When the book opened on Peter Parker’s job hunting, I knew we were in for a treat. It immediately felt real; it felt reminiscent of the current problems faced by my peers and me. It evoked the feeling that a modern take on Spider-Man should make someone feel that Peter Parker is going through the same problems as you. There’s a wonderful Pepe Larraz bit throughout that job hunt sequence that is also incredibly funny.

Speaking of, it cannot be understated how incredible Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia make this book look. For all the faults Amazing Spider-Man has had over the past few years, art is certainly not one of them, and this time they’ve taken it to a whole other level. Larraz’s Spider-Man displays the kineticism he should embody, with kicks and web attacks that make you feel like Spider-Man is moving in the pages you’re reading. Every single panel deploys speed and impact brilliantly. All of that works because of Marte Gracia (frequent Larraz collaborator), who makes this entire book look breathtakingly stunning. The Peter Parker pages are gorgeous too, I love that neither of them ever decides to hold back on the human moments, and that’s what makes all of this so much better. Glue every page into my eyelids.

It just feels like a day in Peter Parker’s life, but also the start of a new era. Randy Robertson continues to be a mainstay that I really love. I’m glad May Parker is finally an important character in Spider-Man comics again. Shay is a very fun addition who I’m glad is staying and I hope will continue to stay.

The epilogue by Kelly, Romita Jr, Hanna, and Menyz sets up interesting implications for the future, but Menyz is a poor choice to colour Romita Jr. 

All in all, this is an amazing first issue. I’m really glad I dug it so much. I just hope that they don’t let me down after the honeymoon arc.