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Amazing Spider-Man #55 Review

 Posted by  Issue Review, Marvel Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 102011
 

by Travis Starnes, CMRO Editor

Amazing Spider-Man

Issue #55

Written by Stan Lee, Art by John Romita Sr.

Published: December 1967

Part 3 of the Doc Ock Wins story Arc, and the highs and lows persist.  The tone of this issue is starts noticeably (for the time at least) more dark then previous issues of Amazing Spider-Man.  Parker is out for revenge for the his Aunt…

The book opens with a fight scene, not a good thing in these early comics.  There is less narrating of actions, which does help.  The irrational hatred of Spidey continues to be an annoying story point.  Even though he clearly saved the stolen nullifier last issue, they still insist that he had a hand even with all the evidence pointing the other direction.

Also, the second attempt on the device is just poorly written.  While you have to suspend great parts of your disbeliefe when reading comics, this takes it to far.  He basically beats them with a couple of smoke grenades….just weak writing.

And then they give Spidey amnesia and he is convinced that he is a bad guy.  This never works, not the dozen other times they have done it previous to this issue, and not in this story line.  Amnesia is a device of weak writing.

All in all, this issue is a downturn from the last one.  Gone is the nice character building, replaced by clunky fight scenes and poor plot ideas.

 

Amazing Spider-Man #54 Review

 Posted by  Issue Review, Marvel Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 102011
 

by Travis Starnes, CMRO Editor

Amazing Spider-Man

Issue #54

Written by Stan Lee, Art by John Romita Sr.

Published: November 1967

This is the second issue in the 5 part Doc Ock Wins story line.  Just with the first part of this series, it feels a little cookie cutter with earlier Spidey story arcs.  I have a feeling this complaint will not be going away as I read parts 3-5.

Since the first half of this issue is more character based, less actiony, the dialogue is not bad.  The lack of fight scenes eliminates a lot of the narration characters seem to do for themselves.  I am still incredulous over Aunt May taking in Doc Ock as a boarder, not even in disguise or anything.  Stan continues to write her as possibly the most naive person who ever lived.  Harry and Peter continue to fight, although unlike last issue, this time it doesn’t bug me.  He is doing a good job building up tension between the roommates, and I am interested to see where it goes.

This issue also sees the introduction of Joe Robertson, the voice of reason at the Daily Bugle.  I for one am glad for it, JJ was starting to get a bit to repetative in his crazy, irrational Spider-Man hate.  Even in his first issue, Joe is calling him on it.  The conflict between MJ and Gwen also continues to build, a little more overtly then last time, but still overall good character building between these two.  I will note also this is one of the first time Stan has written for women where it doesn’t seem like an insane insult.

I also really like the reveal of the Doc in Aunt May’s house to Parker.  They do that very well, and the normally goofy villain actually manages to come off kind of menacing.  Unfortunately, the praise for Stans’ writing ends here.  As then get into the “fight” portion of the book, it just turns lame.  Random henchmen, a short and kinda dull fight with Doc Ock, and once again May can’t take the “strain” of the situation.  Peter once again feels responsible for her condition.  This was interesting the first time Stan…by time seven it just makes me want to take a nap.

The art is on par with last issue.  I am, at least at this point, not a big Romita Sr. fan, but it doesn’t detract from the book overly.  I still perfer Ditko however.

Overall this issue, while not being stellar, is much better then the last one.  I give most of the credit for that to 2/3 of the book being character work and not random fight scenes.  However they have clearly billed the next issue as more combat

Amazing Spider-Man #53 Review

 Posted by  Issue Review, Marvel Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 092011
 

by Travis Starnes, CMRO Editor

Amazing Spider-Man

Issue #53

Written by Stan Lee, Art by John Romita Sr.

Published: October 1967

This issue starts the 5-part series Doc Ock Wins, trying to build on the success of the previous run of Spider-Man books.  Unfortunately, instead of building on the characters as they had for several years running, this issue marks the start of some serious backsliding.

The overall writing can’t be faulted, as the diaolage is similar to all comics of this era, with characters narrating their actions continuously.  This book actually has a leg up in that department, as any interaction he has as Parker with Gwen, MJ, and the rest of the gang reads more like actual dialogue.  You get the real sense of them as people.  The MJ/Gwen relationship, and their competition for Peter, starts picking up in this issue with each character throwing side remarks at each other that at times even reach the point of being subtle.

I wish the plot had similar high notes.  Stan really went back to the well on this one.  Harry goes back to being disgruntled at Peter for his “secretiveness”, and once again Aunt May is in grave danger.  I get this is a big deal in the Spidey universe, but I can only muster so much caring about Aunt May for so long.  And then she allows a guy who is in the papers as being a criminal to rent a room from her, just by saying “ohh, it was a misunderstanding.”  Just lazy writing.

The art also backslides in this issue.  Ditko had really started coming into his own over the last 10 or so issues, and Romita backslides the Art to where it was in the early 60′s.  Most of it was generally flat and bland.

While not unreadable (as much of those first issues of the title were), I had been enjoying Amazing Spider-Man recently, and it saddens me to feel like I have to “plod” through issues again.

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