Amazing Spider-Man #30: The Devil’s Favorite Demon

I seriously have not had this much fun reading Spider-Man since I first started reading back in the Roger Stern/Ron Frenz era. Not only is this issue off the scale on the pure fun charts, but it’s also got a great big shock ending, plenty of mystery, and it’s a legit between the pages tie-in to the Absolute Carnage event. There’s three separate stories being told in this issue and two of them actually get resolved, leaving just the main cliffhanger ending, and if I didn’t mention this before, it’s a great big shocker!! During the past 10 or so years, I haven’t really enjoyed Spider-Man because 90% of the stories were “earth-shattering” events that changed everything, only to have it changed back by the end of the storyline. Needless to say, so far that hasn’t been the case for Nick Spencer’s run.

Ryan Ottley has got a great artistic style. It’s not one I can put my finger on, it’s one that’s all his own and I think that’s why it works so well. I look at one panel and it looks a little animated, another panel will look a little old school, and yet another panel will be totally modern, yet they all blend together perfectly. I love the way he puts real emotion into the characters faces. There’s a scene in this issue where a kid is hanging onto Spider-Man as Spidey’s swinging down a hallway trying to get away from Carnage and he’s got the same look on his face that I had on mine when I was riding a roller coaster for the first time. Amazing work!