Amazing Spider-Man #34: Next Stop, Electro!

As we head down the road to issue #1000, Joe Kelly and the team have done a stellar job of balancing relatively low-risk stories with well-layered character writing. The Amazing Spider-Man #34 is the first issue since the end of Death Spiral to somewhat stumble with this methodology, delivering an issue that doesn’t quite satisfy as either a character-building piece for the upcoming milestone issue or a self-contained story in its own right.

Electro is the star antagonist of this issue, which sees Peter teaming up with Damage Control once more to prevent an oncoming tragedy in the wake of Max Dillon’s typical schemes. Now, there is still a great deal of slow-burn effort given to building out the themes and major character developments Peter is facing. By rejecting Damage Control’s preventative measures and assuming he knows best, Electro causes an avalanche of deaths far beyond his usual body count, forcing Peter to confront his own methodology in light of modern rescue-service tactics.

It’s a very interesting premise that isn’t given the time to be properly explored, with the creative team relying heavily on single-page splashes to make the action feel grander than necessary. Ed McGuinness is fantastic at that, and the pages are beautiful, but they don’t serve the bedrock themes of this issue in any meaningful way. What does tie into them is Peter coming to realize that there isn’t anything worth holding over Cormac. He’s a confirmed angel in every sense, further pushing Peter into this newfound sense of aimlessness as he’s continually confronted with the displacement of the foundational truths of his identity.

Now, for the sake of giving credit where its due, Kelly and Ed are able to play with Electro’s powers and put the audience in Peter’s boots up being electrified in a really awesome way. Kelly has been playing around with narration mechanics throughout this arc quite well, and this issue is no different. It’s a ton of fun and gives the reader a great insight into Peter’s resilience and the potential torture of facing a villain like Electro.

There is something conceptually so strong in what Kelly continues to play with, but this issue could have hit much harder than it did if it had simply dialed back the flashy page work and leaned further into its character writing. All the pieces are there, and they’ve been handled quite well, but we’re sitting on the precipice of something greater, and the stalling until issue #1000 is beginning to do it harm. Granted, we have one more issue before that milestone arrives, but there’s no time like the present to enrich the coming epic that Marvel is promising.