Amazing Spider-Man #90: She’s Just a Devil Woman with Evil on her Mind

Aw shit. This book is really hard to read. Not because it’s bad, quite the opposite, actually. But this is definitely not Ben’s finest hour and that is hard to take in. I’m gonna try and take my emotions out of my head to get through this review, but you know what? It says something when a book makes you emotional. That is just what author Patrick Gleason does here. This may be the book that makes me like him better as an author than I do as an artist, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Gleason uses a lot of tools to pluck at each and every one of your heartstrings. You’re attachment to the character, your sympathy for the supporting cast, your loyalty to Peter-all these things come into play in this issue as Gleason starts bringing this chapter in Spider-Man’s life to an end. At this point, you can tell that this isn’t going to be an ending that’s nice and neat. It’s gonna be messy and it’s gonna leave a lot of pieces scattered all over the place and I’m afraid some of those pieces might not get put back in the box. 

Hey! It’s my favorite artist of all time, Mark Bagley! The Beyond team brings in the premier Spider-Man artist for this issue and he doesn’t disappoint. He puts such emotion into each person that he draws, it only adds to the emotional intensity that Gleason writes into this issue. What you get here is classic Bagley, and quite honestly, anything or anybody else just wouldn’t work here. This was a chance for Bagley to shine, and that’s exactly what he did.