Giant-Sized Amazing Spider-Man #1: The Gang’s All Here (SPOILER-FREE EARLY REVIEW!)

The “King’s Ransom” storyline goes out with a HUGE bang, Jumping from the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man into this giant-sized special issue. Author Nick Spencer bring it home in a crazy way and he brought along almost everybody that Spidey’s ever fought or teamed up with, sometimes both. Fans of Spencer’s past work will get some love as well. This issue has quite literally, got it all. From Spidey’s personal problem showing up to the ever-looming threat of his new sponsor, Threats and Menaces and its owner, J. Jonah Jameson. Remember how the Kingpin set pretty much every gangster in New York City after the last piece of the Lifeline tablet? Well, that comes to a head in this book also!

This is one of the best issues of Spider-Man that I’ve read in a really long time and I’ve read them all!!! Look, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is the best that Spidey’s been in the last 20+ years. Spencer knows this character and you can tell that he loves writing comic book stories. Not horror stories disguised as superhero stories, not a commentary on the evils of society disguised as superhero stories; just good, solid stories that have all the classic comic book elements there with a dash of new and exciting things thrown in for good measure. I heard recently that Reese’s Cups are the highest selling candy in the U.S. and I can tell you why. There’s nothing like the sweetness of the chocolate coming together with the saltiness of the peanut butter. Sweet and savory, it’s been the recipe for success since the invention of food. Well, that’s what we have here. Spencer gives us the sweetness of character, settings, action, and humor with the savor of the deep, involved, intriguing story that’s been going on for months, and what we get is just pure goodness. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry, yo!

Artists Roge Antonio, Carlos Gomez, and Ze Carlos complement each other perfectly. The art is exactly what you’d want for this book, highly detailed, but not over-detailed. The team definitely knows how to get their point across artistically and what I found particularly enjoyable was the number of emotions that come through on the page. Even wearing costumes you can feel the body language from almost every character and the manner in which it comes through, There’s no goofy, googly-eyed shots or exaggerated open mouths, it’s all using correct human anatomy, and it’s done to a degree that is superb. The flow of the story s absolutely perfect and the way they layout the pages is fantastic and thrilling all at the same time. I would love to have these artists work on Spidey again on upcoming issues of the regular series or great big over-sized special issues like this, I really enjoyed their work and I’m sure you will too.