Spider-Man #8: Maxed Out!

While the beginning of this ancillary Spider-Man series was an extremely tough read, Dan Slott and Mark Bagley have finally pulled away from the Spider-verse to deliver an engaging Spidey narrative that plays on classic tropes and ideas to keep the character fresh, the story interesting, and the characters familiar.

The story opens with an apartment building engulfed in flames; Spidey works through the motions as a hero to save every possible person and pet before the edifice crumbles. Failing to keep a single man due to his inability to sense their peril, Peter sets out to alter his Spider-Sense to know when others are in danger to save more lives with less error. This brings Peter directly into conflict with Electro, a confrontation that may spell death for the Web-Slinger.

Peter failing to save a life and reacting to it with extremity is nothing new for Dan Slott. Some of his greatest stories during his time on Amazing Spider-Man covered this thematically, but here it’s played at a much smaller level than it was in No One Dies. It also helps that Peter’s status quo is wildly different from what it was nearly two decades ago, with Slott playing on recent developments to keep this plotline fresh.

The narrative is also kept entirely character-driven, with Pete’s decision to warp his Spider-Sense spilling out of an excellently written conversation between himself and local NYC firefighters who attempt to relate to him at a human level. That conversation alone is rich with enough character and themes for the arc to coast off, but Slott paces out his thematic plot beats well enough to make every page in this issue matter. Peter trying to figure out how he could save as many people as possible, the chance of being overwhelmed be damned, permeates this issue at all times without being anything other than subtle in scenes where it would surely disrupt the flow.

In general, the character-driven story here is leagues beyond not just the last arc but makes for one of the most well-rounded Spider-Man stories in the previous two years, at least. The new Peter/Norman relationship is at its best here, Slott playing on Peter’s failure and Norman’s battle against his past to build redemption for both characters. Spidey is heroic and human; each page of this issue is a damn good time.

While simple and safe, the execution is so well done that its lack of originality isn’t something that drags the story down. Focusing on well-written characters with internal and external struggles is the magic mixture for creating entertaining, engaging, and emotionally relevant stories. Bagley’s art manages to elevate so much of this, his work back on its ‘A’ game now that he has more time to focus on individual details over mass displays of Spider-people. While Electro wasn’t focused on too much in this issue, his slow build into villainy has laid the groundwork for a classic Spider-Man story that hasn’t forgotten the good that could be done with the current status quo.