The Amazing Spider-Man #23: Lulling Lows and Nothing Else

There’s a method to decompressed storytelling in comics that often can and does work. Living in moments, allowing the plot to stretch across multiple issues while growing characters and minor plots considerably, is a welcome style of comic writing popularized in the early 2000s. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #23 is the middle chapter in a saga of decompression that suffers from terrible plotting, poor visual storytelling, and a dash of rushed writing that forms a comic book of (arguably) embarrassing quality.

This issue follows up on the last instantaneously, weaving together a tale that starts with Peter waking up in York, Pennsylvania, and ending with him going to Norman Osborn for help. A chunk of this issue, a superfluous seven pages, is Peter weaving his way towards the Baxter building with narrative boxes used to explain the semantics of what’s going on with the mystery dimension MJ is trapped inside. What could have been one page, maybe three at most, is instead stretched out to seven, leaving no room for any actual story.

The middle-to-end section of this issue focuses on the Fantastic Four and Cap turning Peter away from instantaneous help, as he’s needed to help clear up the explosions in York. The FF, or Cap, could have let Peter use the lab to save MJ and then bring him to the FBI. Or, in the age of the mobile phone, maybe do a video call and move on. It’s an entirely contrived way of putting him on the outs with his super-pals, one that has so many simple solutions it’s stunning how this plot even passed editorial. This issue ends with the reveal that Peter has no choice but to go to Norman, which has no shock value as we already know Peter will work with Norman in the future.

There is no meat to this story’s bones if the issue had gotten to the punch about Norman sooner and allowed some time to tell an actual story instead of snapshotting Peter’s rush for help without any artistry or interesting narrative events.

The art is fine. It’s John Romita Jr. doing his thing. He illustrates the hell out of Peter fighting Cap. Still, besides that, the issue is full of broken anatomy, ugly character work, and all-around messy illustrations that Marcio Menyz’s coloring couldn’t save.