The Amazing Spider-man #5
John Jack
Recap
Spider-Man finds himself in a jam, just kidding all his problems are miraculously solved in a couple pages with some MacGuffin level nonsense. Some great art in this issue that seems to do nothing but neatly wrap up the first several issues using a series of convenient plot devices.
Review
The story in this issue was fine, but it did bother me the way every little problem was solved pretty much as soon as it came up, Nick Spencer seems to have written himself into a corner, only to neatly resolve it. This should come as no surprise to anyone who read secret Empire as that event ended in much the same way with a shrug and a flash of the Cosmic Cube. The genetic recombinator pretty much falls in Peters lap, then literally falls off a building to recombine them. Not that it didn’t bring me any entertainment seeing Spider-Man at the head of a bunch of Tri Sentinels, who were once again conveniently destroyed a couple Pages later. Likewise, the jungle sidebar ended up giving us absolutely no surprises with his final reveal of Kraven the Hunter. Also conveniently black ant and Taskmaster escaped with zero difficulty, freeing them up for later appearances.
Actual photo of Nick Spencer writing this issue
I did greatly enjoy Ryan Ottley’s art this issue, which has honestly improved drastically even within this Arc. The cover, depicting a battle damaged Spider-Man, was honestly pretty excellent, as the torn mask is pretty much a prerequisite for any issue where Spider-Man gets beaten up. Pretty much all my joy of this issue comes from the art.
It literally falls into their laps to recombine them.
I did a bit of a rant about this issue on our weekly web show Comic Watchers, watch it here: https://youtu.be/jbZ_aCmTsFo
Final Thoughts
Not a bad issue, but a lot of lazy writing makes this issue pretty dang toothless, and in this day and age books are too expensive to buy if you're iffy about them.
The Amazing Spider-man #5: What Just Happened?
- Writing - 4/104/10
- Storyline - 5/105/10
- Art - 8/108/10
- Color - 8/108/10
- Cover Art - 9/109/10
