The Amazing Spider-Man #64 – King of Pain

If the last issue of 8 Deaths was but a taste of what careful character writing and balanced pacing could do for this title, then The Amazing Spider-Man #64 was the full meal. Ireland continues to prove why Peter Parker and his world are just as essential to the power of a Spider-Man story as his heroic persona is, filling an otherwise weightless tale with a deeper theme of pain and mortality that threatens the stability of Peter’s double life.

However, as good as the writing in this issue is, it does lack a certain excitement in the big Scion battle that this issue hinges on. Gleb Melnikov is a great artist, and I love his visual take on this world, but there was a lethargy to the fight between Spidey and Callix that made it a bit ineffective in clearly defining the Scions’ power of absolute pain.

There’s a clear imbalance in priority between Kelly’s issues, which tend to have much more high-flying superhero fantasy, and Ireland’s. Both do their specific things quite well, but those things not being interlaced between every chapter of this arc has made for a really lopsided reading experience.

Outside of that specific critique, the story and art were firing on all cylinders. The central Scion conflict in this issue does a great job of characterizing Peter’s resilience to pain as he pushes forward to outwit the terms of death, which are an inherent factor of this story. Ireland has interwoven every member of the current side cast into this story, except for Norman, each with their own roles and emotional impact on Peter as he tries to figure out how to fulfill his duty without dying.

The tease of Aunt May and Shay’s first sit-down is the exact kind of social-relationship drama that keeps Peter’s social life interesting, especially since May has been kind of absent from the title since 2018. She shows up to deliver very specific messages, but under Kelly and Ireland, she’s been forced to be a reckoning force as a parental figure in Peter’s life, leaving her initial role as a doting responsibility in the past.

Not only does the tension continue to bubble between Peter’s life and his battle against the Scions, but the conflict is beginning to affect him internally as well. While this started in the last issue, we really begin to see Peter contemplate his mortality and make big decisions to keep himself from dying over and over again. Ireland’s Peter shows a sense of agency that gives this story a bit more grit, and although the explanation for this conflict is still a bit ambiguous, it’s clear now that what’s important to 8 Deaths isn’t the conflict itself, but how it’s slowly tearing down Peter’s stability in both mind and soul.

All of this goes to further bolster the endearment for Peter in the modern day. New life is being breathed into him with more dynamic and relatable characterization that not only has me falling in love with Peter once again, but his entire world as well. If Kelly can pick up the ball here and run it forward with his signature sense of wide-screen action, then this arc may genuinely go down as a massive highlight for fans of the title.