The Amazing Spider-Man #8
John Jack
Recap
The Thieves Guild has declared that it's their turn to be back on top, thwarted at every turn by the superhero community they have decided to start by stealing everything the heroes hold dear. In a hilarious crime spree in one day Thor's Hammer, Cap's Shield, Cyclops Visor, Ghost Riders car and all kinds of other things are jacked. Hilarious.
Review
I recognize Hammerhead, Looter, Spot, White Rabbit, Tombstone, Boomerang, 8 Ball? (I think) and a couple I don’t know offhand I think this turn of events is actually pretty fun, and that’s important to me in a Spider-man book. Nick Spencer has crafted a decent premise in this first issue of the arc and it was fun to see all the heroes finding out their stuff stolen. My fave was probably Thor despite the expositional bit of dialogue that made it possible.
Speaking of the Thor cameo I did like the fact that Thor had his own slightly antiquated looking font, subtly different but still nice. A hat tip to Joe Caramanga.
It does seem like Spencer has a bit of trouble deciding if Spidey is going to be street level shenanigans or big sweeping arcs, I haven’t been able to get a good feel for what he is going for as the focus is all over the place. Also I’m sure it’ll come back around but we pushed all this Kraven stuff for several issues and then kinda blow it off these last couple issues. It does still feel like Spencer’s primary focus is clever cameos over good storytelling, which is basically this whole issue if you think about it, there are roughly 20 panels of hero cameos throughout the issue.
The art by Humberto Ramos felt less cartoony than last arc, I enjoyed it more than the last couple issues, still not ideal IMO but better than some.
Final Thoughts
An interesting and fun direction, but whether or not it's a good story remains to be seen.
The Amazing Spider-Man #8: Right Under Their Noses
- Writing - 7/107/10
- Storyline - 7/107/10
- Art - 7/107/10
- Color - 8/108/10
- Cover Art - 8/108/10