The Amazing Spider-Man: Torn #2: It’s All German To Me

With all the setup now out of the way, The Amazing Spider-Man: Torn #2 finally has room to move full steam ahead, offering a modern look at Peter’s college years without leaning on rose-tinted nostalgia. On a plot level, this issue does a solid job of building tension and raising the stakes, further expanding on the villain as Peter begins to let himself love. Unfortunately, nearly every other aspect of the book dries out what promise the concept once had, with art that lacks personality and a script that continues to indulge in its writer’s worst habits.

What gave the first issue some thematic weight was its earnest approach to Peter’s college days through a modern lens. He is still rough around the edges, torn between the romance that surrounds him and the heavy burden of his double life. There is fun to be found in his German professor being pulled into his investigation of the supernatural murders from the previous issue, and a warm, grounded moment with MJ that lands especially well for readers familiar with this era of Spider-Man’s history.

Surrounding all of this, however, is the continued development of a painfully dull villain whose supernatural ambitions fail to enrich the themes or character arcs the rest of the story aims to explore. This new antagonist, the same one who sent Evangeline after the book in the first place, has a motivation that feels like the comic book equivalent of a melatonin overdose. It leads into a classic Spider-Man dilemma where Peter’s personal life once again collides with danger, but beyond that there is little intrigue to justify revisiting this antagonist beyond what was established in the debut issue. Those pages would have been better spent further exploring the character conflict at the heart of the story instead.

The emotional weight this story strives for would land far better if the art elevated the script, but Pere Pérez’s work here lacks the personality and energy that defined the first issue. The pages are clean to a fault, with heavy outlines, sparse backgrounds, and flat compositions that leave the book feeling static and lifeless. Every panel looks like it has been painted in by numbers, technically competent but missing the spark and texture that could have brought this story to life.