Comic Book Review: Amazing Spider-Man #611

Spider-Man has been having a pretty good year, with the American Son, Red Headed Stranger and then Return of the Black Cat story arc it feels good to be a Spider-fan again. With Joe Kelly returning to Deadpool, the character he helped build up so much in the 90’s it’s hard not to be excited. Of course this issue also finds itself trying into the upcoming Gauntlet story arc, can Kelly balance the inanity that is Deadpool and still make this an important issue? Let’s find out!

Writer: Joe Kelly
Art: Eric Canete

Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating:  7 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: Deadpool is talking to a client on the phone. He berates him a bit. We see Deadpool surrounded by several women dressed as heroes and villains. When they realize he was faking it the women freak out and attack him. Deadpool shoots into the air and the women run off as Deadpool takes his call.

We see Kraven’s daughter and her mother talking about how proud she is of her. Anna insists that Madame Web may be broken but she is still useful.

We cut to Peter Parker starting off his Wednesday, narrating how he hates Wednesday as he goes through the motions of Michelle complaining about him, his computer not working, Jonah yelling at him and having trouble with the mail. Peter dodges getting hit by a puddle but it hits a father and son instead, so the father dumps his soda over on Peter’s head.

We cut to seeing Spider-Man has been telling his day to a new super-villain (I’m being generous when I say Super and Villain) as he asks her to introduce herself one more time. She says she’s Lady Stilt-(Oh hell I can’t even write it, it’s too damn funny!)-Man.   Spider-Man proceeds to mock her as Lady Stilt-Man insists its homage.

Lady Stilt-Man (*chuckle*) tries stepping on Spider-Man. She gets her foot caught in a truck that has a high heel shoe on it. She has the shoe on her foot now and Spider-man references Models Inc. We see a manhole uncovered and Lady Stilt-Man (*uncontrollable laughter*) steps into it and falls. Breaking the stilt legs and getting arrested.

We see Deadpool holding the manhole and approaching Spider-Man. After Deadpool exposits his being a big fan of Spider-Man he asks for an autograph. He mentions it will be worth a lot when he’s dead as he steps back and we see the notepad is a bomb that explodes when you write on it. It blows up just as Spider-man is able to avoid the blast.

Deadpool is having an inner monologue and he gets mad at Spider-Man for interrupting him as they start to fight. Spider-man also thinks to himself “who keeps an internal monologue going?” Deadpool mentions he’s doing this only for cash. He gets mad when his shoes are webbed and he references getting Blackest Night designs on them. We then see a box from Geoff Johns saying he endorses this joke.

Deadpool exposits joke after joke as they fight. Deadpool shoots a rocket at Spider-man but he avoids it. Spider-Man stops a wall that the rocket hits from collapsing on people. Deadpool talks to the Angels and Demons about if he should kill spider-man at this point. Deadpool decides to help[ get people out of harms way he then attacks Spider-Man again.

Deadpool is getting tired of sidebars on the comic. We see Anna attacking Mattie (former Spider-woman) in the distance as Spider-Man derails Deadpool’s motorcycle, spending Deadpool flying.

Deadpool lands into a basketball court where kids are playing. Spider-Man grabs Deadpool but Deadpool makes a “your mom” joke and the kids get in. Starting a “your momma” off between the two. They keep one upping each other but Spider-Man pulls of Deadpool’s mask and Deadpool steals a kid’s shirt and wraps it around his head.

Deadpool describes Yo-Momma-geddon. A joke so horrendous it would bring Spidey to tears. Spider-Man tells him to bring it, but suddenly an alarm goes off and Deadpool starts walking off. Deadpool says he was just paid to keep Spider-Man busy and away from Midtown, but he has no idea why.

One kid asks to hear Yo-Momma-Geddon and Deadpool whispers it in his ear and he bursts into tears. Spider-Man asks who hired him but Deadpool says he has no idea. He just tells Spider-Man to be careful because whoever hired him is crazy and he’s in major danger and he then disappears after telling he’ll kick Spider-Man’s ass in Deadpool #19.

We see from Anna and her mother that Spider-Man didn’t run into Arana or Anti-Venom or Mattie the former Spider-Woman. Anna choked her and they now have Mattie on a stretcher. Madame Web mumbles for Mattie to forgive her as Anna’s mother then says they have everything ready to now set the wheels in motion for The Gauntlet.

Commentary
The Good: Amazing Spider-Man #611 is insanity put into a comic  and presented to you as a story. Now I mean that 100% as a compliment as this issue was an absolutely thrilling and fun read that had me excited with each turn of the page to see what insanity would be wrought on Spider-Man next.

Kelly excels with both the Wall Crawler and the Merc with a Mouth as both are crazy wise cracking guys with an affinity for being off the wall nuts. It’s fun to see Kelly really just cut loose and do his own thing with this story as it was just a lot of crazy fun.

Now as for Lady Stilt-Man…I just…well I…I mean…well…you know. It’s funny as all hell. I’m hopeful this was a one time villain as she really is just a joke but as far as a one time joke villain goes, this was one hell of a funny joke villain.

One thing I definitely loved was how absolutely packed this issue was. Now with a one-shot writers usually have to stuff as much as they can into one story, but sometimes certain points will feel rushed and it’s frustrating. Not here as Kelly makes use of every single page to tell his story.

Nothing felt glossed over or rushed as the pacing was absolutely brilliant and it really is impressive seeing just how much Kelly was able to stuff into one comic with all the wild moments starting from Deadpool at the club and ending with The Gauntlet about to begin.

Also yes it is very impressive seeing how Kelly was able to still make this issue important and interesting to the Gauntlet story arc. Now I personally am not at all interested really in the Gauntlet and what it has to do with Spider-Man, I’m sure it will be a big story and all that but still Kelly was able to still make this issue relevant.

This issue could have been just Spider-Man and Deadpool going at it over the last beer for all we know and it would still have been absolutely awesome. Though Kelly was able to take it a step further and ground it as an important part in the Spider-saga for the upcoming events and while I don’t really mind it, current readers will no doubt really appreciate this.

Deadpool was handled brilliantly here as I especially loved his introduction with all the cosplaying women and him pretending to be on the phone. It was awesome. Kelly does a great job introducing Deadpool as a bit of an ego guy with some serious nutjob problems and for people who aren’t familiar with the Merc with a Mouth this issue was a great debut for him to possible new readers.

Of course Deadpool’s insanity was the real highlight of this issue. Everything from Deadpool having Angels and Demons, both that tempt him to do evil to Deadpool using Yo-Momma Jokes was all so off the wall and hilarious that it really goes beyond just being funny and reaches a level of awesome that very few people can achieve when writing a story so manic and wild as this.

It was fun seeing Peter’s life sort of through his own vision and how he sees and hears the world around him. How it all gets to him to the point where he just hears the basics of what people complain about to him and it’s really funny. I’ve had days where everyone just seems to be mumbling the same thing over and over in my head so I can totally identify with this and it was totally hilarious.

Of course the fourth wall was broken again and again and again, while I did have a problem with it after a while (more on that later) most of the fourth wall breaking jokes where absolutely hilarious and I loved them, especially actually getting a Blackest Night reference, that was just awesome.

I did like the dynamic between Spider-Man and Deadpool that Kelly created. How Deadpool is a Spider-Man fan but he still does what he has to for the cash. It was so great seeing Deadpool just go crazy with things like exploding notepads, trying to kill Spider-Man with his motorcycle and as I already mentioned, it all devolving into a Yo-Momma off.

I just have to mention that awesome cover by Skottie Young as a highlight in this issue. It’s so simple yet so awesome, how could anyone not love that image? It’s just so fun and it sets the perfect mood for reading this wild and insane issue.

Canete’s art has lots of issues with me but I will admit he has some great energy and is really great with how energetic images can get. If it where cleaner and sharper it could have been much better.

The Yo-Momma Jokes where just hilarious. At this point I would expect to be rolling my eyes but Kelly handles this totally immature and stupid moment between these 2 and turns it into comedy gold. Especially the “too soon” about the Hank Pym joke. I just loved this stuff as it was crazy and hilarious all at the same time.

Overall this issue was incredibly well done as it was crammed full with great moments and Kelly’s handling of these 2 characters was absolutely brilliant.

The Bad: No doubt the biggest issue that Amazing Spider-Man #611 faced was the art. Canete has real potential but at this point his art is just unappealing to me. It’s very sketchy at times and there are some points where things bend and move that it looks stupid and totally weird and inhuman. While this worked with Lad Stilt-Man with Spider-Man I was scratching my head at how he did that.

It’s just simply not good art. While it never gets downright terrible I just think if there was a solid inker on this it would have looked a lot better because as I said there where some real flashes of good art here and there but for the most art this was just mediocre at best.

Things just looked weird like the way Anna was sitting, it seems she was practically floating in place. And of course breasts look more like blunt throwing objects rather then breasts. Just weird I tell you!

I love breaking the fourth wall as much as the next guy, I really do. But goddamn by the final joke Kelly had gone far beyond breaking the fourth wall. He took a sledge hammer, some dynamite and then incinerated it with lasers to the point where I get it, Deadpool breaks the fourth wall, but he can do more.

Other writers have been good at breaking the fourth wall but not so much to where it gets obnoxious. Daniel Way has been really good at that in his Deadpool series and it surprising to see how Kelly takes it way too far to the point where I dread those little Editors boxes and the joke has officially gone from funny, to hilarious, to annoying, to stop it now before I kill something.

That’s not to say that the jokes weren’t funny, they where, especially the Blackest Night ones. Still even a god funny joke can be ruined if that’s all you tell for the entire story and this seemed to be 80% of Deadpool’s jokes.

I didn’t really care about the Gauntlet lead in. While I appreciate Kelly adding that extra layers for the fans, this doesn’t really excite me anymore for the Gauntlet.

Overall: Despite some obnoxious points in the story and mediocre art I highly recommend Amazing Spider-Man #611 for it’s off the wall story telling and absolutely brilliant character work between Spider-Man and Deadpool. If you’re looking for a fun Deadpool read but can’t tell from all the Deadpool comics out there, I highly recommend this as your Deadpool read for the month as it’s a guarantee great read.