Comic Book Review: Amazing Spider-Man #592

Even though Brand New Day started with a rough few months I would say that the past few months of Spider-Man stories have been a nice return to form with some fun stories. And with this new 24/7 arc Mark Waid returns for his second story as part of the Spidey-Brain Trust. In his first go around on this title Waid had a fun two issue-arc, which included the great artwork of Marcos Martin, that re-introduced Shocker into the Spider-Man world post-BND as well as introduce J. Jonah Jameson Sr. Now lets see what Waid can do with all that happened in Spidey’s life after a two month skip.

Creative Team
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Mike McKone
Inker: Andy Lanning

Story: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Art: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Overall: 6.5 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: After returning from his trip with the Fantastic Four to the Macroverse Peter goes through all his mail from the past two months that he missed out on. After thinking about how Aunt May, Vin, and Harry have been during the two months he’s been gone and also who has been cleaning his apartment Peter decides put on his Spider-Man costume and go and introduce himself to the new mayor of New York City, J. Jonah Jameson. As Peter leaves his apartment a mysterious woman walks into his apartment.

At City Hall Jameson is surrounded by all of his officers telling him everything he must do. In order to get away from everyone Jameson locks himself in his office were his father, J. Jonah Jameson Sr., has been waiting for him. In their first confrontation since Jameson Sr. left his family when the junior Jameson was still small. As they start talking about everything Jameson Jr. has done with trying to bring down Spider-Man we see that Spider-Man has been listening to there whole conversation while eating some Oscorp popcorn outside Jameson office window.

After Spider-Man and Jameson Sr. say how they know each other Sr. leaves as he has another appointment to attend to. Once Spider-Man and Jameson Jr. are alone Spidey tells the new mayor that he only came to his office to make peace. As he reaches out to shake the new mayor’s hand Jameson ask if Spidey is scared of the power he know has. After an exchange of words the new Spider-Man SWAT team rushes in and starts firing at Spidey who escapes out the window.

After swinging around New York City for a while Peter decides that he has been missing for two months already and another couple days of not being around wont hurt and that in order to annoy Jameson he will be Spider-Man 24/7 for a while. So for the next three days Spider-Man makes the front page of The DB and Front Line newspapers with all the crime he has stopped and the lives he has saved. And to top of things off Spider-Man drops of a cat at Jameson’s office who than decides to put the Spider-Man SWAT team in double overtime to hunt down our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

Later that night at a pier some gang is putting a half-million worth’s of heroin in a boat to sell when one of there men tells the others that he got shot. Instead of helping him the three men leave him behind. Once they leave the guy they left behind is attack by someone with wings.

Back in Queens Spider-Man saves a kid from getting run over by a delivery truck. Instead of thanking Spider-Man for saving his life he tells him that he stinks. Once the kid leaves with his mother Peter realizes that he has not taken a shower in three days and decides to head over to his aunt’s house since it is much closer than his apartment.

Once Peter arrives to his aunt’s house expects that she is working at FEAST so he should be safe from being seen. As he heads to get some food from the kitchen he hears some noise coming from his aunt’s room. As Peter opens the door he see Aunt May in bed with J Jonah Jameson Sr. (Oh god my eyes. It burns! It burns!) End of issue.

Comments
The Good: Now that last image aside, Mark Waid does a good job in his second story arc on Amazing Spider-Man. Waid’s style of writing is a great fit for a character like Spider-Man.

I have always been a fan of the Vulture and have enjoyed most of the fights he and Spider-Man have had in the past. Vulture always brings something different to the table as he is the only major villain in Spider-Man’s Rogue Gallery where the battle is strictly an aerial battle. And Waid does a nice job building up the mystery of who this new Vulture is and if he is a hero or a villain as we see him/her attack the gang member that was left behind.

Even though there are some people that don’t like that the status quo with JJJ as the new mayor I think it is a good fit for the character who has been largely out of the picture since the start of Brand New Day. But now with him taking the role as the new mayor of New York City JJJ is now placed on the other side of things were he goes from the one asking the hard questions to having to answer them. Plus as Spider-Man says, this brings back their old “Willy Coyote and Road Runner” routine that should always be in the backdrop of an ASM comic.

The Bad: The thing with Amazing Spider-Man #592 is that while it is a fun issue I do question the timing of this arc. After the Dan Slott two issue arc with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four were Peter basically missed out on two months of his life I was expecting this issue to pick up on those loose plot threads. I want to know what is going on with Harry, Vin, Betty, Flash, Carlie, MJ and the rest of the supporting cast as a lot happened to them while Peter was gone. But to not have any follow-up, even for an almost weekly comic, doesn’t seem right with how much momentum was already built.

Even though this arc will focus on what happened to one or two supporting characters (Jameson and Aunt May) they aren’t the supporting characters I wanted to see after the developments of the last arc. With all the development Harry has been getting over the past few months his story has become one of the most interesting parts of this story but now it seems to have slowed down due to the big Dark Reign tie-in story arc called “American Son.”

Now even though I like that Jameson is the new mayor of New York City I do feel that the way he got to the position to be a cop-out by the Spider-Man Brain Trust. Because even though the two month time skip allowed the readers not to have to go through yet another mayoral election it would have been a much smarter move of giving the readers a small hint of Jameson wanting to run for mayor instead of just skipping two months and as a “surprise” Jameson is the new mayor.

Okay I mostly stayed away from this topic for most of my review but it has to be said that the worst part of the issue was that last page. That was an image I never wanted to ever see. All I remember is that a second after seeing that image my eyes started burning and I can only imagine what Peter was thinking.

Overall: Amazing Spider-Man #592 was a fun read but because of the lack of picking up the developments from the last issue it didn’t reach its full potential as I much rather find out what is going on with Harry or what MJ was going to say in the answering machine message (though it is kind of obvious what she was going to say) than seeing Jameson as mayor. Now if you don’t excuse me I am going to try and scrub out my eyes in order to get that last page out of my mind.