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Review: The Best of Spider-Man Vol. 4
The Best of Spider-Man Vol. 4
Written by J. Michael Staczynski and Fiona Avery
Penciled by John Romita, Jr. and Mike Deodato, Jr.
Inked by Scott Hanna, Scott Koblish and Joe Pimentel
Published by Marvel Comics. $29.99 USD
I admit that I got kind of tired of Straczynski's Spider-Man a couple years ago and dropped the book. But...I got curious again, morbidly so, after hearing the terrible turn the book made with the "Sins Past" storyline collected here. More on that later.
"Sunday in the Park with May" is a light character piece focusing on Peter Parker's Aunt May and how she gets along and how she feels about Peter's marriage to Mary Jane, and the revelation that he's Spider-Man. There's also some Spidey action thrown in, because after all, every comic is someone's first, and this would be a really boring one without something happening. As far as action for May, she gets cheers when she bumps an obnoxious cellphone talker, causing the phone to shatter. We find out at the end that her monologue/narration is directed at her late husband Ben and Peter's dead parents. Spunk and sentimentality is about all JMS can come up with for her, but in superhero comics it's almost heroic that he addresses an elderly character at all.
"You Want Pants with That?" brings out the last "s" in JMS' bag of tricks, shtick. It's another stand-alone story, with Avery's cowriting contribution hard to detect amid the patented JMS vaudeville act. First we get otherwise smart, urban, educated Peter Parker insisting on getting a hamburger and coffee at a swanky restaurant with his wife. I understand he's the Everyman superhero character in the Marvel Universe, but does that mean he can't get pasta or something? The main story is about a tailor who has found himself a specialist in superhero and supervillain costume repair--he doesn't ask questions, but the good guys know to arrive on certain days and the bad guys on the other. He overhears something bad going down--an assassination--and the little grandsom who looks up to him convinces him to do the right thing, though it means endangering his business and his life. Spidey helps him out and no one asks questions. It's an okay story but for the Central Casting New York Jew dialogue given the tailor: "Next thing I know, I'm up to my tuchis in spandex>."
Next up is a three part story, also cowritten by Avery, where MJ goes West for a movie audition, while Peter deals with Loki and some mystical hoo-hah. Their contrast provides some amusing moments, while MJ's rejection leads to a good scene where she has to lie to Peter to preserve her own dignity.
"The Book of Ezekiel" is another three-parter, and the end of John Romita, Jr's very respectable run as penciler of the book. It brings all the mystical Spider Totem stuff JMS has been weaving (no pun intended) since the beginning of his run to a head and possible conclusion in a South American locale, battling the mysterious Ezekiel and a giant Spider God. I'm sure the general consensus among longtime Spider-fans is that the Spider Totem idea wasn't something they really wanted, and tying Spider-Man's origin to fate robs it of a lot of its charm, but I do think at the very least it led to some suspenseful, page-turning stories, and it's the kind of thing that's easy to just drop once a new writer comes aboard, which is what I imagine will happen. I also always liked Ezekiel as a character and appreciate that Straczynski never really explained why he looked like an older version of Peter. Romita, Jr. draws his ass off, especially in the last chapter.
Finally, we come to the jump-off point of the series, the "Sins Past" story arc. Mike Deodato, Jr. takes over as new penciler, and it's hard not to speculate that Romita, Jr. decided he didn't like the contents of this story and thought it was a good time to leave. Deodato, despite a pretty long comics career, really has never developed a distinctive style. The one he uses here is preferable to the kind of Silvestri imitation he was doing in the '90s, but it's quite a ways from good, and not helped by distracting choices like casting minor characters with the faces of Robert DeNiro and Robert Redford.
The real problem, though, is the story. The idea that Mary Jane could keep her dead friend Gwen Stacy's terrible secret all these years--even from her beloved husband and best friend Peter--is actually a very good one. Lots of possibilities there, and indeed, there are some nice scenes where Peter realizes his wife has kept this from him and is able to accept it and move on without blaming her, as he knows it's a secret he wouldn't have been able to handle at the time. That's mature stuff that JMS has actually done pretty consistently with the Peter/Mary Jane relationship throughout his run, and shouldn't be overlooked.
However, it's the secret itself that really ruins this story. It is of course a risk to claim that any character with 40 years of continuity and dozens of writers "wouldn't do that," but it is really asking a lot to believe that sweet Gwen Stacy, who as far as we know never even had sex with her boyfriend Peter, would take pity on the middle-aged, widow's peaked Norman Osborn--after knowing what a terrible father he was to her previous boyfriend Harry--and give herself to him on the spot.
This bad idea may yet have been mitigated by a good story coming out of it, but Straczynski seemed satisfied with the memory-trampling and threw together an awful, pointless piece of garbage where Gwen's and Norman's kids were poisoned against Spider-Man by Norman, and with his special genes, they grew many times faster than normal people, becoming attractive, bloodthirsty twentysomethings (in appearance) bent on revenge against Peter Parker, at the age of four. It's awful. What precedes it ranges from mediocre to pretty-good, so it's impossible to recommend this book.
Written by J. Michael Staczynski and Fiona Avery
Penciled by John Romita, Jr. and Mike Deodato, Jr.
Inked by Scott Hanna, Scott Koblish and Joe Pimentel
Published by Marvel Comics. $29.99 USD
I admit that I got kind of tired of Straczynski's Spider-Man a couple years ago and dropped the book. But...I got curious again, morbidly so, after hearing the terrible turn the book made with the "Sins Past" storyline collected here. More on that later.
"Sunday in the Park with May" is a light character piece focusing on Peter Parker's Aunt May and how she gets along and how she feels about Peter's marriage to Mary Jane, and the revelation that he's Spider-Man. There's also some Spidey action thrown in, because after all, every comic is someone's first, and this would be a really boring one without something happening. As far as action for May, she gets cheers when she bumps an obnoxious cellphone talker, causing the phone to shatter. We find out at the end that her monologue/narration is directed at her late husband Ben and Peter's dead parents. Spunk and sentimentality is about all JMS can come up with for her, but in superhero comics it's almost heroic that he addresses an elderly character at all.
"You Want Pants with That?" brings out the last "s" in JMS' bag of tricks, shtick. It's another stand-alone story, with Avery's cowriting contribution hard to detect amid the patented JMS vaudeville act. First we get otherwise smart, urban, educated Peter Parker insisting on getting a hamburger and coffee at a swanky restaurant with his wife. I understand he's the Everyman superhero character in the Marvel Universe, but does that mean he can't get pasta or something? The main story is about a tailor who has found himself a specialist in superhero and supervillain costume repair--he doesn't ask questions, but the good guys know to arrive on certain days and the bad guys on the other. He overhears something bad going down--an assassination--and the little grandsom who looks up to him convinces him to do the right thing, though it means endangering his business and his life. Spidey helps him out and no one asks questions. It's an okay story but for the Central Casting New York Jew dialogue given the tailor: "Next thing I know, I'm up to my tuchis in spandex>."
Next up is a three part story, also cowritten by Avery, where MJ goes West for a movie audition, while Peter deals with Loki and some mystical hoo-hah. Their contrast provides some amusing moments, while MJ's rejection leads to a good scene where she has to lie to Peter to preserve her own dignity.
"The Book of Ezekiel" is another three-parter, and the end of John Romita, Jr's very respectable run as penciler of the book. It brings all the mystical Spider Totem stuff JMS has been weaving (no pun intended) since the beginning of his run to a head and possible conclusion in a South American locale, battling the mysterious Ezekiel and a giant Spider God. I'm sure the general consensus among longtime Spider-fans is that the Spider Totem idea wasn't something they really wanted, and tying Spider-Man's origin to fate robs it of a lot of its charm, but I do think at the very least it led to some suspenseful, page-turning stories, and it's the kind of thing that's easy to just drop once a new writer comes aboard, which is what I imagine will happen. I also always liked Ezekiel as a character and appreciate that Straczynski never really explained why he looked like an older version of Peter. Romita, Jr. draws his ass off, especially in the last chapter.
Finally, we come to the jump-off point of the series, the "Sins Past" story arc. Mike Deodato, Jr. takes over as new penciler, and it's hard not to speculate that Romita, Jr. decided he didn't like the contents of this story and thought it was a good time to leave. Deodato, despite a pretty long comics career, really has never developed a distinctive style. The one he uses here is preferable to the kind of Silvestri imitation he was doing in the '90s, but it's quite a ways from good, and not helped by distracting choices like casting minor characters with the faces of Robert DeNiro and Robert Redford.
The real problem, though, is the story. The idea that Mary Jane could keep her dead friend Gwen Stacy's terrible secret all these years--even from her beloved husband and best friend Peter--is actually a very good one. Lots of possibilities there, and indeed, there are some nice scenes where Peter realizes his wife has kept this from him and is able to accept it and move on without blaming her, as he knows it's a secret he wouldn't have been able to handle at the time. That's mature stuff that JMS has actually done pretty consistently with the Peter/Mary Jane relationship throughout his run, and shouldn't be overlooked.
However, it's the secret itself that really ruins this story. It is of course a risk to claim that any character with 40 years of continuity and dozens of writers "wouldn't do that," but it is really asking a lot to believe that sweet Gwen Stacy, who as far as we know never even had sex with her boyfriend Peter, would take pity on the middle-aged, widow's peaked Norman Osborn--after knowing what a terrible father he was to her previous boyfriend Harry--and give herself to him on the spot.
This bad idea may yet have been mitigated by a good story coming out of it, but Straczynski seemed satisfied with the memory-trampling and threw together an awful, pointless piece of garbage where Gwen's and Norman's kids were poisoned against Spider-Man by Norman, and with his special genes, they grew many times faster than normal people, becoming attractive, bloodthirsty twentysomethings (in appearance) bent on revenge against Peter Parker, at the age of four. It's awful. What precedes it ranges from mediocre to pretty-good, so it's impossible to recommend this book.
Posted by ChristopherAllen at 2:38 PM [Link to this post]
1 Comments:
It's been speculated that JMS- although his original plan for Peter being the Stacy twins' father was nixed (or changed midstream if you pay attention to the art)- only got away with this because of his contract with Marvel, which apparently gives him a lot of leeway. I mean really, how else would he have gotten away with that?
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