Bitter Old Bastard: Amazing Spider-Man #675 Review

Okay, nobody panic, but recently someone was wrong on the Internet!

A couple days ago, J. Michael Straczynski posted a chart with a horrifying, Killington black diamond descent slope that he found at some undisclosed location on a Facebook page with the comment: “Sales on The Amazing Spider-Man since my departure. Just sayin’. ”

Now, here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives, we love us some JMS. We make it a point to hit the Spotlight on JMS panel at SDCC every year, and we’ve even watched Jeremiah because of his involvement, and not to watch the final career destruction and public humiliation of Luke Perry. Well, at least mostly because of JMS.

And there was a time when I would have cheered a post like Joe’s, because there is, in fact, a bright and shimmering line between JMS’s run on The Amazing Spider-Man and what came after. I call it a bright, shimmering line because to me, it resembles a steaming, stinking arc of urine: One More Day.

One More Day was abominable. It was a wretched and cynical move to eliminate Peter Parker’s marriage from continuity without rebooting the whole character… because Marvel doesn’t reboot! Making a deal with the devil to eliminate your past is just a minor course correction! And exposing your genitals to school children is just a form of enthusiastic mime!

And frankly, the early issues of Amazing Spider-Man after One More Enthusiastic Mime were almost as bad. A rotating writing and art staff, with some kind of apparent editorial mandate to chuck a bunch of villains for Spider-Man to fight and a pile of new tail for Peter to chase felt forced. Sometimes almost desperate. I mean seriously: Paper Doll? Who makes people thin and kills them? A little on the nose, dontcha think? What, did Dan DiDio throw a trademark on the name Teabag?

So yes, there was a time I would have been on JMS’s side with his post, despite it being so passive aggressive it makes a Jewish grandmother look like John Rambo. There were several months where I kept The Amazing Spider-Man on my pull list on a week-by-week basis. However, these days the book is exclusively written by Dan Slott. It’s gotten over it’s weird need to come up with new villains no one gives a shit about, and, recent only-okay Spider-Island event aside, it has been a source of damn fun comics stories. And Amazing Spider-Man #675 is no exception.

This is the second part of a two-parter that brings The Vulture back as a Spider-Man villain, with an interesting twist based on an obvious observation: The Vulture was old as dirt when he debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #2. And like many other old farts, they need young people to take up their mantle and do their dirty work while they take the credit (Hi, Stan!).

So Vulture’s got himself some interns doing crimes for him, while Spider-Man and his ex-girlfriend Carlie, who is a CSI and who has figured out that Peter is Spider-Man, are doing a little old fashioned detective work to figure out why some young punks seem to be falling from the sky for an unknown reason, since they were found nowhere near a Joy Division CD, a Silvia Plath book or a copy of Fear Itself 7.3.

What this all means is that this issue has a classic villain with a new twist on his M.O., a few new hipster heavies for for Spider-Man to tune up, with plenty of opportunities to see Peter Parker’s love life continually disintegrate in front of his eyes. Short answer: it has all the pieces that a good Spider-Man story needs… particularly the fucked-up love life. Seriously: before and after his marriage to Mary Jane, I’ve been convinced that Spider-Man wears those blue pants to camouflage his balls.

The art in this issue is actually pretty damn interesting. This arc of Spider-man is the first time I’ve seen the pencils of Giuseppe Camuncoli, and they’re not really like anything I’ve seen before. His action sequences are solid to my eye, and he does a good, classic Spider-Man figure, but his facial expressions aren’t like anything I can compare them to. They’re easy to read, yet strangely shadowed in a way I’ve not see often in comics.

The most complimentary thing I can say about the pencils is that they’re very, very original… and I say that because this book is inked by Klaus Janson, and this is one of the few Janson-inked books I’ve seen that doesn’t look like an old Frank Miller issue of Daredevil or The Dark Knight Returns. For an artist’s pencils to stand up to a well-known and obvious, heavy-line inker like Janson, they’re doing something very, very unique. Other than a couple of double-page layouts of the type I’m not fond of when it comes to the storytelling, this was cool stuff. I’m looking forward to seeing more from this Camuncoli.

Since this is a part-two issue, I won’t necessarily recommend it for just just any dipshit looking for something to read to occupy a good dump… but let me point out that it’s a part two of two. It’s Goddamned refreshing to see an old-school two part story in comics, and in an age of event comics, that’s worth supporting. And considering there’s better than even money that since #674 didn’t have Obama or Deadpool on the cover, it’s still on the shelves for you to pick up, you can get on board for no effort and an extra four clams.

Either way: we will follow JMS on any title to the ends of the Earth… even if he wants to get there by walking for some reason. But just because he leaves a book doesn’t make it bad. Amazing Spider-Man #675 is anything but. Give it a chance.