Amazing Spider-Man #672
Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Humberto Ramos
Cover: Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba, & Edgar Delgado
This is it folks! The conclusion to the Spider Island event that started off giving everyone in NY the same abilities as Spider-Man, then through a sick twist transformed them into giant spiders courtesy of an old Spidey villain named the Jackal. We finally find out the real power behind it all is the Spider-Queen, who is a renegade super soldier that has more powers than you can shake a stick at. Not only that, she’s also got one more trick up her sleeve in this issue, and it’s going to take one serious beat down to put her away. It’s a good thing Spidey has a few amazing friends to help him out with that! (See what I did there?)
Slott ties everything up with this event with the storytelling finesse he’s shown for quite some time now, and has made Spider Island THE Marvel event that puts the others to shame this year! This issue has giant monsters, great action sequences, and clones coming together to fight the good fight. Slott also cleverly and with the right amount of humor explains why it took Mary Jane so long to develop her Spider-Man abilities. Like any event, there are going to be appearances from a large group of characters, and aside from the X-Men being around, everyone else felt natural. They were the only group that really didn’t seem to fit amongst the other heroes during the entire event. Or just not as well as the FF, Immortal Weapons, and the others. The dialog, as usual, is just naturally fun to read, and Slott knows his characters quite well. The humor comes off effortlessly without being over-the-top, and the timing is just near perfect! I’ll also add that subtle moment between Mary Jane and Peter was a nice touch thrown in. Though I still stand by my statement about her in my previous review.
Another plus for this event has been the kinetic art style of Humberto Ramos from beginning to end. He even made Mr. Fantastic look cool, and that guy is a straight buzz kill every time he shows up. Regardless of how chaotic the action seems to get, he keeps the scenes looking great and nothing gets muddled in the process. He moves the story with force, and none of the huge battle scenes get repetitive or boring, but that’s also thanks to Edgar Delgado on colors.
So if you were one of the people who doubted how great Spider Island would be, I suggest going to your local comic shop and attempting to pick up the issues now, because this event is much too fun to wait for the trade. However, as exciting as Spider Island was, what I’m really looking forward to is the fall out from these events, because it’s never great for Pete for too long. Also, after speaking with Slott at NYCC, I’m pretty excited about what’s coming up next!
Infinite Speech
infinitespeech@comicattack.net
Great review ‘Speech. You echoed my sentiments exactly. Not enough of the spotlight goes to inkers and colorists, so I will join you in your shout out to Delgado. He never disappoints and truly is the key to giving so much more life to already amazing pencils.
It’s a great time to be a Spidey fan and I can’t wait to see what’s next. Especially for a certain wall-crawling facsimile.
Agreed! This was such a fun story. Lots of great things happened too…like the return of Kaine, JJJ & MJ getting spider-powers, Spidey getting his Spider-sense back, and Venom & Cap fighting together. The whole story had great moments.
Between the big 2 this is the best event to come out this year. So glad I gave it a shot instead of passing on it like so many others.
Spidey’s fighting ability should get a LOT better since learing kung fu from Shang Chi AND having his spider sense back! That guy should be all over the place now but I’m sure it’ll be down played as the years go on.
Nice review! I haven’t read any of Spider Island, but now I really want to.
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