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Multiversity Comics Countdown: Best of "Brand New Day"

By | November 9th, 2010
Posted in Columns | % Comments

With the thrice weekly release schedule and vaunted Spidey Team stable of writers going away with this week’s start of Dan Slott’s “Big Time” arc, I thought it was the right time to look at the successes of Amazing Spider-Man’s “Brand New Day.” Granted, the entirety of the 101 issue reinvention of this series wasn’t titled “Brand New Day,” but for some reason that umbrella stuck way past it ending.

Overall, I’d have to say the whole exercise worked. While there weren’t a ton of changes to Peter’s status quo (he no longer works for the Daily Bugle and is no longer with Mary Jane…that’s about it), I have to say this run was consistently entertaining and filled with some truly excellent arcs.

With that said, today on Multiversity Comics Countdown, I look back at the best arcs of “Brand New Day” as well as one special single issue I couldn’t help but include. Expect lots of Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo.

Find out what they are after the jump.

Best Single Issue
“Rage of the Rhino” (#617)
Written by: Joe Kelly
Illustrated by: Max Fiumara, Javier Pulido

Why It’s Awesome: The Rhino was never a character I really cared about. Nothing about him ever really stood out…he just seemed to be a big dumb guy who was an occasional punching bag for Spider-Man as well as a less interesting Juggernaut. None of that is really complimentary.

Yet, in the hands of Joe Kelly this character became someone who we could genuinely care about, and someone that could cause our hearts to ache when the time was right. In this issue’s main story, Kelly brings The Rhino into a new status quo as he squares off against a new Rhino (as part of “The Gauntlet” umbrella) and something we’d never see him with: a wife.

While the former aspect leads to some remarkable action sequences that are ably rendered by Kelly’s “Four Eyes” partner Max Fiumara, as the new Rhino attempts to “ascend” by killing Aleksei Sytsevich, the latter leads to the more unexpected moments. The way Sytsevich dotes on his wife. His softness with her that exists in juxtaposition with his alter-ego. The back-up story featuring Javier Pulido’s stunning art that tells the tale of how they met. These moments take this previously one-dimensional character and turn him into a fully realized one that is impossible not to care for.

Then, at the end of the main story when Spidey confronts Sytsevich (who was off to get his costume so he can face off against his new nemesis), we’re given an emotional and poignant moment in which the former super-criminal chooses to turn away from the life of crime that brought only sadness in favor of a life of love.

Kelly’s at peak form here, as his grasp on both Spidey and the human condition is spellbinding. Combine that with breathtaking art from Fiumara and Pulido, and I’m okay in saying that this was my favorite single issue of the 101 issue run.

Best Arcs
5. Sometimes it Snows in April (#555-557)
Written by: Zeb Wells
Illustrated by: Chris Bachalo

Why It’s Awesome: This book is the first of three Bachalo appearances in this top five, and it was the first arc he had on the book. After it ended, I instantly started clamoring for more. THIS was the Spider-Man I always wanted to see. It was just powerful and lively and inventively paneled and everything you want from Bachalo, but on a book featuring the character that may get the most benefit from his art style.

And in this book, Zeb Wells moved Bachalo from exciting moment to exciting moment, and even threw in some highly entertaining ones as well.

I loved this arc though for the little moments and the Bachalo art. The little moments like anything with my favorite new character introduced during BND – Carlie Cooper. The highlight reel awesomeness of Spidey insulating his suit with newspaper to survive the intense cold. Wolverine and Spidey sharing a breakfast.

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I also loved it because it was the first time in BND that I felt like the book wasn’t just impersonating fun, but actually BEING fun. The entirety of this three issue arc went through a pretty huge plot shift, but it never lost its sense of self and fun. It was a reminder to other writers and artists as to what this book could and should be.

4. Unscheduled Stop (#578-579)
Written by: Mark Waid
Illustrated by: Marcos Martin

Why It’s Awesome: Out of all of the arcs on this list, this is probably the most surprising. It bears very little in terms of similarities with the other entries, it was a fairly unassuming and small arc, and it featured a writer who didn’t feature prominently in the whole of this new era of Spidey.

And to be honest, while Waid’s script was solid and introduced a major new character (J. Jonah Jameson…Senior), it wasn’t anything spectacular. Waid gets Spidey. That much is evident. But it was overly familiar.

What worked here was the roll out of Marcos Martin’s monumentally awesome art onto the scene of Amazing Spider-Man. Martin showed up and gave readers a beautiful modern update to Steve Ditko’s classic stylings, giving this entire arc a vivacious and inviting look. While Martin does become a regular on the series from this point on, his first arc may have been the best non-Bachalo work, and it was iconic and perfect for the book.

No matter what he’s illustrating in this arc – a showdown between Spidey and The Shocker, Peter hanging on a subway, and anything between those two polar opposites in terms of the mundane or the exciting – it soars. I couldn’t rave more about his work on this arc.

3. Family Ties (#575-576)
Written by: Joe Kelly
Illustrated by: Chris Bachalo

Why It’s Awesome: I don’t know if it’s completely obvious in my list so far that I was a fan of whenever Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo were on this book, but it should be. Of all of the creators that worked on the “Brand New Day” saga, Kelly was my favorite writer and Bachalo was my favorite artist. Kelly’s deeply human and very funny writing and Bachalo’s absurdly kinetic and incredibly inventive art made every arc all the more special when they worked on them, and when given the chance to work together on the “Family Ties” arc, they did not disappoint.

This arc found former joke villain Hammerhead with amped up powers thanks to Mr. Negative, and Negative is using him to consolidate crime territories and take out local youths who are making a run on his turf. It also found Peter working with a new reporter at Frontline and introduced us to a few new characters who were being threatened by Hammerhead, and when these three threads come together it turns into an exciting and fun story with roots in the things that Kelly and Bachalo excel at.

When this arc came out, I was a bit skeptical of Brand New Day. Until that point, I didn’t really feel like the writers had tried to give me anything new for Spider-Man nor did I feel like they even got him that well (save in Zeb Wells aforementioned arc).

But then, Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo came in and saved the day.

This arc may not have been revolutionary, but Kelly really gets the character and good god, Chris Bachalo draws a wicked awesome Spidey book. If I could choose two creators to take over this book permanently, I’d go with Kelly and Bachalo over Slott and Ramos any day of the week.

2. Shed (#630-633)
Written by: Zeb Wells
Illustrated by: Chris Bachalo, Emma Rios

Why It’s Awesome: As the final section of “The Gauntlet” that led into “The Grim Hunt,” it was only logical that Team Spidey would make this the most emotionally and physically destructive of all of the event. Even with that in mind, “Shed” was unexpected in the sheer terror and shock it instilled in readers.

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This arc found Peter Parker’s oft ally and oft enemy Dr. Curt Connors hitting a crossroads and coming out the other side a true monster, in the process devastating Peter in every way he can be. When I say that this arc featured what is quite possibly the most shocking moment of comics in 2010, I do not mean that lightly. When Curt Connors gives into his Lizard side fully, we never expect him to actually kill his son Billy. Yet, when he does in an absolutely astonishingly brilliant illustrated section by Chris Bachalo, it is so shocking the reader can barely even believe it.

Could that really have just happened in a Spider-Man comic?

This arc works incredibly well thanks to Zeb Wells’ very restrained and well crafted scripts and a virtuoso performance by Bachalo (as well as the able fill-in artist Emma Rios), and not just because of shock appeal. To be perfectly honest, the most shocking moments of this issue happen entirely off-panel. When Billy is killed, it happens in a series of nightmarish, fractured panels by Bachalo, and this effect just bolsters the power of the moment.

By the time the arc ends, there is an entirely new status quo for the long-time Spider-Man villain, and one that finds him far more powerful than he had been previously and much harder to predict. While we haven’t seen him since, perhaps no character was changed more irrevocably than The Lizard was in the entirety of the “Brand New Day” saga.

1. Keemia’s Castle (#615-616)
Written by: Fred Van Lente
Illustrated by: Javier Pulido

Why It’s Awesome: I was going to write a significant amount of detail as to why this is the best of Amazing Spider-Man’s 101 issue run from “Brand New Day” until now, but I feel like I’d be recreating the wheel with the write-up over at 4thletter from David Brothers.

My take on it is simple: this book is a dreamy take on the moral ambiguity that sometimes comes with being a superhero. In “Keemia’s Castle,” Spider-Man finds himself off to save a little girl from long-time enemy Sandman (Flint Marko), but the little girl is Marko’s daughter this time. Presuming that it’s just another situation where he has to protect someone from a villain, Spidey plays this the way he always has. But when it leads to this girl ending up in foster care after being stolen away from a father who just wanted to treat her like the princess she is, Spidey is somehow both the good guy and the bad guy of his own story.

Fred Van Lente is a writer I’ve oft praised for his humor and his original takes on lesser known characters, but in this arc, he proved that he has a real grasp for tragic stories that can’t be resolved by standard super heroics. This story resonated for me well past my initial read, and I found myself gravitating back towards it once the week’s reads were all said and done.

Javier Pulido’s art is also exquisite, matching Van Lente’s script with stellar visual storytelling. The two of them combined to tell a story that captured the hard knock spirit of Spider-Man better than anyone did in the Spider-Team Era, while telling an original story that never preached to its audience. For that, it earns the vaunted #1 spot on my list.


//TAGS | Countdown

David Harper

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