“Amazing Spider-Man” #26

A couple weeks back, news broke about the events of this issue. It made a big splash. And not in a good way. Let’s talk about that spoiler, shall we?

Cover by John Romita Jr.,
Scott Hanna & Marcio Menyz

Written by Zeb Wells
Penciled by John Romita Jr.
Inked by Scott Hanna
Colored by Marcio Menyz & Erick Arciniega
Lettered by Joe Caramagna

Now fully in the present, the Emissary has returned and his power is so far beyond Spider-Man’s abilities. The heroes may figure out a way to win, but the cost of victory will be so immense that you may hope they don’t…

But first, the rest of the issue.

Since issue #1, Wells, JRJR, Hanna, Menyz and Caramagna’s “Amazing Spider-Man” has been telling a very solid, meaty story of a Peter Parker that’s down-and-out. He’s bitter. He’s quick to anger. He’s chased everyone away and we don’t know why. It’s a bold status quo, one which shows that Wells’ isn’t afraid to take big swings and really live in the melodrama that is Spider-Man’s life. He’s also, unlike his predecessor’s run, moving emotional arcs and plotlines forwards, resolving them in a reasonable time while retaining the ongoing soap opera’s need for more shocking developments.

Well, except for the big mystery that kicked the whole thing off. That we’ve only just now gotten to, starting with #21. While I may be in the minority, I’ve really dug the reveals of what happened. The idea of dimensional time shenanigans, of the kids not actually being MJs, it’s not exactly new territory but Wells manages to infuse the situations with pathos and gets us to care. By the time issue #26 rolls around, I get both why Peter is at his wits end and why MJ has cut him out. In fact, Wells did the unthinkable: he made me want MJ to stay with Paul!

Anyone who’s anyone knows my favorite era of Spider-Man is the J. Michael Stracyznski era and that’s primarily defined by wild swings, symbology, and the best MJ/Peter marriage treatment ever. Two of those three are present here, so I’m predisposed to liking this stuff. Oh, and JRJR too! Many people are hot or cold on his chunky, angular art but I’m generally a fan, especially here. It’s truly amazing how Hanna has brought out some of JRJR’s best work in a long time. The two are a dream team and issue #26 continues to showcase their dramatic – over, melo, and just plain – and action chops, though JRJR’s children still look like Funko Pops and Peter often has a bad case of sleepy eyes.

Ultimately though, issue 26 will live or die by your feelings on that big spoiler, the one that leaked early, the death at the end of the issue. It’s not MJ. It’s not Peter. It’s not even Paul or Robbie or JJJ or Black Cat or Norman anyone else who’s gotten heavy play time in the run so far.

It’s Kamala Khan.

Within the text of the issue – I’ll get to its placement in the series in a minute – Kamala’s sacrifice is both moving and meaningful. It is a sudden and painful capstone to an arc about loss and gives her a proper hero’s end. It is treated with the proper gravitas. (Caramagna you bastard, your lettering absolutely broke my heart.) Most importantly, it feels like her choice. She is not fridged – a word I had to override my autocorrect 10 times just to get to stick – though I can see an argument for it coming close.

I’d argue though that this is how Kamala would go out: saving others with a desperate plan that involves a clever use of her powers, even if that plan cost Kamala her life. It is character consistent and doesn’t rely on her acting in ridiculous ways. Moreover, Wells lays the groundwork for the plan, one she acts on all alone, entirely through observational details and subtext. In a genre prone to over-explanation to the detriment of tension and believability, that’s good storytelling.

There are, to be sure, a number of issues with this creative decision.

For one, despite my praise of the portrayal of Kamala’s plan, we get little in the way of Kamala’s feelings about what she has to do. About any contingencies. About whether she KNEW any of the details we as the audience or MJ/Peter/Paul know. Kamala may be smart but it’s a stretch to say she planned to get stabbed to save MJ. There is a deep lack of internality to her, all to preserve the shock. That was a mistake, one made worse by the presence of that opening one-page interview.

This is the first time we open on an unrelated scene during this arc. Every other issue either opens on present day action or the specific flashbacks related to said present day action. Kamala’s interview is unrelated to all of that, only informing us of her heroic nature and setting up her actions in this issue. In a better story – and I like this story still – that scene would either be one more iteration on a theme or a clear spotlight on what’s to come. Instead, it stands out like a giant red flag devoid of substance.

What’s especially frustrating is her lack of play within the arc. This isn’t the culmination or even a subversion of her subplot, be that the larger one involving her investigation into Norman, her budding friendship with Peter, or her superheroic team-up with Spider-Man. It’s just an ending; it does nothing for her.

Throughout this iteration of “Amazing Spider-Man,” Kamala has primarily been a background character. Until now, that’s been fine; she’s a shoe that can drop at any time. Wells did enough to fit her into the narrative, not quite seamlessly but justifiably. There was potential and possibility and that kept her meager appearances and lack of major interaction with the principal players acceptable. With this? That potential collapses in on itself, rendering her a casualty of someone else’s story, no matter how much agency she may have had within it.

And those are just the issues within the story itself. Taking Kamala, one of the only Pakistani and Muslim characters in modern Marvel, a deeply important character, a deeply important young and female character, to a generation of comics fans, and killing her off is a bad look and a slap to the face. It adds to a worrying resurgence of the trend of taking diverse characters, ones who broke the molds of their respective series or superhero names, and demoting them, shunting them to the background or killing them off.

I don’t think we should preclude stories from allowing a mortal end to be the closing to a character’s tale. Properly handled, a major death can be both shocking AND appropriate, provided it be allowed to rest. What good are stories where we exempt characters from every possibility? If we want to tell a truly full set of stories with full characters, death and sacrifice cannot be off the table. Where this fails is in the face of historic trends – bury your gays, fridging women, the Black character dies first – whereby those characters are the only ones seeing mortal consequences for dubious reasons in stories where they are already underrepresented, which is sadly the case here.

But you wanna know the worst part of all this? None of this, this anger and frustration and critique, matters until the story is resolved.

As superhero comics fans, we’ve come to accept the axiom that death doesn’t matter in modern cape comics. We don’t know Kamala is dead. We assume but, like with the death of the Human Torch, there may be an endgame we’ve yet to see. This may be the opening to a different story, whether it works or not has yet to be seen. Space and time are The Emissary’s to control. A symbolic death was predetermined. Change the symbol, change the predestination. Sure, that doesn’t change some of my critiques, and this is nowhere near as effective as the death of the Human Torch, but it would fundamentally affect the way this moment is read.

This is a problem all serialized media encounters and, by and large, waiting and seeing is prudent. However, cape comics, and especially Marvel have squandered and manipulated the trust of the audience so many times that it’s impossible to let major changes like these ride and see where they go. Always is it marketed in the most lurid and salacious ways; often is it done casually and for shock alone; rarely does it stick.

Does that knowledge rob Kamala’s death of meaning? Does it make it more tolerable because we’re pretty sure it’ll be undone? Or is that undoing itself an even greater affront because it reveals the choice as a cynical move done for a cheap sales boost? I think that last one matters least. Because the story, and what is done with the story, are two very different things.

It is easy to let the PR machine’s presentation of a major change shape our perceptions of it. Marvel has mastered the art of putting its foot in its mouth with these in the past and I see no difference here. All the PR machine cares about is buzz and there is buzz in saying a character is dead for good, for real this time. But the story? The story cares about existing long after that buzz. To be judged by itself, AND by its place, by many voices and from many angles. It remains to be seen whether all this consternation is well founded.

Done worse, I would’ve said this is a fuck you to everyone who ever loved this character; I’m still sore over how the death of Alfred at DC happened. But I don’t feel that way about Kamala’s death. I’m livid the choice was made, because there were any number of other ways they could have resolved this arc that did not involve the death of a beloved, important character but, as I said earlier, the issue delivered a pretty good ending with a full-on send-off to come.

You sense the thought and consideration behind the decision, and the team has built enough trust even in this trustless industry that I AM willing to see where we go. Maybe the whole thing will crash and burn. Maybe it will be a masterpiece that utilizes Kamala to her full potential and then some. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

What an awful way to feel.

Final Score: 3.9 – Kamala’s death sends this score into the pits, even as the rest is well-constructed, action-packed, and a good resolution to an intriguing arc.