With the web-slinger making bigger waves on our screens, both larger and small, than he has ever done since 2002, I thought it was about high time I jumped back into where I left off when I last read “Amazing Spider-Man.”
Little did I know I’d find one of the most powerful, heart wrenching Spider-Man stories I’ve ever encountered. As you might imagine, there are spoilers below.
Written by Joe Kelly
Illustrated by Max Fiumara Javier Pullido
Coloured by Fabio D’Auria & Matt Hollingsworth
Lettered by Joe Caramagna
The Gauntlet continues to close around Spider-Man in this heartbreaking story of love, loss and lust for power as the Rhino charges into Spider-Man’s life, out to make a name for himself…by killing the Rhino?
The beautiful thing about good adaptations of superhero stories is that they often ignite or re-ignite one’s passion for the world and characters that are being adapted. Case in point: I’ve played a lot of Insomniac Games’s Marvel’s Spider-Man in the past month and a half and it’s lead me to dive back into where I left off with “Amazing Spider-Man.” Other than a brief foray of about 20 issues into Dan Slott’s run, from the tail end of ‘Spider-Island’ up to the lead-in of the fabled #700 where I wholesale gave up, I had only really kept up with “Amazing Spider-Man” from J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr’s run and ended up dropping it at ‘New Ways To Die.’
I was one of those readers burned by ‘One More Day’ and left wanting by the change of status quo created by ‘Brand New Day,’ but, recently, in reading past that hurdle of mediocre Spider-Man comics, I found myself knee deep in an event called ‘The Gauntlet’ that had completely passed me by. Then I realised something: these are some of the best Spider-Man comics I’ve ever read. When ‘Brand New Day’ began, it was like pulling teeth to get through each issue, but somewhere along the way something clicked. Maybe it was the so-called Brain Trust of writers that chaperoned the series clicking in a way that they hadn’t before, maybe it was the status quo finally settling and not having to rely on shock factor to get readers still mad about ‘One More Day’ to hatebuy the next issue or maybe it was the use of classic villains of Spider-Man’s past in new ways, something the series had largely avoided before then. I don’t know, but there was something special happening and, today, I want to showcase two issues of the event that really stood out to me.
For those who missed it, ‘The Gauntlet’ was truly an event for “Amazing Spider-Man,” spanning a number of short story arcs, each by a different creative team, that would re-introduce a classic Spidey villain like Electro or Mysterio with a new twist to make them even more of a threat to the wallcrawler. Each arc piled upon the last, not letting up on the pain inflicted upon poor Peter Parker. It’s a masterpiece relay race with each creative team passing the baton to the next, weaving trials and tribulations that push Spider-Man to his very limit culminating in the return of Kraven in ‘Grim Hunt.’
The two issues I want to focus on are Joe Kelly and Max Fiumara’s beautifully tragic take on the Rhino. The first issue, “Amazing Spider-Man #617, introduces a brand new Rhino in an imposing mechanical suit who seeks to “ascend” the mantle by destroying the current and traditional Rhino, Aleksei Sytsevich. Problem is, Sytsevich has given up on the life of crime, renounced the mantle of the Rhino is attempting to live peacefully with his new wife, Oksana. Peter Parker and and Norah Winters are but bit players in this tale; the real conflict that Kelly and Fiumara build here is between the Rhinos, old and new, and the pressure put upon Sytsevich to face the unnamed usurper.
Joe Kelly does a fantastic job in this issue of building tension. Everything here is setting up a conflict that’ll be paid off in #625, the second issue I want to look at. We see here that Sytsevich is a principled man, stoic and unflinching. Living out an honourable life free of crime. Max Fiumara presents him as a wall, standing toe to toe with the new, mechanical Rhino even outside of his own suit. This issue is all about exploring Sytsevich outside of Rhino suit, exploring the life he has built for himself and setting up the tragedy when it all comes crashing down around him.
Continued belowTragedy’s really the keyword for this story. While Max Fiumara and colourist Fabio D’Auria handle the main story of #617, Javier Pulido and Matt Hollingsworth provide a backup titled ‘The Walk’ that explains how Sytsevich gave up the mantle and met his new wife. Both Fiumara and Pulido have stunningly stylistic artstyles, but in contrasting ways. Fiumara’s artwork is dark and atmospheric and heavy. The inked shadows are oppressive and D’Auria’s colourwork, especially in the issue’s setpiece fight in the casino, employs a lot deep reds, oranges and browns for a heightened feeling of tension. The figures Fiumara creates are exaggerated, with Sytsevich and the new Rhino feeling gargantuan compared to the lithe, wiry proportions of Spider-Man and the slight frame of Norah Winters.
Javier Pulido, on the other hand, feels like someone cloned Steve Ditko and that clone took on a new name and lived out a life continuing to draw Spider-Man comics. His artwork is pure Silver Age Marvel with light linework that builds a timelessly detailed world. The flat colouring style employed by Matt Hollingsworth keeps things bright and vibrant and is a far cry away from the world created by Fiumara and D’Auria. It’s a world that was, simple and carefree, where a man like Sytsevich can build himself a new life, free from the Rhino and finally find love. It’s an important chapter in this tale and Pulido was the perfect artist to contrast Fiumara.
“Amazing Spider-Man” #625 is where everything comes crashing down. As you can imagine, a fair amount happens to Peter Parker in the time between these two issues: a resurrected Mysterio, a run-in with Morbius and Mister Negative and an attempt on the life of Mayor Jameson by a new Vulture leaves Parker without a job and suffering even more. Sytsevich, meanwhile, has been living in peace with his wife, until the new Rhino crashes through their lives once more demanding that Sytsevich meet him in battle as the Rhino of old. In many ways, this issue is the real meat of the story as Kelly has Sytsevich make some mature, principled decisions that keep himself and his wife safe from danger even if it means being a coward of this would-be usurper.
Now, what happens next is, by rights, something I shouldn’t be pleased about. Superhero comics have a bad track record in killing female characters in order to further male pain. It’s such a staple that it has its own term: “fridging.” Women in refrigerators have been a part of superhero fiction since as long as superhero fiction has existed and the last thing I want to do is celebrate a story that introduces a new female character just to kill her off, but… well, that’s exactly what I’m doing. These issues form the tragedy of an animal who was a man and who, by love, learned to be a man again and had that taken from him. The impact of the full page splash of Aleksei back in the Rhino costumed is simply haunting, with Fiumara rendering him almost entirely in silhouette with heavily inked shadows.
It’s powerful stuff and leaves you wishing for a better world, one where Aleksei and Oksana got away safely and lived happily ever after while Spider-Man beat up the new Rhino, threw him in prison and got on with his life. But ‘The Gauntlet’ ain’t that kind of story. The death of Oksana is one tragedy among many piled on the conscience of Peter Parker and the knowledge that Aleksei has regressed back into the animal he always was is but one more notch on the monolith of guilt that the wider ‘Gauntlet’ is built on.
If you haven’t already, do yourself a favour and dig out these issues. While you’re at it, read the entire ‘Gauntlet’ storyline including the ‘Grim Hunt’ arc that closed it out. You couldn’t ask for better Spider-Man comics.
