Written by Dan Slott
Illustrated by Marcos MartinThis February may be the shortest month of the year, but this time it’s the BIGGEST month for AMAZING SPIDER-MAN! “Awakening” We can’t tell you what’s in this issue without spoiling the end of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #654. But we can say this: Marcos Martin returns to AMAZING SPIDER-MAN in a full-length 30 page story that will haunt you. As the fallout of recent events continues to rock Peter Parker’s world, he makes a choice– a promise– that even he might not be able to fulfill…
For the past couple months, I’ve been incredibly excited over Amazing Spider-Man #655 even though I had absolutely no clue as to what the issue was about. I’d seen Stephen Wacker hyping it on Twitter, and then I started seeing more and more touting it as one of the best Amazing Spider-Man issues ever. It couldn’t be, could it?
Find out what I thought after the jump.
Some books are hyped because of the end result of the story that everyone knows is coming (Fantastic Four #587) and some are hyped because of the situation that surrounds it (see: any event comic ever), but rarely do you see a book that is being propped up simply for being good. I suppose that’s a fundamental difference between this book and others with high expectations.
For a book with as much pre-release hype as this one had, it did a hell of a job living up to it.
One thing I knew that was going to be top notch from the get-go was the art. Marcos Martin is an artist who deserves all of the love he gets and more – he is one of the best in the business, and, in my opinion, one of the greatest Spider-Man artists ever. His art looks like the love-child of Steve Ditko and Tim Sale, and from the cover to the last page, he knocks this issue out of the park.
Let’s start with that cover though: this is going to be the best cover of the year. I know it’s still February. I know it’s early to say something like that. But this cover is perfection, from the titling to the centered names and Marvel logo to the brilliant usage of white space to the webbing on the ground and the coloration on Spider-Man’s logo…this cover is exquisite, powerful and an emotional roller coaster for a one-pager. If a cover is done well, it can tell the story with just that singular image. Martin tells a heartbreaking tale just with this gorgeous and haunting cover.
What exists within the pages is every bit as powerful. Fellow MC writer Walt Richardson suggested to me earlier that there was one page in particular that would floor me. When I was finished with the issue, I couldn’t help but think “which one?” In fact, a more succinct and accurate answer may be “which one didn’t?”
You name it. You’ve got the opening shot to the stern and internalized J. Jonah Jameson in bed, the image of a silhouetted Jameson walking into the church, the shot of Jameson standing over his wife’s grave with a casket in the foreground, the mind-bending dream image of Peter going through a city of those who have died on his watch, Spidey vs. The Sentry’s ghost image, and the last stunner of Peter staring over New York City declaring a promise to himself and the world…that’s at least six images that I would put up against anything the world of comics has put up in 2011.
Martin is the perfect artist for this issue, as he is one of the best emotional storytellers in comics today. For an issue that is so heavy and filled with import, no other artist could have filled this role. Kudos to Muntsa Vicente as well, as his colors amplified the power of the visuals exponentially throughout (especially on the cover and the heavily red tinged dream sequences featuring the Green Goblin).
Writer Dan Slott, of course, deserves significant credit here as well. Slott actually does something that you’ll rarely see as a plus for a writer – he completely avoids dialogue for the first section of the story. Slott presents the story to readers strictly through Martin’s visuals, and because Slott’s direction is so sound and Martin’s visuals are so emotionally resonant, the result is an an emotionally spellbinding experience for readers. I found myself as engaged with this opening sequence as I have by any big two book so far this year.
Continued belowThe rest of the story acts as a wonderful and oft creepy delivery of a new mindset for Spider-Man. The look into Peter’s mind is a sad journey through the history of the character, confronting all of the deaths that weigh upon his shoulders like the machinery that smothered him in issue #33.
One of the interesting things about the current set-up on the book is, as my 4 Color co-host Brandon points out occasionally, is that Dan Slott is at his core a huge fan of the character. This issue speaks volumes of that idea, as the emotional weight on Spidey is only exacerbated through the encyclopedic knowledge of the character Slott demonstrates.
This book meets all of the hype that is laid at its feet. It is truly one of the finest moments for the character as a whole, and something that demonstrates the resplendent potential of the comic book medium. Dan Slott and Marcos Martin team to tell a tale that is emotionally resonant, impeccably told and befitting the history and current situation of this iconic character. While I’m hesitant to ever given 10 out of 10 reviews, I can say this: you really can’t get much better in superhero comics than this.
Bravo to Team Spidey. This is something that you really, truly should be proud of as comic book creators.
Final Verdict: 9.9 – Buy
