Peter Parker is back! Kind of… sort of… not really. To mark the one year anniversary (has it really been that long?) of “Amazing Spider-Man” #700, Marvel releasing a new Point issue each week of December telling stories from the Peter Parker era of Spider-Man.
Written by David Morrell
Illustrated by Klaus Janson
• One year after his death at the hands of the Superior Spider-Man – PETER PARKER IS BACK!
• Acclaimed novelist David Morrell (First Blood) and legendary comics icon Klaus Janson (DAREDEVIL: END OF DAYS) team up to kick off this celebration of the world’s greatest super hero!
• With a blizzard crippling New York City, Spider-Man must protect the city – but Aunt May’s life is in danger!
Watching novelists move towards comics is always interesting because it either turns out that they did not understand the medium and so their work doesn’t translate at all or they end up being so good at writing comics that they become more well known for that than they were for their novels. Here, David Morrell, possibly most well known for writing “First Blood”, brings us a tale from yonder as we go back in time to check up on Peter Parker. He’s joined by art legend Klaus Janson in a story where Spider-Man must cope with a blizzard that has effectively shut down Manhattan. Which seems to be happening a lot lately, doesn’t it?
What was surprising about this story is just how classic it feels. When these issues were announced, the assumption I made was that they would be telling stories that were still set in the timeline of the last ten years of comics. Instead, Morrell and Janson go even further back to channel a story right out of the era of Stan Leen and John Romita, Sr. with Peter working at the Daily Bugle under the tyrannical J. Jonah Jameson and still visiting his Aunt May after work for dinner. This is a really nice touch for the story as it feels like these five issues will celebrate the entire life of Peter, not just the stories since ‘One More Day’. However, what brings the issue down is how clear it is that Morrell is not at all familiar with comics.
There’s a dark irony to this issue that opens with a one page re-cap of Peter Parker’s origins, ending on the familiar “… with great power must also come great responsibility” note, and yet the story itself doesn’t really display that. Sure, the issue opens with Spider-Man patrolling the city at night that’s more of a showcase that Janson can still draw Spidey with the best of them than it is of Morrell’s clunky dialogue, but from there it all falls apart. Peter promptly falls into some kind of lethargic depression for most of the issue after that and while the storm hits, he’s fast asleep. For four straight pages. And from there, Peter spends the rest of the issue sitting in his apartment thinking, “Gee, I hope someone does something about all this snow,” while his Spider-Man costume judges him silently in the corner.
For a comic that was advertised as the one that brings Peter Parker back, it doesn’t really do a whole lot with him. Sure, it’s a nice nostalgia trip to see it play up classic elements like Jameson barking at Parker for pictures of Spider-Man, but Spider-Man only shows up once in the issue. For a character so dependant on the idea of responsibility, Morrell portrays him as almost selfish at times here; he only seems to act as Spider-Man when he is forced to. It’s a shame that what should be a really important comic in the Spider-Man universe is being told by a writer who seems to want to be doing anything other than writing a comic. Many scenes don’t feel built for a comic and are only saved by Janson’s storytelling abilities that sadly can’t saved the stilted dialogue. While the story is the first of two parts, it doesn’t really excuse the fact that Morrell not only writes out Peter for four pages so he can show looting in the face of the storm without any sign of Spider-Man, but has Peter sit on his ass for eight pages instead of trying to help people trapped in the snow.
Continued belowKlaus Janson is really this issue’s saving grace and it needs saving. Janson brings a classic Spider-Man sensibility to the issue that manages to feel like a mid-point between Romita Sr. and Jr. There’s a hard edge to the inked lines that feels noir-ish and heavy, but then he manages to draw a panel that feels like it’s straight out of the Golden Age of comic in it’s simplicity of line. Janson manages to dance between so many styles from the classic Marvel style to something heavier that seems a send-up of his “Daredevil” work that all comes together to feel like a timeless “Spider-Man” story. It’s only problem is that it doesn’t have a script to back up how good that art is.
Overall, this issue was pretty disappointing. Whatever skills Morrell has a writer, they don’t feel applied here as the dialogue comes off as stilted and unnatural and characters act only in a way that serves the specific story structure. Nothing feels organic about the writing which even brings down how good it is to see such a classic-feeling Spider-Man story. This doesn’t feel like set-up to a grander story in the next part, which thankfully will only a take a week and not a month to finish, it just feels empty. Only Klaus Janson’s art, which creates a timeless quality to his style, is of note here and even then he doesn’t get to draw anything of worth. Except perhaps that page of Spider-Man stopping the cable car from falling. That might be worth it.
Final Verdict: 5.5 – Browse if you’re a die hard Peter Parker fan, but even then there’s not much here.
