The Lowest Point In Modern Spider-Man Comics.
One thing I didn't want to admit is that I am not a fan of how the recent Amazing Spider-Man comics have been going lately, it seems that the series is not in good hands and that nothing is going to get better... So, why exactly did I not want to admit this? Well, because I try to be optimistic when it comes to Marvel comics, I really have hope that Amazing Spider-Man is gonna be good again, I have hope that the comics about my favorite character will have good storytelling, so what the fuck is going on?
It all started in 2006, with a little comic called Civil War, Spidey had his identity revealed and it led to a lot of chaos in his stories, Aunt May was dying again (this time because of a bullet wound), and no hospital will do anything because apparently Spidey is a criminal or something like that. This led to One More Day, where Peter just cannot let go of Aunt May and in order to save her life, he sells his marriage to Mephisto. This comic was shitty, not the worst, but it was a sign of a big problem at Marvel editorial. This wasn't just about erasing the marriage, this was about regressing the character, Spider-Man cannot be married, and he cannot move on from losing Aunt May, Spider-Man cannot grow up. The fans of the book were pretty much growing up with Spider-Man, they saw him develop as a character while they were also developing as people, and this story was just a slap in the face for many of them, who either left the title or left everything Marvel entirely.
Many folks think that Spider-Man has never recovered entirely from what happened on OMD, and they hate not only what has happened with the title 18 years later, but they also hate the writers. Y'know, in my personal opinion, I don't think a bad story is enough to just hate on a writer or wish them death, in an age where almost everyone is getting exposed for really heinous shit, I guess I can forgive a writer for making a shitty story. I also think that sometimes people overreact when it comes to the Spider-Man comics of today, they're not ALL bad, I'll even defend some of the early Zeb Wells stuff.
What's going on with Spidey in the 2020's? Peter has chased almost everyone away, there's this Paul guy that's banging MJ, there's this whole arc with Tombstone, issue 900 was hated for no reason, and Pete's dating someone that's not MJ... This can't get worse... Right?
So, what's with today's issue? It's crap. I haven't even read it yet, and I already hate it, you wanna know why? Oh boy, let me tell you. I remember waking up one day, opening social media, and apparently, someone had DIED in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, and everyone was so angry. The pages were apparently leaked and it showed the death of Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), a character that wasn't even important to Spider-Man mythos and had interacted with Spidey ONE TIME in the entire fucking run. Nick Lowe and the official Marvel twitter had to say, "avoid spoilers for ASM", but it honestly came off as just tone-deaf and shitty. Wouldn't be the first time that Marvel does something shitty, and it's probably not the last. Honestly, this felt like a huge slap in the face for me, I had been trying to defend the run for the other 25 issues, but this was completely horrible and something I couldn't defend. This run is probably the lowest point in Spider-Man history EVER. Worse than OMD, worse than Sins Past, worse than the entire clone saga. This is BAAAD.
I have not begun writing the actual review and I already wrote 641 words.
This is Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 6) #26, LGY#920. The WORST Spider-Man comic. EVER.
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I gotta be honest with you, this cover isn't actually bad! However, we do not judge books by their cover... Except for when we do.
The story begins 9 months ago, Kamala Khan is at a job interview for Oscorp. Ok. Cool. Let's flip over to the next page... Those are the credits, the names of the people to blame for this... thing. Okay, let's flip over to the page AFTER that. I must've missed a few issues, what the hell is going on? So, Peter and MJ are trying to figure out how to stop this weird guy whose name is unknown to me. Gold Goblin shows up to help, and so does Ms. Marvel. Don't you love it when a comic reminds you of a way better title you could be reading instead? Don't you also love it when you buy a comic and it takes place in the middle of a storyline? This is more of a me problem, but this is why I buy TPBs.
Apparently, this villain is named Rabin, and he's ruined Spidey's life... If a guy with a beard ruined MY life, I'd be pretty fucking cheesed too. It looks like they're winning and stuff and shit, and we get a flashback that didn't really happen, what happens in this flashback? Paul is apparently from another world, and he's related to this Rabin guy... Well, that means he'll be going away soon! Any day now, Mr. Lowe.
Rabin makes Paul and MJ's kids go away (btw they had kids) and Paul is obviously mad about this. OH SHIT, MJ has powers now! Interesting. She tries to kill Rabin, but it doesn't really work. The Fantastic Four show up, and they're like "We're here to help you because you've been a good friend to us", and they help Peter fight this guy and his new green dragon thing. The fight is actually pretty cool, but then you remember how the issue ends, and it becomes not so cool. This guy keeps teleporting to where MJ is in order to kill her, and it looks like he actually does kill her... But it's not like that. It's somehow even shittier.
Kamala has sacrificed herself; she disguised herself as MJ and has gotten herself killed by Rabin. They try to make this scene look emotional and sad, but it doesn't work, it is so poorly written, kinda racist and kinda misogynistic, and I can't help but be angry and disappointed. I don't feel the need to say it, but I am going to anyway, this comic SUCKS. Here is why:
1. I find it very shitty that they killed Ms. Marvel in a title that wasn't even her own, I doubt that many Ms. Marvel readers were reading ASM, they probably only found out after everything about this issue was leaked and the chaos that happened afterwards. It's very shitty to see your favorite character killed in someone else's title.
2. Why Kamala? My guess is that MJ was going to die originally but they were afraid of fan backlash, so they just killed some other random character... Which didn't really work because it led to even worse backlash.
3. This isn't an emotional death, the character meant nothing to the story, it was just killing someone for the sake of killing someone. This was for the sake of boosting sales, and for boosting popularity for the title... Well, y'know, IT SHOULDN'T BE HARD TO BOOST POPULARITY FOR A SPIDER-MAN TITLE, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO THIS SHIT, JUST FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE YOUR STORIES INTERESTING AND GOOD. We desperately need to change Marvel editorial.
4. Marvel was all like "OOoooh, avoid spoilers at all costs", and not even 24 hours later, they announce "FALLEN FRIEND: THE DEATH OF MS. MARVEL", WHAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT OF AVOIDING SPOILERS IF YOU'RE JUST GONNA RUIN THE SURPRISE YOURSELVES, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS.
5. There are rumors out there that this wasn't even leaked, and this was actually some shitty marketing strategy by Marvel Comics to make people talk about this. Fuck you.
6. Oh, and by the way, in the next issue, Peter Parker goes to sleep, and he has Kamala's mask on his pillow, y'know, just to add HOT SAUCE to the wound.
7. This was marketed as the most shocking issue of Spider-Man in 50 years... They weren't lying, but it was in HORRIBLE TASTE, and it ended up backfiring for them.
8. You had 16 characters on the cover that you could've killed... 6 of them COULD have been actual shocking deaths in the Spider-Man title... and you chose to kill the CHILD? That is just sickening.
9. I doubt that this was intentional, but killing off Marvel's most popular woman of color comes off as not only racist but also pretty fucking misogynistic. This comic came out on AAPI Heritage month.
10. Do you remember the days when Spider-Man comics were made to be good? Remember when Marvel cared about giving us the best stories? It seems that these new stories are being made for the sake of making a Spider-Man comic and for selling more variant covers, seriously, there's 6 variants of this shit, and I don't believe for a second that there's someone buying these unless they're like serious about collecting.
1/10. One whole fucking point, all for the John Romita Jr. art, and it is not even good, not on par with his work on other issues of ASM. I have Panini's Spanish translation that also compiles issues 27 and 28, but the only reason why I don't tear out these pages is because I care about my collection.
NOTHING could've fixed this story, so why did they even publish it at all? Should've been rewritten and remade from scratch.
I decided to ask Camden for his input, and this is what he said:
"I think Ms. Marvel's death was pointless, stupid, and just happened for shock value and sales. Paul sucks. Peter isn't Peter anymore. This issue also is an example of what I think of Well's run as whole. They keep dancing around stuff and just do things at random just because. It doesn't do anything to keep me interested and doesn't do anything interesting to add to 616 Peter's story. The run just does things to do things."
Word up, Camden. It's like they're trying to rush to issue 1000, WHICH BETTER BE AT LEAST DECENT. But looking at the other milestone issues, they seem to be getting worse over time. But I have hope for the big milestone issue 1000. It's either gonna be like Marvel Comics #1000 or it's gonna be fucking shit, and looking at how the new run is going, I think it's gonna be the latter. I'm terrified for the future of Spider-Man, his movies are not looking good, his comics are DEFINITELY NOT GOOD, and his games... I can't even play them. Maybe this is the end of good Spider-Man media. Seems like the only thing that can save us is that Ultimate Spider-Man series, but I doubt that's going to stay good for long. Here's hoping that the new volume by Joe Kelly is at least readable, but looking at how things are going now, I doubt it.
Zeb Wells is a good writer, I believe that, but I also believe that he is definitely in control of not just Spider-Man editorial, but Marvel Editorial. Ever since OMD, there has been multiple editors for Spider-Man and multiple editors for Marvel, so what the fuck is going on at the offices that prevent Spidey and MJ from getting back together and more importantly, what is fucking preventing them from putting effort into their stories? I'm afraid that is a mystery that will never be solved.
But do you know what I always say? When the going gets rough, look at the good issues of Amazing Spider-Man. And DO NOT let Spider-Man's story be tainted by the shithole that is volume 6.
This comic has left a bad taste in me, next is 4 Random Issues of the Hulk.
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