Amazing Spider-Man

Amazing Spider-Man #631 by Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo.

This is the second issue in the "Shed" story arc. The issue is very dark. Maybe the darkest issue I've ever read on Spider-Man. After the Lizard killed several scientists in the first issue, now he's heading towards his son. Spider-Man tries to stop him and he kind of those, except that the kid has been kidnapped by ana Kravinoff. Spidey doesn't know where the kid is and Spidey has to save the life of the foster mother, in the meantime the Lizard can track his kid through smell.

The art in this issue is interesting. The panels are often much thinner than normal and they create a sense of chaos. The story is not as easy to read from panel to panel because of it, but I think it works in the sense that it gives the book a chaotic feel.

Amazing Spider-Man #632 by Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo.

After the intense ending to the previous issue, Spidey arrives to the scene to realize that Connors has Shed his skin. The Lizard is no longer Curt Connors. The Lizard has taken control and therefore is no longer human, it is completely reptilian. Not only that, but he has to power to tap into the primitive parts of other people's brains and make them act on instinct. This allows him to easily beat Spider-Man as Spidey's primitive brain tells him to flee (since the Lizard is a much bigger foe).

The ending on this issue is incredible. After reading this issue I really wanted to read the next one, specially knowing that the next issue would finish the storyline.

Amazing Spider-Man #633 by Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo.

This is the last issue in the "Shed" storyline and it is fantastic. A block of New York City is in complete chaos due to the Lizard. Spidey has an antidote to prevent his primitive brain from taking control of him, but it does nothing on the Lizard, since the Lizard is all primitive brain now. However, during the fight, the Lizard seems to understand the good side of having a monkey brain, by noticing how men have created airplanes, buildings and other things. It was interesting. But the best part was that the issue was fun and exciting. The art really works with these fight scenes and I also like how the last third of the issue is drawn by Emma Rios, bringing a very different style for a different environment, helping the story too by showing the less chaotic side of things. It was also nice to see Aunt May come back to normal, although I wish there were a better explanation of why she was able to go back to normal.

Great issue and overall a fantastic Spider-Man storyline. The best I've read in a long time, at least 20 issues.

Amazing Spider-Man #634 by Joe Kelly and Michael Lark with a backup from J.M DeMatteis and Max Fiumara and another back up by Stan Lee and Marcos Martin.

This issue starts the long awaited "Grim Hunt". The Kravinoff family has been creating havoc on Peter's life for a while now and they are finally attacking him straight. The issue is very good. We get to see Spidey fighting alongside Arachne against Alyosha and Ana Kravinoff. We get to see a beaten up Kaine warn Peter. We get to see Ezequiel again (one of my favorite Spidey characters) and we get to see a little bit more of the Kravinoffs, finally understanding what they are trying to do (although without understanding why their plan will work). A solid issue, hopefully it will be even better than "Shed". Joe Kelly is a great writer and I have high hopes for the rest of this series.

The back up issue by J.M. DeMatteis wasn't that great. The art was interesting and the story was okay, but we don't get much out of the issue. I think overall the story will be okay, it seems to be leading up to a Kraven versus Kaine confrontation, which should be cool.

The other back up is only two pages. The art by Martin is pretty cool and the series seems to lead up to a funny storyline. The story seems to be a bit inspired by Pinky and the Brain. We'll see what Stan Lee can do with it. I am hopeful.

Amazing Spider-Man

I fell behind on Spider-Man reading and I've done most of it this week, today I'll post about Amazing Spider-man and this week I'll write two other posts, one on Web of Spider-man and another one on miscellaneous Spidey titles I've read recently.

Amazing Spider-man #525 by Joe Kelly and Max Fiumara.

This issue is sad, but Kelly does some great job with Spidey's dialogue throughout, making the story a little lighter, which I think is the way to do Spider-man.

Amazing Spider-man #526 by Fred Van Lente and Michael Gaydos.

The issue is good but not great. I liked seeing Spidey in trouble by temporarily losing his powers and I was interested in seeing the lady Scorpion as a character. The art worked better than I thought it would. I remember Gaydos from his work on Alias and I thought his style served better in noir stories than in Spider-man, but as Michael Lark has shown, noir style pencillers work great on Spider-man.

Amazing Spider-man #527 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks.

This is the first part of a trilogy called "Something Can Stop the Juggernaut" that kind of serves as a sequel to the famous "Nobody can stop the Juggernaut". I was very interested in finding out who stopped the Juggernaut and I was glad that it was revealed in this issue.

Amazing Spider-man #528 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks with a backup feature by Mark Waid and Todd Nauck.

The second part of the trilogy, this raises some good questions about who is Captain Universe, since he doesn't seem to understand his role as a superhero. We have a fun fight between Spidey and Captain Universe and Juggernaut joins in to create an interesting set up.

The backup feature was great. I really like how Todd Nauck draws Spidey and the supporting characters and the story itself was a fun quintessential Spidey story. Spider-Man has a job interview. The interviewer gets stopped in traffic due to a villain popping out on the street and so he interviews Spidey on the phone. Of course this becomes problematic once Spidey has to fight the villain in front of the car of the interviewer. Fun stuff.

Amazing Spider-man #529 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks with a backup feature by Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo.

The conclusion of the "Something Can Stop the Juggernaut" story is the best of the bunch, by far. First, we learn who Captain Universe is. Second, we learn how this connects to the "Nothing can Stop the Juggernaut" story. Third, we get a nice life lesson, another great take on "With Great Power comes Great Responsibility". This is a perfect story for Spider-man. Nothing very original, something a bit bizarre by having a cosmic power in the story, but a story that tells us what Spidey is all about.

The back up was pretty cool too. It is a prologue to the next storyline by Zeb Wells, called "Shed". It looks like it will be a much darker storyline, but it looks exciting.

Amazing Spider-man #530 by Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo.

This is the first part of "Shed". We had a prologue in the previous issue and we also had a related story in a recent Web of Spider-man. The story will center on Dr. Connors.
The issue is very good. We get to see Connors having a bad life and slowly losing control to his reptilian side. We also see Spidey have some romantic problems as the Black Cat makes it very clear that she's not interested in a relationship, she just wants to have fun.

A really good issue that has me very excited about the next two parts in the story. I haven't been as excited about a Spidey story in many issues, not since Van Lente's chameleon story in the early 600s.