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| THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN No. 5, February 2016 |
As Dan Slott has previously said himself “it used to be
in the old days that if Peter was having an adventure, he would [simply] web his camera
to a wall, take pictures of his fights, and then sell them." In Issue Five of “The Amazing Spider-Man”
however, the Diamond Gem Award-winner somewhat disconcertingly has his
incarnation of Uncle Ben’s nephew using a Quinjet to deduce that Zodiac’s hacking of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s defences is “just a decoy in order to gain access to your satellite
scans”, imperiously co-ordinate a plan of attack which brings every Parker Industries surveillance
asset "into play",
and incredulously tell the likes of Nick Fury,
Mockingbird, the Prowler, the Human Torch and Phil Coulson what to do when the international
terrorist group strikes; “Huh. Whaddaya know. Peter Parker in charge. Amazing.”
So authoritarian and “cutting-edge” a wall-crawling
crime-fighter must undoubtedly have caught many of this twenty-page periodical’s 79,122
strong audience somewhat off-guard. But fortunately by the time the
Berkeley-born writer (and collaborator Christos Gage) has Scorpio initiate an
all-out attack upon the British Museum halfway through “Set In Stone” and the former Daily Bugle photographer has activated his state-of-the-art suit, Spidey is once again the
smart-mouthed wise-cracking superhero which has become the “flagship character”
of “Marvel Worldwide” and the publisher’s “mascot.”
Indeed apart from the Human mutate’s annoyingly crass offer
to “pay for any damages… and a new wing” when the institution’s curators plead
for their exhibits not to be broken during the melee, Slott’s storyline
momentarily resembles something similar to a Roy Thomas “Marvel Team-Up” tale
from the Bronze Age of Comics… At least until Steve Ditko’s co-creation
suddenly achieves a “nice win” by safely ‘zapping’ all six of the Zodiac Sect
leaders with his antitoxin in a single splash panel which defies belief…
Equally as unsatisfactory as the writing team’s
characterisation of Spider-Man, is some of this title’s artwork by regular
contributor Giuseppe Camuncoli. The vast majority of the Italian’s breakdowns
are first-rate, especially the action sequences set within Sir Robert Smirke's famous institution for Antiquities.
But every now and then, most notably during Parker’s dismissal of Sajani and
sketching of “the new head of the London Facility” Anna Maria, his pencilling
appears a little rushed and angularly wooden.
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| Writer: Dan Slott & Christos Gage, and Penciler: Giuseppe Camuncoli |
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