The Amazing Spider-Man #795 - Marvel Comics

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN No. 795, April 2018

Shifting 52,844 copies in February 2018, it’s probably safe to assume that Dan Slott and Christos Gage’s script for Issue Seven Hundred And Ninety Five of “The Amazing Spider-Man” had some of its readers desperately scratching around for this title’s previous edition concerned that they had seemingly missed an instalment which covered both the breakdown of Peter Parker’s relationship with Bobbi Morse and subsequent requirement for him to find new lodgings with Mister Babcock in Brooklyn. Sadly however, rather than being simply a past overlooked panel or two, this dramatic turn of events within the newspaper reporter’s personal life is actually a ‘brand new development’ which is rather lackadaisically explored within this periodical’s twenty-page plot through intermittent flashbacks involving the couple “being stuck together for seven hours” on a flight back from England and finally realising “outside of work… We have absolutely nothing in common whatsoever” 

Indeed, the entirety of this second chapter to “Threat Level: Red” seems to smack of a lacklustre attitude towards its story-telling which irreverently skips over the emotional trauma of Aunt May “closing down a charity organisation named in honour of my late husband”, superficially discloses the removal of Stephen Strange as the Marvel Universe’s Sorcerer Supreme courtesy of an Editor’s tiny text box, and never actually makes any mention as to just why Loki Laufeyson supposedly owes the wall-crawler a favour; something upon which the entirety of this comic’s central narrative is based. Such lazy penmanship really must have grated upon the minds of many within this book’s audience, especially as only those who had been fans of the publication for the past fourteen or so years would have had any notion that its storyline follows on from J. Michael Straczynski’s 2004 adventure “Coming Of Chaos”.

Instead, the collaborative writing partnership decide to disingenuously regale any perusing bibliophile with the supposedly humorous suggestion that Spider-Man would need to wear a woollen bobble hat and body warmer whilst web-swinging his way across New York, and then accidentally destroy a cask of containment within the now-floating Sanctum Santorum whilst having a ‘temper tantrum’ with the mansion’s new permanent resident; “Stop crying over spilled bugs and put ‘em back!” Admittedly, the resultant release of the Fire-Wasps of the Faltine and Web-head’s fury-fuelled fisticuffs with “the deadly creatures of magical origin” alongside the God of Mischief, all precisely pencilled by Mike Hawthorne, makes for a pulse-pounding predicament. But the costumed crime-fighter’s sudden decision at the fight’s end to ask the Agent of Asgard to reverse time to “before I broke the vase” so as to return to life an innocent bystander makes the battle’s conclusion appear a little too neat, even if it is later revealed that the entire attack was manufactured by Thor’s stepbrother in order to ensure his debt was paid “to a vacuous idealist who might do something reckless with his leverage…”

The regular cover art of "THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN" No. 795 by Alex Ross