It’s time again for Tag Team Thursday, where Clobber-Tron and Shaz-Bot take one of this week’s comics and share their opinions! This week the gruesome twosome take on:
THE MASSIVE 64 PAGE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #647
S-B: Amazing #647 is touted as the end of the Brand New Day storyline. To be honest, I thought that was just the name of the first arc after the status quo change and already considered it finished a long time ago.
C-T: Yes after the huge reboot that almost broke the Internet in 2008, I thought there’ve been a few different story arcs including ‘New Ways to Die’ and Grim Hunt, but apparently they’ve all been BND stories.
S-B: This issue does tie a bow on various goings on of the last 100 or so issues. There has a been a lot of stuff going on in the book, so if you haven’t been keeping up, many of the winks the writers give might be lost on you. Thankfully, if you’ve only been reading recent issues, this wraps up the “Osborn baby” storyline of the past few issues as well.
C-T: ‘Tie a bow’ is a great way to put it, I actually went back and read the first few issues penned by Dan Slott and this book feels more like a love letter to him than a wrap up issue. There are so many similarities between this issue and #547, from panel layouts to the car chase it’s worth it to go back and take a look. In fact if you want to have a lot of fun read this issue backwards Manga style and then read 547 forward to really catch it all.
S-B: In the main story, everyone’s getting together to throw Harry Osborn a going away party. Y’see, he’s going into hiding because the whole of Spidey’s Rogues’ Gallery was just on a manhunt for his ex-lover’s kid.
C-T: I was hoping we’d start out with a really fun beginning despite having to wrap up the “Origin of the species’ story arc, because it’s been a bit lackluster. Everyone having a party for Harry should be fun but this doesn’t play out that way at all. Aside from the Spider-mobile making and appearance and Spidey in an off the rack Halloween costume this didn’t feel Amazing, Spectacular or even Web of.
S-B: I don’t care who you are, if you have no love of the Spider-Mobile, well… Anyway, it turns out that Peter Parker’s old cop roommate Vin is getting out of stir on the same day. Shenanigans go in in the usual Spidey manner, where we have Peter having romance issues, angst-a-plenty and the ever looming shadow of the Green Goblin manifesting in a somewhat interesting way.
C-T: No matter what kind of spin the put on re introducing the Green Goblin it’s going to seem trite compared the previous Lee/Ditko stories, so I don’t see how any appearance will be interesting.
S-B: To each his own. So in summary, I guess I would call this an adequate wrap up on the whole “Brand New Day” thing, as it nicely parallels with the beginning. Honestly though, I don’t feel that BND needed wrapping up. It isn’t like next issue Peter and MJ are going to be married again.
C-T: That’s a great point, I don’t see how BND can be over if it doesn’t even slightly change the status quo.
S-B: Of the other stories in the book, we get a Harry Osborn story taking place 5 minutes after the lead, a completely pointless vignette of an extremely minor character’s adventures through BND, an entertaining look at why J. Jonah Jameson may not be the best mayor NYC has ever had, a one page gag of JJJ: The Musical. Also included are a pretty good Flash Thompson story, a Norah Winters story (really?), a preview of the next storyline and a BND-era cover gallery. The latter of which immediately reminded me how many needless variant covers are out there in the wild. I will admit I like the parody of the Obama cover featuring Nixon. I may have to track that one down.
C-T: And if you’re on the fence don’t forget This book is huge, three times what you usually get, so $4.99 is justifiable.
S-B: All in all, I would say if you’re already a fan of Spidey and have been following him, go ahead and pick up the book, all of the content is new, so you won’t feel like you’ve wasted the extra money the book costs. If you’re a casual Spider-phile, this issue won’t really do much for you.