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The old Parker luck has humbled Peter once again, as he’s lost his company and gone back to the Daily Bugle. But is his new position in Amazing Spider-Man #791 an even better fit for him? Is it good?
The Skinny
Everything old is new again, with Peter back in his old stamping grounds. But this is different, Aunt May, it’s not backsliding!
The new and different relationship between Peter and Bobbi Morse (aka Mockingbird) continues, and let’s just say the Parker luck may be communicable. It only figures that she’d land a new security specialist job for a shady entrepreneur, one with a ghastly method for creating artificial intelligence.
But hey, it’s easy for Harry Osborn to pick up the scraps! Wait, what has Normie’s nanny been picking up from HIM?
The Lowdown
Amazing Spider-Man #791 is a good, old-fashioned tale of Peter Parker solving an unnecessarily convoluted scheme by a would-be mastermind. I mean that in the best way possible. Such stories were common in Marvel Comics of the ’60s, and it’s nice to see writer Dan Slott pen a throwback to those simpler done-in-ones in a modern setting, with art that better communicates the narrative and dialogue that doesn’t over-explain.
That said, the issue does feel kind of disposable. It’s very entertaining, in both plot and dialogue, but other than Bobbi losing a job she JUST got, and Peter getting a minor win at his own new gig, the overall thrust of the Spider-Man story doesn’t seem to be advanced at all. Maybe Xander Zynn will return to menace Peter in the future. Maybe that’s all that’s really needed.
Stuart Immonen’s art in Amazing Spider-Man #791 is king-sized, as always. Immonen has an uncanny ability to draw portrait-like scenes without losing a sense of dynamic movement — essential for a Spidey book — although there is one oddly flipped panel, where Peter reacts to something that hasn’t happened yet (i.e. toward the right side of the page). Rain Beredo’s colors further evoke the bright, ’60s aesthetic while keeping the story grounded in the modern.
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The Upshot
Amazing Spider-Man #791 is a fine piece of old-school comic storytelling, with modern flair, in that it doesn’t really go anywhere, but the journey is fun. Slott continues to nail Peter Parker’s voice and his penchant for getting out of and into trouble. Immonen’s addition to the artistic rotation marks the book as top tier and not to be overlooked. Where Spider-Man goes from here is unclear, but it’s probably good to have these kinds of palette-cleansing issues between crossovers.
“Venom Inc.” starts in just two weeks, true believers!
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