Spider-Man has had a wild ride in the latest story arc, and he aims to get revenge on Norman Osborn or at least fix things. Turned into a goblin, Peter is now semi-cured, thanks to Chasm. With his mind mostly back, he and Ms. Marvel attack on multiple fronts, with the Walking Brain harboring a secret that may change everything! Or nothing; this is comics, after all.
Amazing Spider-Man #53 opens with the news that Norman is giving his entire company to Peter Parker. The board overseeing the choice is confused, but they must relent. You’ll be wondering what he’s up to before Ms. Marvel and her ragtag team of Rek-Rap and Walking Brain rush in to stop his plans.
Meanwhile, the story progresses on Spider-Man’s side as he’s still reeling from being a goblin. The magical spear that can transfer sins gets an update, and the story seems to be leaning towards a “final” confrontation. All told this issue is mostly a fight comic with some twists thrown in. Rek-Rap, for instance, gets some major battle damage, while Walking Brain seems to be up to something.
Name this team.
Credit: Marvel
Artist Todd Nauck draws the Green Goblin scenes while Ed McGuinness draws the Spider-Man scenes, and together, they put on a good show. Nauck draws some great fight scenes and leans into Rek-Rap’s weirdness. It appears McGuinness only drew two pages on this issue, with Nauck doing a valiant job with all kinds of cool visuals. That includes Ms. Marvel sporting Doc Ock’s arms and some crazy agility by Green Goblin.
Marcio Menyz colors the issue, keeping some consistent from beginning to end. Green Goblin looks fantastic, thanks to the colors, and there is some nice lighting across the costume.
This issue has a lot of characters and a lot of callbacks to previous stories under Zeb Wells, for better or worse. For better, it shows it’s all coming together, but for worse, because it’s kind of all over the place. A giant demon Spider-Man who spouts nonsense is teaming up with Ms. Marvel, who now sports a yellow costume because she was killed in this series, is a lot to keep in mind. It’s sort of like a bunch of action figures being slapped into each other all for a Green Goblin story that doesn’t feel all that original or intriguing.
The fact is, the sins of Green Goblin have already transferred to Peter and out of him. We’ve seen this before, and with no clear idea of what Norman is up to, it’s hard to explain why we should care at all. Then we have random characters running about like Doc Ock’s arms, Rek-Rap, and Ms. Marvel–all facets of previous story arcs but never cohesively important–and it’s a story that’s all over the place. Throw in the fact that the Sinister Six only seemed to be not his story to tease a confrontation that ended too quickly. It’s all a bit of a mess.
For fight comic fans, Amazing Spider-Man #53 delivers. There’s plenty of action and a wide variety of characters involved. Spider-Man is largely absent, but at least the story appears to be closing in on some kind of point and conclusion.
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