Peter Parker is Peter Parker again, and Amazing Spider-Man #1 hits your local comic book store one-day before Amazing Spider-Man 2 launches in theaters. Everyone should rejoice because everything is back to normal…. right? That’s a big huge wrong! On page two Dan Slott embarks down another giant wormhole by re-writing the origin of Spider-Man. Allegedly another person was bitten by the radioactive spider as well! And guess what? It’s a female character, how conventionally original. Welcome back to the 90’s the land of frighteningly bad written comics and 101 symbiotes.
As far as judgement by a single issue, Slott does a good job recapping the Doc Ock chaos that is now Parker’s life. The jokes and free spirit are back, which are core character traits of Spider-Man and anyone that has read Amazing Spider-Man knows it’s just a matter of time before it all comes crashing down. There was a nod to Amazing Spider-Man 2 with a quick reference to Electro, he was without his traditional mask and blue.
Humberto Ramos is where he should be drawing Spider-Man even if Parker destroys his red and blue costume and ends up running around in web underwear for most of the issue. Ramos’s style works well conveying Slott’s jokes and action. The detail and emotions in a character’s face is what puts Ramos in the upper echelon of artists.
It’s mind-boggling the need to rewrite the past in comic books. Superior Spider-Man for all its faults was an attempt to create a new future. Marvel and DC need to do more of this and less of rebooting the past.
Story: 7.5/10 • Artwork: 8.5/10 • Overall 8/10
