Now, that’s more like it.
Freed of new status quo exposition, Amazing Spider-Man read much better than the opening issue of “Brand New Day”. As much as people wanted to see a return to the everyman loser Peter Parker, what was really missing was the everyhero loser Spider-Man.
I would much rather read a story of Spider-Man having a bad day because of the stress in Peter Parker’s life infringing on his heroics, than read one of ordinary working schlub Peter Parker having a bad day. Likewise, it’s similarly fun to see the superheroic lifestyle of Spider-Man infringe on Peter Parker’s everyday life. It’s about two lives, with two sets of responsibilities, pulling at one man, and last issue was too much about Peter Parker having a crappy time because he was Peter Parker.
Here, Peter finally puts the Spider-Man suit back on as he sets out to track down the mugger who robbed him last issue and save the Daily Bugle from bankruptcy with much needed pictures. Pictures of Spider-Man! Through a series of coincidences, of the sort Dan Slott writes so well, he ends up entangled with another plot line we saw begin last issue.
We also get editor footnotes, something I don’t think I’ve seen in ages. Just like the good old days (i.e. when I read Spider-Man comics as a kid), they are used to reference old issues of Spider-Man where necessary. While I’ve missed these, I do have a slight reservation seeing them used here. As I mentioned before, I think there’s a risk in referencing old storylines so soon. They may act as a reminder that we just had a major fiddling around with the perception of the past. I think they pull it off this time. The references that crop up are to 1969’s “Secret of the Petrified Tablet” story and what seems to be a tidying up of a dangling plotline from a recent book.
Best of all, I thought Dan Slott’s script now flows with Steve McNiven’s art a lot better. McNiven could probably stand to break up his long rectangular panels a little more often that he does, but the combination of the art and script worked very well this issue. The pacing felt a little more relaxed, with the (near) weekly schedule there really isn’t the call for an infodump like the one we got last week. Especially not for the first issue.
Anyway, enough whining about last week’s issue, this week was what I wanted from a Spider-Man comic and the plotline that put us here never came to mind once.