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Hello there! Padawan J here, the resident Star Wars expert from the ODPH! And this week I’m going to be reviewing the latest issue of The Amazing Spider-Man from Marvel & Zeb Wells!
We’re in the final few issues of the Zeb Wells run on The Amazing Spider-Man, and to be 100% honest this run cannot end soon enough. It’s been such a mixed bag, mostly skewing negative, that there isn’t too much redeeming about the run. The saga involving Peter, Norman & the spirit of the Green Goblin is over (for now) and now it’s the start of the final story from Zeb Wells. So is it off to an incredible start, or is it more of a dud? Let’s jump into it!
The Amazing Spider-Man #55 by Zeb Wells (writer), Emilio Laiso (guest artist), Bryan Valenza (guest color artist), VC’s Joe Caramanga (letterer), John Romita Jr, Scott Hanna & Marcio Menyz (cover artists) is quite easily the worst comic book I’ve ever read in my entire life. I know I’ve said before on the ODPH Podcast that I try to wait until the end of a story/show/movie/comic before I pass judgement, but it’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore just how bad the Zeb Wells run in Spider-Man is. I realize the next issue out is legacy issue #950 but this issue is utterly worthless and unnecessary to anything going on in the overall story, especially since the author is going to be done in a short amount of time.
The entire issue revolves around Peter who finally has a moment to breathe and be himself now that the spirit of the Green Goblin is gone. He’s trying to get things going with his new love interest Shay Marken (who works for Ravencroft by the way). He’s been trying to go on a date with her twice before but his duties as Spider-Man have always gotten in the way. And now on the third attempt he had to deal with Stilt-Man and it’s made him late again.
Once Peter makes it to the restaurant (which looks like it’s out of Peter’s budget) what follows is a date that looks like something out of a John Hughes film, and not a very good one. Peter fails to explain why he’s always late, for obvious reasons. And when Shay asks about his new black eye he can’t explain that one either, for the same obvious reasons. The date falls apart further once Rhino & Screwball show up. Peter reasons with them in his street clothes, and then goes back to his date with Shay because it’s what he wants. And that’s the whole issue, seriously.
Normally this is where I’d put my favorite thing in the issue but to be honest, there isn’t much good about this issue. I guess if I had to give it to something, it would be the art. The art is good and does pop off the page very nicely. So kudos to the art team on their work.
FINAL POINT: If you’re thinking of picking this issue up because you haven’t read an issue of Spider-Man in a while, don’t. The only reason I could say to pick this issue up is that you’re a collector who’s looking to collect the whole run. But even then I would question why you would want to collect this run that is going to go down as one of the worst runs in Spider-Man history. You’d be better to spend your hard earned money on anything else at the comic shop this week, because this issue is 1000% skippable.
Score: 4.0 out of 10
Thanks for checking out my review on Nerd Initiative. For more of my content, check out ODPHpodcast.com, follow me on Twitter, and check out more of my reviews here on Nerd Initiative: https://nerdinitiative.com/author/padawanj/!
