I’ll keep it a buck, I’m not a big fan of J. Scott Campbell. His art’s weird. He made his bones drawing sexy girls, but “sexy” according to whomst? We’ll eventually see what he thinks a sexy girl looks like. Anyway, what’s going on on this cover? We’ll see. Also, I didn’t mention last month that I really like JR’s new corner box Spidey, but I’m sure that’s no surprise. This semi-retro cover treatment is pretty good. We open on Peter Parker at Aunt May’s dinner table, haunted by Ezekiel asking him the big question.
I liked JMS’s Aunt May right off the bat, and still do. She’s not radically different from what came before, but she’s got a life to her that few people outside Roger Stern (And, to be fair, JM DeMatteis) were willing to give her.
Love those sketchy flashbacks.
Like… the crazy thing here is… I mean, this is not a remarkable scene. But after the first 29 months of the relaunch? This is revelatory! Real people talking! Good grief, it’s such a breath of fresh air. It’s not hard to see why this run was heralded as a return to greatness. It almost doesn’t matter how good the stories are. ASM doesn’t feel like they’re desperately laying track in front of the train for the first time in over 2 years. And, again, this Aunt May rules. The “sir” in the caption down there is Ezekiel, who, we learn, is on the board of an unspecified company, and it is doing very well. Then Big E sees Spider-Man swing by and ends the meeting he’s in. Another board member confirms Ezekiel “made contact last night,” against their recommendations, and warns him this could destroy them. Ominous!
Like I said last time, I don’t think Spider-Man’s suit should be shiny, and I also think the little pops look really cool. It’s a paradox. Our man is so scared he can’t swing away. He looks around for anything that might’ve done this to him and can’t see anything. Then he crawls away instead of swinging, still scared. Below, Morlun comments on how it’s sad, but it’s always sad, and Dex asks Morlun to kill him, but he refuses, in a way that lets us know they talk about this a lot. Later, Peter goes to enquire about that teaching credential May mentioned. We spend a whole page watching him see a spider and let it crawl on him, smiling, but he’s Peter Parker, so naturally a guy with an AK-47 starts shooting the place up. Peter rushes to shepherd everyone in the hall into a classroom, and suddenly finds himself in charge of a bunch of kids during an active shooter situation. 2001, man. It’s crazy to think this was a somewhat novel scenario at the time, and not just a nauseatingly normal part of life…
Ugh. Crushing it. In a spectacular 2-page spread, Spider-Man leaps through a hail of gunfire and tackles the assailant.
Grim. But, sadly, relevant then and relevant now.
Staczynski really hit this book like a truck. For my money, the most daring and drastic first issue by a new creative team of all time is probably Walt Simsonson’s first issue of Thor as writer/artist, wherein an alien comes to Earth, beats up Thor and steals his hammer. Just a real “Hey, we’re doing things differently now.” But first Ezekiel and now a totally new career for Peter in just 2 months. On the one hand, Peter Parker: Science Teacher makes sense. When this first came out, I hadn’t seen him teaching in the 70s as part of grad school, it only makes more sense now. On the other hand, it’s a tough job to be Spider-Man with. But that makes for some good tension. Straczynski is shaking things up. And just getting started, too…