{"id":29126,"date":"2025-10-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=29126"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:33:40","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T20:33:40","slug":"asm-529","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2025\/10\/06\/asm-529\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 529"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As JMS has been alluding to heavily, this month, Spider-Man gets a new costume. I did not buy this comic on release, so I have wound up with this reprint, featuring a 13th of Ringo\u2019s the Other series as a variant cover. Which is actually fine with me. Since this suit is ostensibly the inspiration for the very ugly armor from the Avengers movies, the first printing fetches a higher price now. Not, like, a million dollars, but I didn\u2019t care enough to spend more if I didn\u2019t have to. Also, the original cover, by Bryan Hitch, features Spider-Man with a visibly broken ankle, a weird, patently absurd anatomy choice Hitch will keep making into the present:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ugly. Like the suit itself. Let\u2019s see how this comes about. And we\u2019ll see it rendered by ASM\u2019s new creative team: Ron Garney, Bill Reinhold and Matt Milla. The same folks from the 2nd story in SMU 14<\/a>. Was that a test run? If it was, it was printed a month after this, so that\u2019s weird, but then, SMU is quarterly. At any rate, it\u2019s been nearly 2 years since I could enjoy the art on this book, so I am at least thankful for that. This one\u2019s called \u201cMr. Parker Goes To Washington,\u201d which is going to be very relevant. It opens with Peter & MJ asleep, when an eagle sculpture in their room pipes up with Tony Stark\u2019s voice asking Peter to meet him in the lab. That\u2019s not creepy or anything. Do they know Tony has their room bugged? I assume not. So creepy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have a lot of thoughts about JMS making Tony this creepy, but I will retain them for a more relevant time. It was and is strange to me that, in this time, there\u2019s basically 3 Tony Starks. He has his own title, of course. He has completely separate stories in New Avengers. And he\u2019s in almost every issue of ASM, too, also totally disconnected from his own title. Each book presents a different take on him, they don\u2019t always match up, and no one seems to care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Is this JMS being annoyed someone broke MJ\u2019s arm during his stupid crossover and it didn\u2019t carry over to other titles? Either way, I had already forgotten Morlun broke her arm, and I\u2019m reading this stuff way faster than you could as it came out. Who wrote that one? Was it Hudlin? Have literally already flushed it from my memory. It was Hudlin. Of course it was. Glad to see the back of that guy. He\u2019s still writing Black Panther in this moment, but when that\u2019s done, he\u2019ll go away and not come back, inflicting himself on the long-suffering attempt to bring back the Milestone Comics imprint at DC, taking the place of the deceased Dwayne McDuffie among its creators. Downgrade. Well, \u201cone hour later,\u201d some guys have stolen a car, and they have a \u201cchick in the trunk,\u201d and they have just sprayed the pursuing cops with uzis like it\u2019s an 80s action movie, and they think they\u2019re gonna make it. Then one of them looks up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I don\u2019t like this suit. In practice, it\u2019s a worse version of the black suit, recolored. The black suit worked because it was so different from the red & blue suit. It was such a radical change it kind of forced you to judge it on its own merits. Whereas this looks like it, only worse. Also, Iron Man forcing Spider-Man to wear his colors is weird and stupid. And I hate\u2026 so much\u2026 comic book artists\u2019 constant decision to give characters gauntlets that would let them bend their wrist. Look at the point behind Spidey\u2019s hand. If he makes the traditional \u201cshoot web\u201d hand gesture, he\u2019ll stab himself. It\u2019s so visibly bad, but people do it all the time. At any rate, we\u2019re stuck with a Spider-Man who looks like this for the rest of 2006. I can\u2019t imagine that pleased Ron Garney too much, either. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to draw Spider-Man!\u201d Well\u2026 you\u2019re drawing a version of Spider-Man\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the SMU 14 post, I mentioned a strange commonality between John Romita, Jr., Lee Weeks and Ron Garney, even though they\u2019re so visually distinct. The Spidey in panel 4 is totally one Romita would draw. I just think that\u2019s interesting. Well, Spider-Man opens his arms, and web wings like the ones on his old suit appear, like exactly the same, only now this tiny slip of string under each arm works like a hang glider. Sure, man. He lands on the roof of the car, rips it open, gets out a quip before having to dodge bullets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our hero drives the car into the waiting police blockade, finally getting \u2018round to disarming Uzi Man only after he opens fire on the cops. Step one, Spidey, come on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Man, Garney\u2019s solid, dramatic figure work is SUCH a pleasure after 20 issues of mashed potato men. Every panel looks so slick. But also, we\u2019ll notice Spider-Man shoots webs out of nozzles on his dumb gauntlets now. So\u2026 is he not even using his organic webbing in this suit? What a mess. Also I don\u2019t know the song he\u2019s talking about. Well, soon enough, he\u2019s back home, having dinner with MJ & Tony and recounting his adventure, and saying thanks to Tony for the suit. MJ is also grateful for anything that\u2019ll keep him safer. But, our boy wants to know why Tony did this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Like, there\u2019s so much Romita, Jr. in that first panel, but only that first panel. It\u2019s only in very specific circumstances. I\u2019m just fascinated by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tony\u2019s a businessman, above all, and he\u2019s just done his best to buy Peter. But for what? Well, the banner across the top of the original cover does say \u201cThe Road To Civil War.\u201d We\u2019re rapidly approaching the plunge. The beginning of the story that changes everything. Really.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As JMS has been alluding to heavily, this month, Spider-Man gets a new costume. I did not buy this comic on release, so I have wound up with this reprint, featuring a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864],"tags":[1863,1573,64,1981,21,1968,660,2],"class_list":["post-29126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2000s","tag-amazing-spider-man-vol-2","tag-bill-reinhold","tag-iron-man","tag-j-michael-straczynski","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-matt-milla","tag-ron-garney","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29129,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29126\/revisions\/29129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}