Writer: Nick Spencers / Artists: Ryan Ottley, Dan Hipp, and Kev Walker / Marvel Comic
If nothing else, this comic was as weird as it was good. This monster of a comic (really? 60 pages for issue 25?) took quite a few directions. The main stories were 100% influenced by the release of Spider-Man: Far From Home, and it worked. Spider-Man is late meeting Mary Jane at the theater *movie,* because he’s following up on Curt Connors a.k.a the Lizard. The Lizard is locked up and guarded by giant robots and drones *movie*. It turns out that his predicament as a prisoner is self-inflicted as Connors does not trust himself not to hurt his family. Mary Jane has her own adventure as the new Electro has interrupted the theater in a Black Mirror/Crowded-style social media hostage situation. The target is the main actress of the show, a model/actress rival to MJ in her days in the public eye. These two main stories further one and introduce another threat looming over Spider-Man’s head.
I won’t get into the side stories, because they were not compelling. The main line, though, was clearly written for my fellow late 20’s early 30’s crowd. Both Spider-Man and Mary Jane were going through a thought process of reflection of their early adult life. They think about the decisions they made when they were presumably in their late teens and early twenties. It means something for the millennial generation in a genre that really focuses on the very young and the “established adult.” I liked listening to Mary Jane think back about her passions as an older girl, thinking about the nuances of stagecraft even though she tells herself she’s over that part of her life. I was like, damn Mary Jane stop telling me about myself. You bet your ass I tell myself I’m over caring about what people think of me and how I look the way that idea consumes your life in your teens and early twenties. But then I catch myself thinking about how good I feel in a fresh outfit, and it takes a certain maturity to accept that part of yourself and not be apologetic for it. So, I see you, Spencer. And the decision to have Spider-Man go back to school is so relevant to my life that I had to look out my window and make sure Nick Spencer wasn’t out there with a camera.
Among all the Spider-craziness, I really hope this theme of mid-life self-improvement and reflection remains a center in this Spider-Man saga.
8 “Singing Dr. Doom’s” out of 10
Reading Amazing Spider-Man? Find BNP’s other reviews of the series here.
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