Monday, August 24, 2009

Amazing Spider-Man: New Ways to Die TPB

I was really excited to read this story, since it had Dan Slott writing and JRJR's artwork, and I have to say I ended up a tad disappointed. I think it boils down to an expectation thing.

My main problem with the story is the basic idea of Anti-Venom. It is such a silly name, I just have a hard time taking it seriously. I do like that Spidey makes comments all through the storyline poking fun at the idea too. Slott uses the T-bolts to good effect, but most of the team doesn't get much panel time. The story belongs to the Green Goblin, Bullseye, and Venom. Songbird and Radioactive Man, the two most heroic members of the T-bolts do act in character (basically good guys), but they stay in the sidelines of the story. Green Goblin had some cool developments, Osborn is back in his costume, which was great to see. I always like Norman's good ranting against his son and there is plenty of that here. I'm a tad unclear on the whole spider-tracer killer thing. That story isn't resolved here, correct? Osborn makes an announcement saying it is over, but I'm pretty sure he's just selling that idea to the press.

Slott had a neat idea about a tracker in Spidey's suit that keys to Peter Parker's automatic camera. After Osborn got his hands on the camera, he started keying bullets to follow the same tracker. That's an excellent high concept, and the way Slott played it with Bullseye was fantastic.

JRJR's art was great, of course. He's one of the premiere Spidey-artists these days, so it was great seeing his version of Spidey swinging around again. I would have liked to have seen a take on the original Venom, instead of Anti-Venom and the Mac Gargan Venom. I also must confess to missing JRJR's bulky version of Spidey from the late 90s.

Good

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