|
Amazing Spider-Man #551
Lo, There Shall Come A Menace!!
Credits
Writer: Marc Guggenheim
Art and Cover: Salvador Larroca
Colors: Stephane Peru
Letters: VC’s Cory Petit
Cover Colors: Jason Keith
Assistant Editor: Tom Brennan
“Editor”: Stephen Wacker
Executive Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Spidey’s Braintrust: Gale, Guggenheim, Slott, Wells
Synopsis
Spidey looks out to face the police gunning for him. With ease he leaps out of the way of the helicopters but suddenly remembers he has no web fluid and starts plummeting towards the ground! Out of no-where, Jackpot swings in and saves him! They head over to the Apollo Theatre to face Menace with the police in tow!
They get there to see Menace escape on his glider with Councillor Pafrey as his hostage! With no way to follow them himself, Spidey convinces the police helicopter to give him and Jackpot a ride to pursue him (with the promise that he’ll give himself up afterwards).
They track Menace using the same device Spider-Man used to locate him before (#549) and, in order to find out his motive behind the kidnap, Spidey drops right onto his glider and the battle begins in midair!
Spidey grabs Parfrey and throws her to Jackpot as he proceeds to beat the snot out of Menace!
Jackpot gets Parfrey safely to the ground and then thrusts herself into the fight. This has a terrible consequence as Jackpot unbalances them all from the glider and, as they all fall to the ground it arches round uncontrollably in Councillor Parfrey’s direction. With neither Spidey nor Jackpot close enough, the glider hits her… and she falls to the ground dead…
Before he vanishes in a cloud of smoke, Menace blames Spidey but everyone there knows that it was Jackpot’s fault… Spidey leaves Jackpot crying as the police try to arrest him again.
Later that day, Peter goes to claim the $10,000 bonus from Dexter Bennett for a picture of Menace but he only gets $2,000 because of the public appearance Menace made. However, Peter is happy with that as he can buy web fluid and seems to remains liked by the new boss!
In Park Slope, Brooklyn, Spider-Man pays a visit to Sara Ehret. She answers his knock at her window but denies having a secret identity. When Spidey flat out asks her if she is Jackpot she tells him to keep out of it and closes the curtains on him…!
Highlight
The banter between Spidey and Jackpot allows for some good ol’ fashioned humour to return!
Comments
Whilst I originally loved the pace of this arc, and things so reach a semi-dramatic head here, the entire thing now seems like a means to an ends.
Guggenheim leaves us knowing very little about anything: Menace, his motive and Jackpot, her identity and the confusion with Sara Ehret at the end. And, to be fair, that pretty much covers the whole pint of the story. Readers were thrown a curve ball with her identity so that something more interesting can happen later, we weren’t told Menace’s motives because it will allow a more interesting story to happen later and the only real developments have been with the spider-tracer murders and they weren’t even the focus of this arc.
There are redeeming features to the issue: the art remains spot on as Larocca firmly plant Menace in the mind and directs him more away from Goblin and more towards the grotesque. There is a clear and direct sense of the story as well; something that Larocca never messes about on and always delivers with detail and a sharp reader’s eye. The sequence where Parfrey dies is carried neatly by static panels and a well delivered series of slow thought boxes. The colours fit neatly with the mood and setting of the story and the grace and space of the pencils. Guggenheim handles Spidey and Jackpot well by maintaining their friendly banter and verbal one-upmanship which contrasts neatly to the ending where there is nothing funny to say.
There is something about depth of Jackpot though. She has been built up to be a rookie. Some of the things she said last issue delivered that persona perfectly and, clearly, the mistake she makes this time around continues to make her out as incompetent and overconfident. However, Guggenheim writes her with a level-headed confidence prior to the accident that depicts more experience (more than Spidey in some cases) and undoes some of the character she is meant to have.
I don’t really want to say much on the identity issue as I’m still concentrating on the fact that I’ve been teased with a juicy worm on a line but am not at all inclined to bite as I’ve not seen enough of said worm. And that, my friends, is a high brow metaphor for you! Go fish!
Rating
Cover –  
Overall –
Arc Overall –
Reviewed by Adam Rivett
|
Ultimate Spider-Man