AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 515 ADVANCE REVIEW

[Andrea Speed]

Reviewer: Andrea Speed andy@comixtreme.com
Quick Rating: Good
Title: Skin Deep, Part 1

An old hard luck classmate of Peter’s resurfaces with a proposition for him.

<a href="http://www.comixtreme.com/gallery/data/media/26/asm515.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixtreme.com/gallery/data/thumbnails/26/asm515.jpg" align="left" border="0"> </a>Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Pencils: Mike Deodato Jr.
Pencils in Flashbacks: Mark Brooks
Inks: Joe Pimentel
Inks in Flashbacks: Jaime Mendoza
Colors: Matt Milla
Colors In Flashback: Brian Reber
Letters: Virtual Calligraphy's Cory Petit
Editor: Axel Alonso
Cover Art: Gary Frank
Publisher: Marvel




Review: We all - okay, maybe not all, but most of us - remember there used to be a time when there were asterisks in the dialogue bubbles, leading to a little caption box telling us to “See issue blah-blah” as it referenced something that occurred elsewhere. Here’s a new and troubling thing: caption boxes that pimp upcoming issues. This happens not once, but twice: first, promoting the upcoming Spectacular Spider-Man arc where Sarah appears, and then promoting the upcoming New Avengers issue three, where you can find out what happens between Peter and Tony Stark. I don’t think I’d have mentioned it if it didn’t happen twice in the same issue.

Mad pimping aside, this story goes back to the more character-centric stories this title was known for before the whole Goblin Twins storyline, although you know long before the end how this is going to turn out. It is, after all, a superhero book, and some conventions must be adhered to. But in the meantime, we do get a nice glimpse back at the hell that was high school for Peter and his old acquaintance, and how the brutal pecking order shakes down for teens, and torments the sensitive even as they obey the dictates of the crowd.

Deodato does his usual fabulous job on the art, and the stand out here might be a montage page, where we see how Peter’s been spending his time. But half the art in this issue are high school flashbacks courtesy of Brooks, whose work is very similar to the work he’s done in Amazing Fantasy. It’s a lightly manga influenced style, a somewhat jarring contrast to Deodato’s painted look penciling, but works for what it is. The coloring by Milla in the contemporary sequences is muted and good, while the coloring by Reber in the flashbacks is bright and clear.

A good issue, but marked down a half point just for A) pimping and B) the fact that I could see the ending coming down Madison Avenue.




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[PinchyWearO]

So people complain about continuity and where an issue fits within multiple appearances in comics, but when told, it's "pimping"? I'd like to see these brought back whether they're referencing a past or future issue. Much preferable to run full page ads rather than actually build interest in other issues through the actual events in the story...

[Andrea Speed]

So people complain about continuity and where an issue fits within multiple appearances in comics, but when told, it's "pimping"? I'd like to see these brought back whether they're referencing a past or future issue

But only the reference to New Avengers could be considered "continuity". The reference to Spectacular Spider-Man is a needless aside.

[Ryan Read]

One thing about Peter's teaching these days. It really reflects in a real world feel on how school is for teen these days. Back in the first issue of Marvel Knights Spider-man. We saw teens being teens, even swaring, it felt realistic. Here we get the more darker nature of high school and it's nice. One thing when I'm working on my stories is that I want to give that real feel to the characters. To some, high school was good, and for others it was a living nightmare that followed them through to college. Gives the human feel to Spider-man and Peter Parker.

[AmazingMattMan]

good issue, no twins and young girls having sex with their boyfriends worst enemy who happens to be an old guy= a plus

true you do see the ending a mile away, but i dont think its that big of a deal because they pretty much solicited that something was going to happen to that guy anyways.

[Ryan Broussard]

i liked it alot.

JMS is really trying hard with making these new rogues gallery and so far i like what he has come up with

[devin102]

Nice Review. A few things about this issue didn’t sit well with me, but I thought it was an overall okay start to the Skin Deep arc. Peter driving a car at the beginning of the story seemed out of place, not sure why he would use a car when he always webswings wherever he needs to go. Having Charlie as the biggest nerd in school and Peter picking on him didn’t seem natural either, these revisions of Spidey history JMS is so fond of are needless and do not fit into the original continuity very well. I would prefer the introduction of a supporting cast and brand new characters as villains instead of JMS altering the past to fit his storytelling needs. For instance, have Peter take a laboratory scientist/technician position working with other scientists, introduce and develop characters like Charlie over time to give readers some investment in the characters. Introducing Charlie in one issue, supplying an artificial history and setting him up to be a villain seems like such short-term story planning, and I know JMS is capable of much better.

I’ve been reading the Essential Spider-Man TPBs recently, so JMS’ depiction of Peter’s high school days are often very inconsistent with the source material. For example, Peter drilling Charlie over and over during the volleyball game is completely inconsistent with not only the character of Peter Parker, but also his physical ability before the spider bite. Peter would probably have been lucky to even knock the volleyball over the net, much less hit Charlie each time as if he were a volleyball pro. I don’t want to be overly critical of JMS, but scenes like this take me out of the story. As for Peter giving Charlie a chance to come clean with Stark about the status of the skinsuit project, how many times has Peter seen the worst case scenario play out in situations like this? I would have expected Peter to do everything in his power to shut the project down right then and there, which could have created the accident causing Charlie to be covered with the skinsuit.

On a positive note, I liked the return to laboratory science this issue, a fundamental theme of Spidey stories. Deodato’s pencils seem a little sketchy this issue, not as clean as the work he did during the previous arc. Brooks’ pencils were effective in distinguishing the flashback scenes, but I found his use of “shadow dots” to be distracting.

Rating: C