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| THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN No. 10, June 2016 |
Perhaps unsurprisingly registering a circulation drop of
approximately 15,000 readers in April 2016 (at least according to “Diamond
Comic Distributors”), it is hard not to view Issue Ten of “The Amazing
Spider-Man” as a twenty-page periodical which contains many a missed
opportunity for Dan Slott to return the global conglomerate owner back to his
less “cutting-edge technology” days when all the former Daily Bugle
photographer needed to battle his foes was “a good ol’ fashioned, low-tech
push!” Indeed the Berkeley-born writer’s narrative even begins by having
international terrorist leader Scorpio point out to the titular character that
Web-head is in a “pitiful state”; “Out of web-fluid. Armour destroyed. No
spider-mobiles or spider-rockets… There’s nothing left to save you now.”
Sadly however, having
implied that this comic’s 73,643 strong audience were about to enjoy a
throwback to the Nineties when the Wall-crawler relied upon just his
“spider-sense, spider-speed [and] spider-strength” to win the day,
the Diamond Gem Award-winner not only swiftly veers away from such
potential gritty story-telling by depicting Vernon Jacobs best Peter Parker’s
seemingly impotent alter-ego with a clout from a nearby parked car. But then caps
this disappointment off with a shameless reiteration of a scene from the 2004
“Spider-Man 2” motion picture, and scripts a semi-conscious Spidey, his costume
partially disintegrated, being saved from Scorpio’s coup-de-grace by a crowd of
well-meaning bystanders; “Back off! This man’s a hero! Want him? You’ll have to
go through us!”
Such a poignant moment may
well have made perfect sense in a big-budget “Colombia Pictures” screenplay
where the titular character has previously saved the New York public on numerous
occasions. Yet surely not when the action has only just started in the centre
of France’s capital, and certainly not straight after the disorientated crime-fighter
has literally caused the local Parisians to flee for their lives after falling
amongst them from space...?
Fortunately Slott’s dissatisfying script is saved by some
truly excellent pencilling by Giuseppe Camuncoli. The “Italian comic book
artist” really seems to know how to give his figures a dramatic sense of
momentum, with his panels portraying the rampaging Rhino and Spider-Man
helplessly holding onto the roof of a train moving at 186 miles per hour, proving particularly pulse-pounding.
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| The 'Civil War' variant cover art of "THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN" No. 10 by Mike Perkins |
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