The Amazing Spider-Man #1 Review

Parker Luck, don’t fail me now!

Peter Parker is back and facing the mess left to him by Otto Octavius being in control of his body for over a year. With no memories during that time, and so many drastic changes having happened, Peter’s in a bit of a bother.

Slott tries hard to make this issue reader friendly as he takes time to recap every major event that happened during Superior and will have a big impact in the following issues.

This divides the book into multiple parts, as alongside the main story, there are many mini shots given as a prelude to future story-lines or other Spidey related book.

I’m giving the main score to the primary story, but will look at the others with shorter reviews.

SPOILERS FOLLOW…………………..

‘Lucky to be Alive’

We first recap Spiderman’s origin story. Mild mannered ‘dork’ Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider. But what is new is that someone else was bitten too. I know this will be explored in an Original Sin tie in (who else got the powers?) but it feels arbitrary to put in here.

Anyway, we are brought back to the present as a group of ridiculously dressed villains try to escape only to be stopped by…the Amazing Naked Spider-man????

Going further back, Peter addresses a press conference four hours after ‘coming back’ and declares that Parker Industries is severing their association with Spider-man. This comes as a relief to Aunt May and J Jameson Sr.

At his apartment, Spider Ock’s (when Ock was Spiderman) girlfriend Anna Maria enters the flat and finds a wedding ring and a marriage proposal in the closet.

At Conway Penitentiary, the media reports that Electro caused a ruckus that left the structure in rubles while the Avengers were busy fighting the Goblin army and the ‘turned’ Spider Slayers.

An alcoholic Jameson reflects on the resignation as major due to the Spider Slayers having been made under his order and decides to return to the Bugle, only to backtrack when he sees it running his resignation story as front page.

Peter gets a culture shock at he inspects his building (Ock created Parker Industries when Peter was gone). The employees are fearful an obedient, the work being done there is way out of his comfort zone and he has a robot butler. Oh yes, he’s also a doctor now (again Ock).

As Sajani leaves Peter to dispose of all his Spiderman material, Peter decides otherwise and goes on a spin around the city.

Sadly his first attempt goes haywire, as one of the villains manage to remove everything but his mask and this leads to many awkward YouTube videos. The reactions are great to see – from the Avengers to Mary Jane.

Peter returns to his flat to find Anna Maria waiting for him. Confused, he is further shocked to know she has seen ‘all’ of him (and vice-versa) and the video of Spider-man naked confirms her suspicions that Peter is Spider-man.

So, what now, Spidey?

‘Recapturing the Old Spark’

Electro goes to a villains bar but his past failures haunt him as he is the butt of jokes of newbie villains.

With wounded pride, he decides to bust everyone out of Conrad Penitentiary but ends up overloading and destroying the place.

Blaming Spider-man, he goes off with revenge in his mind.

‘Crossed Paths’

Black Cat has been unmasked and disconnected from her social group. After Spidey Ock captured her, she lost everything.

Electo’s attempt to free inmates of the Penitentiary left many dead, but thanks to Felicia’s bad luck curse, she escaped and is now on the hunt for Peter.

‘How my Stuff Works’

This is a fun number as Spidey goes about showing off his powers (and getting upstaged by the Hulk) and his allies.

‘Homecoming Sort of’

Miguel O’Hara is the man out of time and he's about to get his own title again. Having come from the future (2099, to be exact), he’s getting adjusted to seeing one of the best places of his time a seedy joint now.

He saves a girl but showing how messed up life is in Washington Heights, she slaps him and tells him that waiting for the police is a waste of time.

‘Kaine’

Peter goes to Houston to enquire about Kaine and finds he’s a hero in the eyes of the locals. Feeling good, Peter returns home hoping good things for his clone.

It's basically a lead-in to the New Warriors title.

‘Amazing Reality’

A kid with high ambitions sees Spider-man in the boxing ring and participates in his initial highs and lows, before finally deciding to follow him into the super heroing gig. The story continues in ASM 1.1

SPOILERS END…………………..

It’s a good start to the new Amazing Spider-man era. While the plot points from Superior are reasonably explained, it feels like this story is too built up from the previous one and not standing on its own.

It’s a credit to Slott that for all the misery he inflected on Peter during Spidey, Ock also did good things like the doctorate and Parker Industries. Knowing Peter though, that may lead to worse paths down the line.

The artwork was excellent and some of the back-ups exceeded that (particularly liked the Black Cat mini artwork).

So, I give it 8.0 out of 10.

+Good transition from Superior to Amazing

+Very good artwork

+Good pacing of the main story

-Not as reader friendly as could be

-Some of the backups were hit or miss, with most as a glorified prelude to other comics