An Important Detour

For the past few months now I’ve been bringing you the hits and misses of DC Comics’ New 52. This week I had planned to continue on that path but then something happened. Something I didn’t expect. I read a new Spider-Man book.

Why is this a big deal? Why am I shifting from DC to Marvel all of a sudden? Well, to answer these questions I must take you back a few years – 31 years to be exact.

An uncle of mine was moving to Vancouver for a new job there and had too much to take with him. One of the boxes he was leaving behind for me was a full comic book long-box. That was the day I truly learned about comics, and what an education it was! Inside were mostly silver-age books, including Green Lantern, Batman and Spider-Man. The first comic book I pulled out of that box, the first comic book I ever read was Amazing Spider-Man #51. Written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Romita, It’s not a particularly key Spider-Man book, but because of what it did for me, it holds incredible sentimental value. My love for Spider-man was born. I was 8 years old.

So, for years after, I continued to read comics as often as I could. I read books from both DC and Marvel and I liked both pretty equally. Green Lantern, Batman and the Justice League were my DC books and over at Marvel, for me, it was all Spider-Man. I grew up with Spider-Man and he was always my favorite. Then, something changed. I’m not sure what it was and I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but I stopped reading comics when I was around 13. I guess, as I got older I started finding other interests and I strayed away from stories I used to read so voraciously.

A couple of years went by and then one summer, my family went on a camping trip. We stopped at a local variety store to pick up some supplies and my father suggested that I get a book to read since I wasn’t much of a fisherman. That’s when I received my second most significant comic book. The book was Spectacular Spider-Man #142. Once again, it’s not a key issue but it’s a great story with fantastic art by Sal Buscema. It sparked my interest in comics again and the fire has been burning ever since that day. I was 15 years old.

Flash forward to a couple of years ago and the One More Day/Brand New Day “event” in the pages of Spider-Man. I can never forgive Joe Quesada for this fiasco of horrible storytelling. He couldn’t deal with Peter Parker being married, among other things and wanted to wipe out the storyline.

Now, it’s not that I’m against change in Spidey’s life. If you don’t want him married anymore there are more than a few ways you could have accomplished that within the narrative. This all happened following the Civil War and Secret Invasion events, and so there were many creative ways that a major paradigm shift in Spider-Man’s life could have been accomplished.

Instead, Quesada brought in Mephisto and had him wave his magic wand and POOF! Peter and M.J. were never married, and no one knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Pathetic, weak storytelling. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

And so, Joe Quesada did what I never thought anyone could do. He turned me off of Spider-Man. I made a decision then and there that I would not read anymore of this Quesada-laced crap until he was no longer editor-in-chief and Spider-Man’s timeline went back to normal.

Two years later, Joe Quesada is no longer editor-in-chief but the continuity hasn’t been fixed. A friend recently tried to get me back on board by suggesting I read a new Spidey story called ‘Big Time’. It was ok, but I found Humberto Ramos’ artwork to be distracting at times. For me, it’s a little too much like anime. At any rate, I was not drawn back in to the world of my friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. So I came to the sad realization that for me, The Amazing Spider-Man ended its run at issue #543.

I was 37 years old.

So after all of this, I had figured that was it for me and Spidey. I am so happy to report that I was wrong.

Dan Slott knows how to write Spidey. No question. He’s been doing it for a little while now, so he’s definitely got it down pat. He has a flare for the way Peter Parker talks and the way he delivers witty one-liners. He kind of reminds me of the last great Spider-writer I can remember, David Michelinie. That’s VERY good company as far as I’m concerned. The artwork of Giuseppe Camuncoli is, in a word… perfect. He’s almost channeling Romita in style and tone and the nostalgic geek in me absolutely loves that! This could be the perfect pairing of writer and artist that Spider-Man hasn’t had in a very long time. So, I’ve discovered what could potentially be the third most significant comic book to cross my path. It’s only the first book in a new story arc, so I need to see what the next issue brings before I can say this with certainty, but I believe that Amazing Spider-Man #674 has reunited me with my favorite superhero.

I feel like I’m 8 years old.

-Rob Vellone