The Amazing Spider-Man #800

Another comics I picked up at Merrymac Games and Comics this past summer.

Title: The Amazing Spider-Man
Issue: 800
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: July 2018
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Nick Bradshaw, Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba, Guiseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger, Marcos Martin
Colorist: Edgar Delgado, Java Tartaglia, Marte Gracia, Muntsa Vicente
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Cover: Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado
Editor:Kathleen Wisneski, Nick Lowe, Devin Lewis

Did I mention that I love collecting these big round-number issues? So here we have Amazing Spider-Man #800. It's interesting to contrast this with Action Comics #1000 (I reviewed it here). For Action Comics, DC went with a mostly-out-of-continuity tribute anthology, celebrating Superman and the idea of inspiration, with only a short final segment as a tease of actual future in-continuity action.

Marvel takes the opposite approach here. This is a single story concluding a major story arc, with big impacts on storyline continuity, including the death of a major character who has been there for most of those 800 issues.

The scenario has Spidey up against what could be his ultimate nemesis: The Red Goblin. That would be the Green Goblin attached to the Carnage symbiote.

Of course, given the momentous occasion, this story is absolutely loaded with nostalgia. There are a bunch of appearances by classic members of Peter Parker's supporting cast, not to mention tribute scenes that evoke some of the most emotional moments of past stories, particularly from Peter's past clashes with Normal Osborne.

This was a pretty good story with a lot of twists and action. There were some moments where it just felt like it had too many moving parts, but the finish came down to Spider-Man vs. (Red) Goblin like it needed to.

The throwback sequences were fun to spot, but they also had the unfortunate effect of reminding me that Spider-Man has had some truly awesome, emotional moments, and this story, while good, never really reaches the level of those classics.

This was satisfying, and it felt important, but at times it was trying too hard to look backward and trying too hard to be all things in a single issue.

Rating: 6/10

Darth Vader #1

The Kiddo picked this one out last summer at one of the Newbury Comics stores.

Title: Darth Vader
Issue: 1
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: July 2016
Writer: Charles Soule
Penciler: Giuseppe Camuncoli
Inker: Cam Smith
Colorist: David Curiel
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Cover: Jim Cheung, Matthew Wilson
Editor: Jordan D. White, Heather Antos

This picks up directly from where Revenge of the Sith left off, showing us a newly-armored Vader who is still very much the young, angry man who was brought over to the dark side by Emperor Palpatine.

His initial quest is to gain a lightsaber of his own, and this apparently has to be done to old-fashioned way: by killing someone for it. Of course, with Order 66 already in the books, finding a Jedi may be harder than actually defeating one. As is usual at this stage in the saga, it's all pretty much a win/win for Palpatine.

There was a fun little callback (call-forward, really) to the climactic moment of Return of the Jedi, and the characters and setting look excellent. I didn't find myself all that invested in Vader as a lead character. He's still the whiny Annakin of the prequels here, and it looks like it's going to be a bit of a tall order for this solo (see what I did there?) series to make much of a change in that.

Rating: 5.5/10