Amazing Spider-Man 53 Discussion

[HeavenlyDemonic]

Thank you. I absolutely agree.

I feel the same way. I finished this and the previous issue in less than 5 minutes each. The LR issues have more going on than the main book. The payoff had better be worth it. Because this and the sin eater arc wreak of decompressed for the trade syndrome. It’s so sad, Spidey is marvel’s top character and his book doesn’t reflect that currently

[Vortex85]

I think some narration would help in this case. Have a 3rd party narrator tell us Peter's feelings, describe the setting, the mood, dip into the protagonist's thought. No dialogue is required.... but I do miss the old school narration. It could add a lot of behind the scenes on the thought and feelings of the main character. Sometimes a picture does not give away enough info to engage the reader into the author's intention. I miss that. In fact, I blame Quesada's mandate against narration in Marvel comics on why it's easy to feel like a main character is not the main character in their own book these days.

[WebSlingWonder]

I think some narration would help in this case. Have a 3rd party narrator tell us Peter's feelings, describe the setting, the mood, dip into the protagonist's thought. No dialogue is required.... but I do miss the old school narration. It could add a lot of behind the scenes on the thought and feelings of the main character. Sometimes a picture does not give away enough info to engage the reader into the author's intention. I miss that. In fact, I blame Quesada's mandate against narration in Marvel comics on why it's easy to feel like a main character is not the main character in their own book these days.

Quesada has a mandate against narration?

And yes; I agree that narration would have helped immensely, especially with this issue. If we got Peter's narration, I think that would have been much better than just seeing his face-value reaction.

[Spidey_62]

^ I believe Quesada wanted them to get rid of thought bubbles in the early 2000s.

I'm enjoying following and speculating to the beat of this story but I gotta agree that us readers reading every few weeks faithfully are getting kinda gyped in terms of what's actually happening in the story so far. I feel like the #50 reveal makes less sense now when we spend the next 3 issues knowing but Peter still doesn't only to do another reveal cliffhanger again in #53 but this time for Peter to find out what we found out 3 issues ago. It was a good dramatic cliffhanger in 50 having that bomb dropped from Norman but now the wind is out of the sails for it to just be the big stinger a second time. The JMD gotcha line was great though, that shoulda been the line to reveal it to us haha.

[Vortex85]

Quesada has a mandate against narration?

And yes; I agree that narration would have helped immensely, especially with this issue. If we got Peter's narration, I think that would have been much better than just seeing his face-value reaction.

Yes narration stopped in Marvel comics in the early 2000s and I think he was behind it from what I've read around the internet. Thought bubbles went away too. Now if we get thoughts they are in the boxes where narration used to be.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I think some narration would help in this case. Have a 3rd party narrator tell us Peter's feelings, describe the setting, the mood, dip into the protagonist's thought. No dialogue is required.... but I do miss the old school narration. It could add a lot of behind the scenes on the thought and feelings of the main character. Sometimes a picture does not give away enough info to engage the reader into the author's intention. I miss that. In fact, I blame Quesada's mandate against narration in Marvel comics on why it's easy to feel like a main character is not the main character in their own book these days.

Third person narration has generally phased out of comics both Marvel and DC, and even Independent comics. Alan Moore would sooner vote Conservative than march to the tune of DC and Marvel Editorial post-80s, but his PROVIDENCE doesn't have any of that, nor does League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The phasing out of third-person narration can be credited to the influence of Moore. THE KILLING JOKE -- no third person narration. WATCHMEN - none. In Spider-Man, go back to Kraven's Last Hunt all narrated by four different characters but no third-person -- Kraven, Peter, MJ, Vermin. Moore introduced diegetic narration or character narration. He introduced novelistic and cinematic elements to comics. I mean there's the famous fact that The Killing Joke never once refers to Batman and Joker by their names.

I agree that we should bring back third-person narration, and also thought bubbles (The Master Planner Saga would never work without the incredible use of thought bubbles in that comic), but modern comics storytelling across the board has avoided it for thirty years and let's not credit Quesada for something he neither had the talent or skill to actually ever be capable of doing.

[Forty20]

If Spencer wrote Spider-Man forever, he would eventually be unreadable.

I don’t think it become unreadable. I’d equate it to Claremont on X Men. Was every story arc or story great? Certainly not, but overall one of the greatest runs, and probably the greatest stories of all time.

[Vortex85]

let's not credit Quesada for something he neither had the talent or skill to actually ever be capable of doing.

Ok maybe I was confused between that and him not liking thought bubbles. From what you said since it was industry wide he probably didn't cause it then.

[Lukmendes]

Marvel has been a different beast lately, and not in a good way. Two separate X-Men issues re-used artwork with new boxes and this issue redrew an old story. That's highly unacceptable, really. It's like they don't care anymore, or the creative teams are just not giving a **** about what they write/draw, neither of which are good.

Wait, what was the other that re-used artwork? I know X-Men#12 did it by re-using some art from PoX#4, which I find that one to be okay since it way more brief than fucking 14 pages... There's also how PoX#6 re-used pages from PoX#1 and HoX#6, but it also had an increased page count and it had about the same number of pages as the previous issues if you don't count the recycled ones... Anything besides those?

Honestly, between Marvel's shenanigans and DC's gloominess, I don't have high hopes for the Big Two in superhero comics. It's why I've been reading older stories like The Sandman, Daytripper, Fables, and others - series that have beginnings, middles, and ends.

Unfortunately the quality drop is part of a cycle in comic books, it might become better again after a while, who knows when though, if you're not willing to wait then it's better to stop bothering if you're not getting your money's worth.

If Spencer wrote Spider-Man forever, he would eventually be unreadable.

Oh definitely, a writer has limits in how good a story can remain, even the so beloved Claremont became way worse after a while, which is not surprising since he wrote for like, 15 years in a billion comics.

Peter is friends with Boomerang? Big whoop, he dated a former thief in Black Cat.

To be fair, the stories around Boomerang are pretty different from Felicia's at least, since with her we wouldn't get plots about some people wanting to kill her 'cause she's annoying lol.

This isn't ground breaking in any way, but at least there's a difference.

Peter has the Clairvoyant device? Except he doesn't, because he used it twice (that sure would've come in handy for "Sins Rising")

He had to get rid of Clairvoyant so Julia could be around in Sins Rising/Last Remains and not be redundant on top of being already useless .

At the very least it seems Jamie will do something with it later, but that's a case of "Something cool will happen later", which, doesn't make the "now" interesting.

On this we agree.

Except I don't think Spencer's issue is polarizing in terms of content, it's the execution that's the issue.

The debate if there is one, is if a single bad issue undoes the entire run which is otherwise as we agree pure perfection...

I've always said I liked Spencer's run but it doesn't rank as high for me as JMS' or the Pre-OMD glory days.

Wouldn't be a single issue though, 2099 is another problem, Last Remains so far is just teasing about what the hell Kindred is gonna do when Spencer has been teasing us for two years already about that, while those bad issues aren't gonna undo the better ones, it's certainly not making his run overall look fine.

-- The original Green Goblin mystery started in Amazing Spider-Man #14 published in July 1964 and Norman was revealed in ASM#40 (September 1966). So that's 26 months and since this single-issue monthly, that meant 26 issues long.
-- Roger Stern said that he wanted the Hobgoblin reveal to last for one issue longer (and so one month) than Ditko, but he stepped down too quickly and it gone out of hand. Stern introduced Hobgoblin in ASM#238 and dropped out with ASM#252. Ideally Kingsley should have been revealed in Stern's never done ASM#265, since that would be 27 issues (and so 27 months).
-- Nick Spencer began his run with Amazing Spider-Man #1 (2018), Vol.5. published in July 2011. So between that and #50 on October 2020, you have 27 months. Now people will object at the issue count not being considered but hey it wasn't Spencer's decision to publish Spider-Man twice-a-month. If Dan Slott can sustain an 100 issue subplot from ASM#600 when Spider-Man used that brainscanner and ASM#700 when the other shoe dropped, I think Spencer can be cut slack for doing a mystery storyline in 50 issues.

I think it's bad by default to do a mystery that lasts for this long, and it doesn't matter if ASM did it before with Green Goblin and Hobgoblin, 'cause frankly I find both to be bad mysteries anyways, overstaying its welcome is not a good thing, and Kindred repeating the same mistakes only makes him worse 'cause it makes it look like ASM hasn't learned.

Plus, taking so many issues to reveal the whole thing really doesn't help, comics coming out twice monthly means it could be solved faster, but Spencer chose to keep dragging it for longer even though he can tell more stories in less time than back then.

-- Spinning the mystery so long has established Harry as Kindred. For 50 issues we have known and gotten used to Kindred, so that's now established as a separate new identity, whereas if the reveal happened earlier, it would have been, "oh Harry Osborn is now a mummy when is he gonna goblin up again". Harry Osborn being Kindred makes this very much Spider-Hush where Tommy Elliot was Hush, an old friend of Bruce's turned bad.

We can still have a "oh Harry Osborn is now a mummy when is he gonna goblin up again" situation, because Kindred doesn't even have much of a presence, about the biggest thing about him that stands out is how he's patient and passive, but that ended up making him have a lot of scenes where he basically does "hahaha, Pete! I have a vague plan! Vague, evil plan! It is a bad, bad plan...that will hurt many...people...that are good. I think it's great 'cause it's so bad! And I'll do this evil plan, eventually!", which doesn't do a whole lot to make him stand out since he's just boasting about his own awesomeness and doing little to back that up, for a long ass time, and he was even barely affecting Peter after the whole summoning a Tri-Sentinel army, all the way back in ASM#5, because after this, outside of making vague threats, all he did was make Kingpin work for him so the police doesn't go after Peter (ASM#7), kill that psychiatrist who thought he was Mysterio and torment Peter over it (ASM#24), and put that centipede in inside of Norman's head so he doesn't kill Peter (And how he even expected that to happen to the point he decided to make sure Norman can't kill Peter is anyone's guess) (ASM#31), and then, finally a more direct action against Peter in ASM#37 by resurrecting Sin Eater... Which only starts affecting the plot in ASM#44.

So, my question is, why did we need two years of this? Of a villain who's just so passive that he doesn't stand out too much for two years, on top of barely showing up to begin with? How is two years any better to mark this identity as Kindred? 'Cause we could have this whole thing being considered unimpressive, and two years were wasted.

You don't need this much time to make a character stand out, and while I do appreciate the novelty of a more patient Spidey villain, it's not a good thing if they keep promissing too much that he's gonna be awesome someday while doing little to show why we should care now... And those more recent of issues of Last Remains certainly aren't doing him any favors since so far he's just "Haha Pete! I'm gonna do something! I'm about to do something! Soon enough!".

Third person narration has generally phased out of comics both Marvel and DC, and even Independent comics. Alan Moore would sooner vote Conservative than march to the tune of DC and Marvel Editorial post-80s, but his PROVIDENCE doesn't have any of that, nor does League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The phasing out of third-person narration can be credited to the influence of Moore. THE KILLING JOKE -- no third person narration. WATCHMEN - none. In Spider-Man, go back to Kraven's Last Hunt all narrated by four different characters but no third-person -- Kraven, Peter, MJ, Vermin. Moore introduced diegetic narration or character narration. He introduced novelistic and cinematic elements to comics. I mean there's the famous fact that The Killing Joke never once refers to Batman and Joker by their names.

I agree that we should bring back third-person narration, and also thought bubbles (The Master Planner Saga would never work without the incredible use of thought bubbles in that comic), but modern comics storytelling across the board has avoided it for thirty years and let's not credit Quesada for something he neither had the talent or skill to actually ever be capable of doing.

Well, Secret Empire had a narration that might as well be third person, since the narrator says "I" or "us", but never specifies who's talking, so yeah, guess that's close enough lol.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I think it's bad by default to do a mystery that lasts for this long, and it doesn't matter if ASM did it before with Green Goblin and Hobgoblin, 'cause frankly I find both to be bad mysteries anyways, overstaying its welcome is not a good thing, and Kindred repeating the same mistakes only makes him worse 'cause it makes it look like ASM hasn't learned.

The Green Goblin mystery came well...it's only the Hobgoblin getting f--ked up (by everyone, Stern included) that gives mystery stories in ASM a bad name.

But Spencer hewed close to the Ditko line. He honored his committment.

Well, Secret Empire had a narration that might as well be third person, since the narrator says "I" or "us", but never specifies who's talking, so yeah, guess that's close enough lol.

Hickman does use third person narration, like the landmark instant-classic "The Uncanny Life of Moira X" (HOX#2) used third person narration. His run on New Avengers and others used third person too...and then you have the famous charts.

So yeah he's an exception...and oh hey I guess that means that there's no ban on using third-person narration at Marvel at all.

[PCN24454]

The Green Goblin identity was only “well-done” because his actual identity wasn’t very important (not to mention Lee and Ditko hadn’t actually thought about who he would actually be yet). You can’t really compare that to this.

[Triniking1234]

Man, how is Nick gonna wrap this up in 2 issues on ASM?

[Hulkout42]

The one thing i want from all this is for Peter and MJ get back together, whether its by having OMD is removed cool or if they know of it and decide to pursue a new path together which leads them into conflict with Mephisto the also cool, but overall i want them together again even if it isn't like the old days. If Spencer can deliver that then i will sing his praises regardless of the quality of the event itself.

[RD155]

Man, how is Nick gonna wrap this up in 2 issues on ASM?

Well he does have 2 more issues of LR as well to help out but yea...going to be difficult since we are more then half way done with this story.

[RD155]

The one thing i want from all this is for Peter and MJ get back together, whether its by having OMD is removed cool or if they know of it and decide to pursue a new path together which leads them into conflict with Mephisto the also cool, but overall i want them together again even if it isn't like the old days. If Spencer can deliver that then i will sing his praises regardless of the quality of the event itself.

I’m totally with you and couldn’t agree more.