Amazing Spider-Man 53 Discussion

[Prime]

This was kinda meh.it would have been fine if they didn't spoil it some issues ago.

[your_name_here]

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

This. 100% this.

[your_name_here]

This was kinda meh.it would have been fine if they didn't spoil it some issues ago.

I do think this would have been a far better reveal and gut punch to us all (especially with the double whammy that it’s OMD related) than the one we got in #50.

[Kingkalamari]

I'm also thinking maybe, after Mephisto made his deal with Peter and MJ in "One More Day," he then went to Norman Osborn with another deal to bring Harry Osborn back from the dead. That would line up with things "Sensitive Norman" has been saying during this arc, and explains away some of the contradictions about Harry's return in "Mind on Fire" (like how did the same defective Goblin formula that killed him also revived him? etc). Not to mention it's totally in Mephisto's MO. He promised both Peter and MJ that he'd never interfere in their lives ever again...but that didn't mean somebody else wouldn't.

That's a great theory! I suppose the tricky thing about major retcons like this though is that if this is the case, why did Harry pretend to be Parkers friend for years? And why did Norman plan to sacrifice Harry for a PR stunt in American Son? Was Harry doing some Light Yagami shit where he had his mind scrubbed of evil until a certain moment that would trigger it all to come back? Also if Harry was Kindred this whole time, how did his dang boinking his fiance and being told his kid is actually not his but instead his fathers not cause him to let the ole centipede bag slip?

I know the answer to most of these questions is simply "they werent writing Harry at the time to be a centipede cenobite", but such is the way of big retcons like this.

[WebSlingWonder]

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.

I don't think a single bad issue undoes an entire run (otherwise, I'd be one of the people saying JMS's run was undone by "OMD"), but I do think that one bad arc can undo an entire run, especially one as hyped as this one. For me, I look at stories in comics as stories first rather than as a fan. I see the execution, the dialogue, the pacing, all of that. I didn't care much about whether OMD was erased or not (I did like Peter and MJ getting back together), and so that didn't energize my experience with this story. So, for me, this issue was just filler which is unfortunate.

I think I'm railing hard against this run now because I was one of the people who overhyped Spencer's run, especially in the beginning. I was like, "This is the best the series has been since JMS!" And then "2099" hit and I was like..."Something feels off" but I kept pushing that down. So, for me, it's really like my eyes have been opened to a new way of seeing comics and storytelling as larger than just superheroes. Like I said, I've been reading some creator-owned comics that I've really enjoyed and have felt that those elements could carry over to a superhero book. But that's happened rather recently, so I wasn't saying any of that beforehand.

[Dzika_Sowa]

I do think this would have been a far better reveal and gut punch to us all (especially with the double whammy that it’s OMD related) than the one we got in #50.

Indeed. The reveal should be in this issue. Norman could just say that "I know who he is, he's lost and in trouble again!" As a hint or something.

It's actually good that we have so different opinions on the matter. Makes for an interesting discussion. I'm not exactly at the edge of my seat, but I'm curious how the story will end.

But, to be honest - I can't really see Kindred exist beyond Last Remains. He works best as one time threat.

[WebSlingWonder]

Indeed. The reveal should be in this issue. Norman could just say that "I know who he is, he's lost and in trouble again!" As a hint or something.

It's actually good that we have so different opinions on the matter. Makes for an interesting discussion. I'm not exactly at the edge of my seat, but I'm curious how the story will end.

But, to be honest - I can't really see Kindred exist beyond Last Remains. He works best as one time threat.

He could be like Adrian Chase/Prometheus from Arrow Season Five: where Chase without the mask was a much more interesting threat than with it.

[SpideyClone]

You didn’t like it. I did.


As I said before, its still got pretty much all of us on this forum pretty anxious and dying to pick up the next issue. It’s still got us anxious as to what will and won’t be addressed in terms of OMD. I, personally, haven’t been left really wanting to know what happens next for quite some time like I am with this.

Honestly, since the "Harry is Kindred" reveal a few issues back, I just want the damn story to end already. I feel like I'm watching the Last Jedi, with Finn and Rose, when all I really want to see is Luke Skywalker.

[PCN24454]

That's a great theory! I suppose the tricky thing about major retcons like this though is that if this is the case, why did Harry pretend to be Parkers friend for years? And why did Norman plan to sacrifice Harry for a PR stunt in American Son? Was Harry doing some Light Yagami shit where he had his mind scrubbed of evil until a certain moment that would trigger it all to come back? Also if Harry was Kindred this whole time, how did his dang boinking his fiance and being told his kid is actually not his but instead his fathers not cause him to let the ole centipede bag slip?

I know the answer to most of these questions is simply "they werent writing Harry at the time to be a centipede cenobite", but such is the way of big retcons like this.

What’s sad is that this wouldn’t be the first time Spider-Man did something like this.

Would anyone really be surprised if it turned out it was actually all Norman’s secret plan and that he was actually creating illusions with Mysterio to torture Spidey for his actions in OMD?

[Jman27]

He could be like Adrian Chase/Prometheus from Arrow Season Five: where Chase without the mask was a much more interesting threat than with it.

Ah my favorite season of arrow but he was equally threatening without the mask though the problem I see here is that Harry was already a villain so people don’t see him as a threat

[chachi]

Art was nice, but I read this is like 2 minutes, if that. And I thought 52 was a quick read, lol.

[Mister Mets]

The One More Day reference is bold, and it is clever how Spencer pulls that scab, but focuses on different elements of the story (Harry's return.) I'm still not pleased with the supernatural and demons being part of the big bad in a Spider-Man comic.

But is the experience worth all this? This didn't feel like an experience to me; it felt like I got ripped off, honestly. I paid $3.67 on Comixology for the book, and got 23 pages of a, basically, re-drawn version of a 13-year old sequence with some new context. I understand the cool elements with the creepy doorman and the change in words, but if this was part of a full graphic novel that would be one thing - it's part of a biweekly superhero comic book. I expect something of note to happen. And Peter barely speaks throughout the issue, either being sleep/dead or lucid dreaming with "what? But you're alive! MJ!" the whole time. We don't even get to see his reaction beyond crying (for some reason?).

I feel like "Kindred" was much, much different when Spencer first started this run, and that the "Kindred" we're getting now is a reworked and edited version of the original character, because none of this makes any sort of sense.

1. How did Harry become Kindred to begin with? Especially since we now know that the face is just a mask?
2. Why would Harry get all this character development across 13 YEARS only for it to be washed away to make him a villain again?
3. Why would Harry hate/despise Norman again when he defeated him in "Go Down Swinging"?
4. If this is the same Harry from BND, then why would he mess with Peter? What is the purpose? Keeping him from MJ?

This story would have been infinitely better if Kindred was Pre-OMD Peter, and infinitely more tightly plotted if we didn't have it stretched out to 60+ issues and 2 years (pandemic be damned).
Not only that, but we've wasted precious time with "2099", "True Companions", "Who Run The World?", "A Trivial Pursuit", "Breaking News", and more that have only slowed the series down, not enhanced it.
Decompression and experience is fine, if in a vacuum. But somebody should've told Spencer that he doesn't have that luxury: he's writing the flagship book for Marvel, and guess what? Nobody's talking about it. The most press that the book had was for issue #850, and the hype wasn't for Kindred but for Green Goblin. What does that say? It says that save for us hardcore readers, this storyline is not getting the press Marvel either wants or needs for their flagship book. The slower than snail story and the art problems make me think that something is seriously wrong with the behind the scenes of this book, and it's becoming more and more evident with each issue.

Overall, I try not to take this stuff seriously, but this is the only comic series I read month to month, and it's disheartening to see it treated like this.

On stretching, it's not just that the mystery was 60+ issues, but it took so long to get to an encounter between Peter and Kindred.

With the Hobgoblin saga, we got some good fight scenes out of it.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

On stretching, it's not just that the mystery was 60+ issues, but it took so long to get to an encounter between Peter and Kindred.

With the Hobgoblin saga, we got some good fight scenes out of it.

-- 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.
-- Likewise, Pandemic delays. Had there been no covid, we would have read ASM#50 around August. So originally this was going to make it under the Ditko line at 25 months. But now it reached the Stern goal.
-- 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.

[RD155]

-- 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.
-- Likewise, Pandemic delays. Had there been no covid, we would have read ASM#50 around August. So originally this was going to make it under the Ditko line at 25 months. But now it reached the Stern goal.
-- 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.

To me, the problem is less about the length of time this has been going on and more about the story just not progressing much over time. The filler arcs littered through out Spencer’s run have also hurt the Kindred story. It does feel as if Spencer is writing more for trades then monthly release. The last two issues are prime examples of that since the story....essentially didn’t progress much at all.

Regardless, I’m still highly awaiting the next issues and feel the stage is set for Spencer to do some magical story telling. However this run/story can not take another “quick” read that essentially amounts to a silent issue. This story can’t afford another one. We have to get a story/dialogue heavy issue..

[Mister Mets]

-- 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.
-- Likewise, Pandemic delays. Had there been no covid, we would have read ASM#50 around August. So originally this was going to make it under the Ditko line at 25 months. But now it reached the Stern goal.
-- 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.

I don't think 60 issues is a ridiculous length to pad out a reveal with the caveat that Spencer's Amazing Spider-Man came out twice a month (pandemic exceptions) so there was less time between issues.

There are some other pacing issues, like ending the issue with the Harry reveal after that was already revealed several issues ago, and keeping Spider-Man and Kindred apart so long. That was my point that with Hobgoblin; we got some fight scenes out of it with all their encounters. It was the same with Norman Osborn. The Lee/ Ditko Green Goblin stories were pretty good.

There is a major difference with this and Slott's brainscanner scene. It did take 98 issues for the other shoe to drop, but readers weren't being teased with it constantly. They didn't know it was a scene that would have payoff.