Amazing Spider-Man 74 - Preview - LET'S GOOO!

[Jman27]

man i was at work and the ip address on my phone is blocked and is still blocked so i couldnt read anyone posts all day. whats the Conesus now?

[HypnoHustler]

man i was at work and the ip address on my phone is blocked and is still blocked so i couldnt read anyone posts all day. whats the Conesus now?

That there was editorial meddling that botched the conclusion. Views on quality range from so-so to bad. No one is singing its praises though. Kindred feels like a waste of time, but it’s good Peter and MJ are at least together as a couple.

[Noronha]

This feels like one of my nights out with my mates, we get drunk and try to recapture our glory days only to wake up the next day to a massive hangover, a wife who won’t speak to me and a 7 month old screaming

[ShadowSJG]

A main point of Nick Spencers run was the identity of Spider-Mans new demonic foe Kindred who held a grudge and knew him personally. First it was Harry which made sense but then it turns out an AI of Harry made and a demonic Harry was using Gabriel and Sarah Stacy as vessels for vengeance. Then it turns out not really and they were Kindred being used by Mephisto. This whole thing is lame and convoluted. Kindred being Harry made perfect sense and the twins being Kindred loosens the impact as they have no personal connection to Peter and have no reason to hate him

Harry was never Kindred then?

[stillanerd]

Wow. So many folks here defending Spencer with the "obvious" it must be on editorial for why this issue is not as good or as strong as expected.

IMHO, there has been nothing in the run to indicate we would get more than what was given.

He had more than enough time (and actual issues published) to execute a satisfying narrative. At a minimum, he could've not opened so many plots in which there would be no way to close the majority of them before his final issue.

The one thing I remember from an interview was the claim that it's not about who Kindred is/was, but what he wants. The run is over and the "what he wants" still went over my head.

The reason why folks are thinking editorial may have had a hand with this issue is that it contradicts things Nick Spencer previously established during his run, even as early as last issue. The big ones are:

*Having Sarah/Kindred and Gabriel/Kindred working directly for Mephisto as his champions despite the previous issue suggesting they're possessed by Harry, either via his soul in Hell or the Harry AI. Rereading all the times Kindred interacted with Peter, Norman, and especially MJ only makes any logical sense if Harry is the one puppeteering the Kindreds. There's also the scene in which Kindred reminisces about Harry's death in Spectacular Spider-Man #200, which is told from his POV as if he's Harry.
*Doctor Strange going to confront Mephisto over what he did to Peter's soul, only to then have it be revealed that he's gambling with Mephisto over Harry's soul instead. Remember all those demons in Peter's mindscape from the Astral Plane? That's why Doctor Strange went to Mephisto in the first place.
*All those times that Kindred demanded that Peter "confess" to his sins which heavily suggested his and MJ's deal with Mephisto, only for it to turn out to be because Peter "neglected" and "forgot" about the Stacy Twins.

That's just for starters. There's also unanswered questions like why was Harry brought back as a clone? Or who was there helping Ned Leeds out of his grave when the goblin formula revived him? etc.

[Tien Long]

I was pissed at this issue for the first 2/3 of it. Just trying to juggle all of the pieces, of clones, Mephisto, Mysterio, Sins Past, Osborns, and Kindred was making my head spin. Yeah, Spencer had done his best in trying to sort out of all this mess, but it was still a mess. Okay, at least there were some cool fights in here.

And then we reached the last third, with Pete stuck under the rubble. Okay, he's going to pull out of this like always. Oh wait he isn't. Okay, whatever, Spencer is pulling some twist that isn't working right now.

And then I saw the hand. Seeing MJ pull out Peter, honestly...................I fucking lost it. I cried. Not lots of tears mind you, but cried none the less. I've never cried during a Spider-Man anything before. Afterwards, the scenes with Pete and MJ together, with the narration that all of this had made their bond stronger...................oh God, that was beautiful. I completely bought into Mephisto's logic as well. No, OMD wasn't outright mentioned. Pete and MJ didn't completely remember their marriage. But Mephisto trying to hedge his bets against a future where Spider-Man (or a Spider-Woman, was that Pete and MJ's daughter, or MJ herself?) I got why he ended the marriage. And why it failed. Because it didn't make their relationship weaker. It was the opposite. There was some metacommentary in there as well. Regardless of how you try to end a relationship, well, it doesn't work out. Not by a long shot.

So yeah, this issue is basically a summary of how I've felt about Spencer's run. There was set up, and the initial payoff was pretty lackluster. But the last third of the payoff really pays off.

[FFJamie94]

Wow. So many folks here defending Spencer with the "obvious" it must be on editorial for why this issue is not as good or as strong as expected.

IMHO, there has been nothing in the run to indicate we would get more than what was given.

He had more than enough time (and actual issues published) to execute a satisfying narrative. At a minimum, he could've not opened so many plots in which there would be no way to close the majority of them before his final issue.

The one thing I remember from an interview was the claim that it's not about who Kindred is/was, but what he wants. The run is over and the "what he wants" still went over my head.

I agree, I like Spencer, but he had an issue where he was trying to pull off Hickman style stories, but he just couldn’t hit the landing. He excelled at those fun small stories, like Peter and Fred hanging out at a bar or Jonah and Spider-man having a podcast. His strengths were the every day stories which are what I like best. When he built up to Last Remains, he didn’t really progress his overall story outside of reveal that Kindred was Harry. I like that story and it had some great moments, but that’s the problem, it was great moments in a story which wasn’t great.

I felt a huge shift in quality with the 2099 arc, up to that point, he was building to Hunted which did stick the landing (mostly because it was built up in back ups and it wasn’t the main focus of every issue) but then that 2099 arc kind of fell flat for me and a lot of People.

He picked it up again with the next few arcs, and even brought back Sin Eater and The Green Goblin. But even then, these weren’t as good as his previous stories. Finally, last remains welcomed in his final stretch of stories, all which moved at a break neck speed meaning there wasn’t any time to take a breather. Most of the arcs he built up either didn’t go anywhere, or were over so fast and stupidly that there was no point in bringing it up anyway.

I’ve said before that Sinister War felt like it was a separate story from the big Kindred stuff, well, if his run was cut short, I don’t see why we even got Sinister War. It felt so out of place compared to everything he was building up that the last issues could have dealt with Kindred head on and build up to a final confrontation with Kindred. Instead, Sinister War was a distraction, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was meant to occur closer to #100 with #65 onwards building up to it.

The plans for Sinister War could have been used for Beyond instead, building up a number of Sinister Six teams with Ben, Peter and Miles having to team up against them (and if NWH is going the multiversal sinister six route, it would be a nice tie in to the Movie), but instead the run feels like it took forever to get anywhere and the rushed at the last minute, like he spent too much time writing the introduction of an essay and then realised he was nearing the word count, so rushed the main thesis of the essay.

As I’ve said before, I liked a lot of what he did, and Amazing was a comic I looked forward to reading, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to it with an open mind. Maybe I’ll revisit it one day and I’ll think it’s the most underrated run in comics history. For now, it’s just kind of there.

[Sacred Knight]

Thanks for the detailed list, shadow panther!

[Spidey_62]

Remember when Kindred was in captivity for like 10 issues earlier this year? Kindred was colored with the tan jacket and then sometimes with the purple, but that makes no sense as it was clearly just 1 Kindred that was captured then. This whole thing feels like a big last minute damage control swerve.

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

Remember when Kindred was in captivity for like 10 issues earlier this year? Kindred was colored with the tan jacket and then sometimes with the purple, but that makes no sense as it was clearly just 1 Kindred that was captured then. This whole thing feels like a big last minute damage control swerve.

Yeah, even when the whole "there are two Kindreds" theory began to surface, in the same issue where they "confirmed" it was two Kindreds... they had the same jacket color.

Also, I think we're losing track of what REALLY matters here focusing so much on what could have beens! When the press tried to sell you on the idea Kindred COULD have been Gwen Stacy, I said if Kindred was female a subset of fans saying Kindred was always kinda hot would possibly emerge. Well, they literally drew Sarah-Kindred with honkers in this issue, so I look forward to said subset of fans emerging now!

Or eventually.

[SplinteringHeart]

Well, what a disappointment! I/we fell for it, again..it all led to OMD, but then it didn't..

Agree, this is down to editorial..

Harry didn't confirm he was a clone, so Peter saw him die again..

What was the point of Stephen Strange? He comes in with righteous indignation, and then plays a game of spin the wheel with Mephisto..pointless..

Must admit that I went all soppy with the MJ picking up Peter after a battering moment, gets me every time, loved this, but, it's still a cliche, a button that can always be pushed, here we were again!

I'm minded to think on the many posts that SpiderFan01 posted about how all the things Spencer brought up and put out there like plates spinning have just been wasted because we've had now ultimately a non-watershed moment and we just go into Beyond..a total aside it seems, a multiverse/elseworlds type of thing..we might as well be going to the savage land, it's going to seem that off-grid..

[stillanerd]

Here's something else for folks to ponder: if Sarah and Gabriel were in control the entire time and not being used by Demon Harry or AI Harry as meat puppets, then why did they take the Chameleon serum to make themselves look like Harry? Why not just show themselves to be Gabriel and Sarah back in Last Remains? Also, how is it that Norman Osborn mistook Kindred for Harry if they were Sarah and Gabriel pretending to be Harry?

[Jman27]

Here's something else for folks to ponder: if Sarah and Gabriel were in control the entire time and not being used by Demon Harry or AI Harry as meat puppets, then why did they take the Chameleon serum to make themselves look like Harry? Why not just show themselves to be Gabriel and Sarah back in Last Remains? Also, how is it that Norman Osborn mistook Kindred for Harry if they were Sarah and Gabriel pretending to be Harry?

questions we will never get answer to anytime soon

[HypnoHustler]

In terms of editorial botched endings that make no sense, this is almost as bad as the time they tried to convince us that Alison Mongraine was holding Aunt May hostage instead of Baby May (despite her leaving a maternity ward with a baby-sized package). I wouldn’t put it as aggravating as OMD, but it has good company with the Mackie/Byrne ending to volume 1.

If I wasn’t a sucker for Ben Reilly stories, I’d be checking out of Spidey… but I am. Although now I have a lot less faith in how they’ll handle him.

[Webhead]

As an issue, it's a mixed bag for me, some good moments thrown in and some silly stuff (even for a convoluted run) like Norman not even bothering to defend himself from the Kindreds, or Harry jumping in the way of the killing blow even when Norman has a healing factor that brought him back from such a wound! The ending was nice. The characters resembled themselves, well, except for "good" Norman (we all know that won't last).

But from the perspective of things developing from previous issues, many things stopped making sense. The most glaring thing is the "vessel" statement and Sarah/Gabriel suddenly having their personalities back after acting and thinking like Harry for the entire run. Only feasible explanation would lie with editorial but then, what would be the point of such a change?

The twins meant no real personal stakes for Peter since they were misled by Norman and ultimately their nightmarish existence is on him as well. So to lose the focus on Peter on the last ish and put it in a person that doesn't quite exist anymore (since Norman was cleansed), diluted most of the drama. Could have been Kindreds or any doomsday villain for the wrap and that's not what I expected after the really long setup.

I did like how they toy with Peter for a moment there where he seemingly knocks them out in a fit of rage, and they just get up again, grinning, and he's like "oh sh..."

Strange and Mephisto remaining hidden from the protagonists I called, so go me I guess. I think Spencer and the staff wanted to have their cake and eat it, as the narration at the end would have the reader believe OMD is overcome yet never goes and says it. Still it's a fitting bookend for the run.