Amazing Spider-Man #429
This story is set within 24 hours of Spider-Man attacking Norman Osborn in Spectacular #250. The public is scared of Spidey (which makes for a decent encounter with hoods on Page 3) and former enemies see it as an opportunity to strike.
Absorbing Man and Titania pretend to be new superheroes to be like the Thunderbolts, unaware that this makes them more like the new superheroes than they figured.
(Weirdly I’m covering the Thunderbolts in a reread of Heroes Return-era Avengers titles, so this does connect to another reading project.)
Norman Osborn takes advantage of the mess. Daredevil pops by, which makes sense for a variety of reasons. The Absorbing Man/ Titania dynamic is one DeFalco has explored before, and it’s a solid excuse for a single issue team-up here. I don’t care for the scenes where MJ’s upset because I don't buy that this situation is so unusual, but I do like Robbie standing up to Jonah. Bennet’s art is decent. He’s been a bit of a mixed bag in this era, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were explanations for the inconsistency, but his work in this issue is on the level of someone asked to draw
Amazing Spider-Man.
B+
Deadpool #11
This was not made by the Spider-Man office, but it does have a big impact. Writer Joe Kelly and Artist Ed McGuinness have had multiple subsequent runs on Spidey, and I’ve seen this on a few best of lists.
Deadpool and Blind Al goes back in time to the events of
Amazing Spider-Man #47, a relatively standard silver age comic in which Kraven interrupted Flash Thompson’s going away party (that same story tied into an untold tale in Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1996 as well as the Loeb/ Sale Spider-Man: Blue mini-series.
They accidentally KO Aunt May, so Blind Al has to pretend to be her. Deadpool has an encounter with a vicious nun, but wants to take advantage of being in an earlier era, by getting with celebrities before they were famous and developed higher standards. To keep his identity secret, he has to pretend to be Peter Parker. And if you think this is a recipe for comedy, you’re right. In terms of number of laughs and joke density, this is one of the funniest Spider-Man comics ever.
It was a bit weird reading some Venom mini-series a few days ago, given the efforts to make a bad guy palpable to readers without hurting Marvel’s overall brand. Deadpool’s crazier. At this point, he was pretty much a bad guy with a monthly title. He’s years away from taking redemption seriously, which is an interesting dynamic.
Deadpool was McGuinness’ breakout project, and this issue really shows his skills, with sequences in the present done in his standard cartoony style, while sequences set in the past are drawn in a style that fits John Romita Sr. The jokes are much more risque than we’re used to in the Spider-Man comics, which kinda fits my argument that part of the backlash to One More Day was that some fans expected tamer material. That said, keeping the G-rated Stan Lee stuff is a reminder that his gags were pretty solid.
A+ (So far this is the top Spider-Man comic I've read as part of this era.)