David Gable comes through with the review of Peter Parker: Spider-Man #9 the day after it came out! Also today, we bring you the review of Amazing Spider-Man #9!
The Amazing Spider-Man #9
Written by: Howard Mackie
Artist: John Byrne
Inked by: Scott Hanna
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Summary/Review:
The story begins with a man by the name of Jonathan Rickman sitting in his apartment, pondering over what to do after making a fantastic discovery. A sudden explosion interrupts him, when on the next page we see Spidey swinging through the air, with a young girl in his arms. Spidey delivers the girl from the now flaming building into the hands of the police, and goes back to find Rickman protecting still inside. Rickman is clutching a list to his side, protecting it with his life when the building caves in and Rickman and Spidey tumble to the bottom. Spidey emerges with Rickman, who is taken to the hospital. The list, which Rickman was so desperately protecting, is left behind, and when Spider-Man picks it up, he notices the name Peter Parker on it! Parker then delivers some film to the bugle, and requests the aid of Arthur Stacy to help him find out what the list is all about. Arthur tells him to question Rickman in the hospital and while Parker is there, he learns that everyone on the list were witnesses at Doc Ock's experiment (the one where the spider bit Peter) and were being killed. Doc Ock then breaks into the hospital but before he encounters, Peter and Rickman, we are taken to the other side of the world, where MJ is on a photo shoot. The issue ends with MJ receiving another harassing phone call.
John Byrne does not belong on Spider-Man. Howard Mackie is unable to rescue this book. For nine issues, this title has made me embarrassed to read Spider-Man. Byrne will occasionally draw something decent, but then give us panel after panel of background-less crap. No detail what so ever! Unlike Peter Parker: Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man doesn't have the privilege of having John Romita Jr.'s outstanding and detailed art, and for some reason Mackie seems to be unable to tell any kind of an interesting story. Its good to see that Byrne was fired off of Hulk, but why does Marvel let him continue to destroy Spider-Man. I haven't met a single person who liked Chapter One, and the majority of comic book fans no longer take the Spider-Man titles seriously. Peter Parker: Spider-Man is greatly improving, but Amazing Spider-Man continues to receive poor reviews by practically everybody, and something I found interesting at Wizard World was that the majority of the comic book pros can't stand Byrne either! Hopefully, Marvel will take the appropriate action and fire Byrne, and replace him with someone more qualified. Erik Larsen for one, would be more than eager to step in if the position was opened, and that would only happen if Byrne and perhaps even Mackie were gone. Please write letters to Marvel voicing your opinion if you want to see action. Or if you disagree with me, please post your arguments at the message board, so everyone could appropriately respond.
Peter Parker: Spider-Man #9 Written by: Howard Mackie Artist: John Romita Jr. Inked by: Scott Hanna Editor: Ralph Macchio Summary/Review: Aunt May comes across as fairly intelligent in this issue. She still has that tendency to dote on her nephew ("Take a sweater at least!"), but she's become less one dimensional. Good. 
There's a little more of that subtle Peter/Jill attraction-which-hasn't-yet-surfaced. In a thought balloon, Peter wonders how Arthur Stacy could have raised both a jerk like Paul and a "wonderful daughter." It looks like neither of them have realized what's happening yet, as they're mostly concerned about the state of Peter and MJ's marriage. Still, it will be interesting to see where Mackie takes this.
Senator Stewart Ward gets a brief mention here, though we learn nothing new. It would have been nice to have seen some new wrinkle in the realtionship between Arthur and Ward, seeing how the Senator finally became interesting last issue. Oh well.
OK, now that the subplots are out of my system...
I must say that the Venom symbiote, sans Eddie Brock, is *really* creepy. The scene at the apartment where Peter confronts it was well done. The symbiote had formed eyes, teeth, a head, and arms, but still had that flowing effect. Well done from both a writing and artistic standpoint.
The scene in Eddie's apartment, with the symbiote trying to bond with Brock and Spidey trying to stop it, was also well done in a similar fashion. Kudos to the colorist here. In this scene, there's a lot of red in the background, which evoked a "sinister-creepy" mood, as opposed to the earlier scene at the Parker's, which had a blue background that evoked more of a "dark-creepy" mood.
I have only one gripe about this issue. There is a long-winded explanation (through Peter's thoughts) on what the symbiote is, who Eddie Brock is, and their history. I understand that with the relaunch there's a need to explain things to new readers, but it is possible to let the reader know all the important stuff about the villian's history and motivations through the action, without resorting to two pages of flashback picture, thought balloons, and captions. See Slingers #9 for an excellent example of this.
Overall, not quite as good as last month's issue, but a good solid one nonetheless. It looks like this title's finally pulling out of its post-relaunch slump.
My grade: B
Review by: David Gable
