Amazing Spider-Man #655: "No One Dies"

*** (three of five stars) 

Summary

JJJ, Jr. awakens to Marla's alarm, perched on top of the stack of books she was reading when she died.  He gets himself ready for the memorial, as does Peter, who decides not to wear his Spider-Man costume under his suit.  We see the people in Marla's life -- JJJ, Sr. and May, Glory Grant, Betty Brant, and Max Modell -- enter St. Patrick's cathedral, followed by JJJ, Jr. entering, alone.  The scene shifts to the graveyard, where Marla is buried.  We then see Peter lying awake at 2:00 am and then falling asleep, dreaming.  He sees Uncle Ben, who tells him he's in a better place and leads him to a kitchen, where Peter sees his parents sitting at the table, from the back.  He runs to them, but, when they turn, they're faceless and they note that he doesn't really remember them at all.  The burglar who killed Uncle Ben is having breakfast with them, and Peter expresses rage that he would go to the "same place" as Uncle Ben and his parents.  Everyone then starts to leave to board a plane (it's a dream, remember), and Aunt May tells Peter not to make such a fuss, since "we all have to go some time."  Peter yells at her, telling her he'll never let her go, and Marla Jameson appears, telling him that, had she been Aunt May, he would've found a way to save her.  Marla tells him she'll return, since she built Spider-Slayers, which made her a super-villain, and super-villains "always come back."  Peter tells her she's a good person, to which she responds, "Guess I'm really dead."  Peter chases after her, running past a number of people who've died over the years, such as Nathan Lubensky, Captain Stacy, and Jackpot.  He then sees Gwen Stacy and chases her, running past, among others, Ben Reilly, Kaine, Mattie Franklin, the Kid Who Collected Spider-Man, Captain De Wolff, Oksana (the Rhino's wife), and Ezekiel before encountering Charlie, the only life Peter ever took.  He swears to her that he's not the type of person who kills, only to see the Green Goblin holding Gwen and taunting him with how many times Peter wanted to kill him.  Gwen tells Peter that he couldn't kill the Goblin even for her, telling him that she thought Peter loved her.  The Goblin then knocks her off the bridge, and Peter leaps after her, now finding himself at the mercy of other of his resurrected nemeses (Kraven, Mysterio, and the Jackal).  They're then assassinated by the Scourge of the Underworld and the Punisher, who are making their way through the Bar with No Name killing villains.  Wolverine and Cap also make appearances, with Cap remarking, "Grow up, son.  You think I didn't kill Nazis back in the day?"  Peter then watches the Sentry kill Carnage.  The Sentry tells him he should've done it ages ago, remarking "With great power, Peter."  But, Spidey argues that the power Sentry had corrupted him, turning him into everything he was afraid of becoming.  Peter suddenly finds himself with the opportunity to stop the burglar who killed Uncle Ben again, and he does, beating him senseless, only to discover Uncle Ben's beaten body has replaced the burglar's.  Ben tells Peter that becoming a murderer would be the death of everything he taught him, and Peter swears it won't happen.  Marla Jameson, standing in front of the gallery of the deceased asks Peter what he'll do next, at which point Peter awakens.  He puts on his costume and goes for a spin, vowing that, from this point forward, no one dies.  Meanwhile, a madman named Massacre has taken hostages and kills one of them, proving that he doesn't value human life. 

The Review

This issue is pretty powerful.  It's a bit of a hybrid.  The first half leads you to believe that we were going to get one of those wordless memorial issues, like we did for the Human Torch in the "Fantastic Four."  But, then, Slott shifts gears abruptly, and, for the second half, we're given a truly horrifying tour of Peter's subconscious.  At the start, Slott makes you think it's going to be a pretty happy dream, with Peter seeing Uncle Ben, who tells him not to worry, he's in a better place.  It's when Peter sees his faceless parents where everything turns dark.  Slott gives us, over the next few pages, a true tour de force of some of the darkest moments of Peter's life.  The tour of the deceased is powerful, mostly because of Marcos Martin's great art and Muntsa Vicente's vivid colors, and we see Peter stripped more bare than we possibly ever have.  But, Slott does really manage to give us what I think is a reasonable tour of the deaths that Peter would consider his greatest failures.  A lot of authors could've gone a lot of different ways, but I think Slott gives us a really interesting rumination on death (particularly as it appears in comics) here.  It's that emotional core that makes Slott's contribution to this story equally praiseworthy as Martin's art and Vicente's colors.  I give this issue a three, however, as I describe below, because I feel like Slott has abruptly changed gears on us (in a larger sense) and used one of the most commonly used tropes in Spider-Man comics -- Peter's overdeveloped sense of responsibility -- to do it. 

The Good

1) One of the things I appreciated the most about this issue is that Slott gave us his best Grant Morrison impression, pulling in numerous characters that we haven't seen in a long time and making them relevant again.  After the questions that still linger in the wake of "One More Day," this gallery of the deceased helps re-cement the idea that Spidey's past is largely unaffected by the Mephisto bargain.  We see a plethora of folks -- everyone from the Kid who Collected Spider-Man from "Amazing Spider-Man" #248  to Nathan Lubensky, Aunt May's former companion -- and it serves as a reminder of the tragedy Peter has faced in his life.

2) Martin does a good job of taking a fairly well-trod device -- showing all the little reminders that someone is now missing from a life s/he was living just the day before -- and making it feel fresh.  We see Marla's alarm perched on the stack of books she was reading when she died, JJJ, Jr. sleeplessly lying on his side of the bed as the alarm rings, and then later shaving at his side of the double vanity in their bathroom.  The impact of these scenes is amplified by the next page, where we're given a similar montage of Peter getting dressed for the memorial and ultimately deciding not to wear his Spider-Man suit under his clothes.  Martin gives us some really intimate moments in these pages -- JJJ, Jr.'s totally blank expression; Peter standing in part of his costume, though maskless and barefoot -- and these moments help imbue these scenes with real emotion.  I was just commenting to my boyfriend a few days ago that, in my morbid moments, I often wonder what "normal" things I'll leave undone when I die -- the book I'll be reading, the bills I haven't paid.  It's that reminder that we're not going to find out the way everything is going to end (God willing), and I was really struck by how Slott highlighted that here.

3) Speaking of the art, Martin's rendering of St. Patrick's cathedral is beautiful.  I'm sure it took time, so I just wanted to note how excellent it was, how he really captured the majesty of it.

4) The Web-Pits!  Nice touch, Martin.

5) Slott hints at a lot of things in the dream.  I'm not going to recount all of them, but one of the better moments was Aunt May telling Peter that everyone has to die sometime and Peter telling her that he wouldn't let her die.  It's a nod, at least in part, to "One More Day."  It's unclear if it represents some acknowledgment in Peter's subconscious of the Mephisto bargain or if it's just Slott stating the obvious, that Peter would go to greater lengths to save Aunt May than he would to save Marla Jameson.  At any rate, it actually works on both levels, which is what ultimately makes it a clever and sly wink to where we've been.

6) The red background for Spidey's fight with the Goblin was awesome.  Similarly, Gwen with the broken neck was just...disturbing. 

The Meh

Charlie?  Who?  Spidey killed her?  Really?  A little Internet research reveals that he did so in "Spider-Man vs. Wolverine," a 1987 one-shot.  I applaud Slott for going all Morrison above, so I'm not going to ding re-introducing a minor character here.  But, this scene did fall a little flat, if only because I had no idea who this woman was and my guess is 99.9 percent of the people reading this issue didn't either. 

The Bad

1) It's tempting to criticize certain parts of the dream for being too hard on Peter, because it's totally believable that Peter is as hard on himself as he is in this dream.  For example, I don't think it makes him a horrible person that he would go to greater lengths to save Aunt May -- the woman who raised him -- than Marla Jameson.  But, Peter would, so it rings true.  However, I feel like Spidey authors occasionally go overboard on the responsibility schtick.  I think Peter is smart enough to know that he can't be everywhere at once, but, sometimes, you'd think he thought he had a time machine.  Slott could've just had Peter mourn the death of Marla and curse his inability to save her, as opposed to blame himself for her death, as if he could've done anything to stop it.

2) The events of this issue still feel a little...abrupt, vis-à-vis what we've seen in previous issues.  As I noted in my recap of issue #654, I get that you can't plan tragedy.  Peter's grief here is so profound exactly because Marla's death -- and his perceived responsibility for it -- was so unexpected.  However, comic books aren't real life (I know, I know), and Slott had some control over the timing of this story.  By giving us this dark of a story so quickly in this brand new run, he derails some of the fun and energy he was building with his Hobgoblin story.  Had the "Revenge of the Spider-Slayer" storyline not ended in Marla's death, it would've just been a decent story with an interesting side effect (the loss of Peter's Spider-Sense).  Instead, we get a death that isn't necessarily going to have a huge impact on the comic, but results in us taking a walk down the absolute worst parts of Peter's Memory Lane.  Even though I thought Marla's death was well done, I still think it could've been postponed a few issues until Slott had firmly established his own rhythm.  After all, we didn't get "The Gauntlet" until "Brand New Day" had been firmly, firmly established.