Avenging Spider-Man #1

***** (five of five stars)

Favorite Quote #1:  "When I say run, you ask 'how far.'"  -- Mayor JJJ, Jr., in the poster advertising the New York City Marathon

Favorite Quote #2:  "Not it."  "What?  Oh – not it."  -- Spider-Woman and Captain America, declaring that they were "not it" when Spidey asked someone to give him a lift to the City, in possibly Cap's funniest moment ever

Favorite Quote #3:  "How should we do this?  I could web up a backpack and we could do a Luke/Yoda thing, or -- -- you can pretend you're my abusive boyfriend --?  YEEOW--!!"  -- Spidey and Rulk, as Rulk grabs Spidey by the wrist and leaps into the air

Favorite Quote #4:  "Eat lead, Bilbo--"  JJJ, Jr. to one of the Moloids (I just finished re-reading "The Hobbit," so this line just seemed all the funnier to me)

(Sorry, I can't stop)  Favorite Quote #5:  "Someone yell for some Kook-Aid?"  -- Spidey and Rulk, who's menacing lurking presence behind him certainly does look like the Kool-Aid guy on 'roids

Summary 

Spidey and the Avengers are battling A.I.M., who have deployed a giant robot against them (for reasons that aren't really explained, but also aren't particularly important).  Meanwhile, JJJ, Jr. fires the starter gun for the New York City Marathon, whose participants find themselves confronted by a horde of Moloids as both groups attempt to cross (in opposite directions) the George Washington Bridge.  After helping to destroy the giant robot, Spidey asks someone for a lift to New York.  Red Hulk (Rulk) loses a game of "Not it!" and Iron Man asks him to return Spidey to the City.  Back in Midtown, JJJ, Jr. chastises his staffers for not putting real bullets in his starter gun as he requested, and the Moloids grab him and begin taking him underground with them.  Iron Man alerts Spidey and Rulk of the disturbance at the Bridge, and they arrive in time to face an enormous subterranean monster, which drags them underground with it.  Meanwhile, the Moloids march JJJ, Jr. through a network of underground tunnels, where he is brought before Mole Man.  He explains that his Moloids have brought JJJ, Jr. there because he is "king" of New York and they were seeking help from another "king" to liberate Mole Man, who has been overthrown as ruler of Subterranea by some serious badass-looking dudes.

The Review

OK, I waxed philosophical in my previous post about the virtues of a "Marvel Team-Up"-esque series for Spidey, so I won't repeat my ramblings here.  Suffice it to say, I'm really excited about this series and the stories that we will hopefully see in it.  I've always dug Zeb Wells.  The Mayan deity arc in "Amazing Spider-Man" #555-#557 was one of the absolute highlights of "Brand New Day" for me, and I'm really excited to see what he does in this title.  I also love Joe "Mad."  I vividly remember seeing his depiction of the X-Men on a Pizza Hut placemat at some point in the '90s and thinking, "OMG, I've never seen the X-Men look so good."  In other words, I couldn't be happier to get to see BOTH of them handling the chores on a Spider-Man title focused on fun guest stars and great action sequences, since they seem right up their respective allies.

On a shop-talk note, I'm not sure if I'm going to maintain the long-form reviews for this title.  I think I'd prefer to do one review focused on "Avenging Spider-Man," "Scarlet Spider," and "Venom," and keep the long-form review for "Amazing Spider-Man."  But, I figured I'd give it a go with the first arc and see how I feel.  Enough rambling!  Onto the story!

The Really Good

As you can tell from the five (!) favorite quotes above, this issue is fun and funny.  Dan Slott is praised, among other things (like meticulous plotting and great dialogue), mostly for making "Amazing Spider-Man" enjoyable again.  Although his run has certainly dealt with some dark and emotional moments, like the end of Pete's relationship with Carlie Cooper and the deaths of Marla Jameson and Johnny Storm, Slott has made sure these moments didn't weigh down the series, even as Pete struggled with the repercussions of these events.  He's made sure he didn't spend too long in the dreary end of the swimming pool, realizing that the best Spider-Man stories combine the soap opera that is Pete's personal life and his overdeveloped sense of responsibility with the personal relationships he has with other superheroes and his obvious sense of adventure.  Wells takes that ball and runs with it here.  It's encouraging, because it's (hopefully) a sign that Marvel's editors have accepted this version of Pete, a version that doesn't reduce him simply to a one-liner machine (like I find Deadpool to be) but also doesn't turn him into an emotionally crippled hero (like I find Punisher to be), two poles between which previous authors have vascillated.

The Good

1) The plot is really clever.  Mole Man has been displaced as the head of Subterranea by some serious badass-looking dudes and his minions go to find the "king" of New York to help.  I mean, seriously, I would never have thought of that plot in a million years, and it totally works.

2) I loved Wells' take on Spidey and Rulk's relationship.  I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Spidey try to have some witty banter with Rulk and Rulk just not having any of it AT ALL at first.  Then, at the end, we start to see some glimmers of banter:  Rulk saying, "Incoming?" and Spidey responding "'Fraid so," Spidey saying, "Um, you deal with this thing...I'll go after Jonah," and Rulk responding, "Thought you might say that."  It's a start!

3) Wells is also on fire here when it comes to JJJ, Jr.  I mean, he gets JJJ, Jr.'s particular mix of bravado and megolamania down pat!  When JJJ, Jr. shot the starter gun in his first scene, I thought, "Man, I bet JJJ, Jr. wishes he had bullets in that gun."  So, a few pages later, when JJJ, Jr. says, "And they called me a psycho when I demanded real bullets for this thing…," I LOLed HARD.  Wells goes even further, though, revealing that JJJ, Jr.'s staff only gave him blanks.  You can just picture the conversation in the Mayor's Office where JJJ, Jr. demanded real bullets and then stormed out the door, leaving a steely Glory Grant to grab some staffer and, in her scariest voice, say, "DO.NOT.GIVE.HIM.REAL.BULLETS."  The fact that I can see that conversation happening in my head is one of the things that I love about Slott's and now Wells' take on Spider-Man and his supporting cast.  They just really seem to "get" them in a way that I think we, as readers, "get" them.  JJJ, Jr. is going to demand real bullets in a starter gun and Glory Grant is going to make sure that doesn't happen.  You don't even need to see the scene to know it's true.  As Wacker says in the letters page, we're facing so many reboots in comics that it's hard to know characters you've known forever, but Slott and Wells are going the other way, embracing previous characterizations of characters so well that we don't even need to see them in an issue to feel their presence.  Well done, Wells.

4) It's a beautifully drawn issue.  I've always loved Madureira's work, and I feel like he pulled out all the stops for this issue.  The scene with the Moloids attacking the marathon runners on the GW Bridge?  Amazing!  I particularly like that he took the time to set up the scene by showing us only hints of the Moloids before the big reveal.  Awesome.