The Longer It Goes, The More It Falls Apart: Reviewing ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ #31
by Tony Thornley
Amazing Spider-Man is in for some of its biggest stories of the volume so far. Amazing Spider-Man #31 sets that all up, but outside of the lead story, it’s a hell of a mixed bag.
Zeb Wells, John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna, Emilio Laiso, Ze Carlos, Marco Menyz, Brian Valenza, and Joe Caramagna lead off the oversized issue, with stories from Wells, David Lopez, KJ Diaz, Dan Slott, Mark Bagley, John Dell, Edgar Delgado, Celeste Bronfman, Alba Glez, Elisabetta D’Amico, Craig Yeung, Jim Campbell, Steve Foxe, Slott, Paco Medina, Erick Arciniega, Albert Monteys, Cale Atkinson, Patrick Gleason (as well as a few others that are uncredited) and Caramagna lettering it all.
It’s Randy Robertson and Janice Lincoln’s wedding day. Not one member of New York’s underworld is happy about the upcoming nuptials, or about Tombstone’s clear machinations to use his daughter’s wedding to launch the next phase of his takeover of the city. It means that the wedding may about to be the most dangerous, can’t miss event of the season.
This issue is almost a hundred pages long. Frankly, it’s about twice as long as it should be. The lead story is great. Wells revisits the best part of this volume of the series with the gang war. The bachelorette party is a ton of fun, the soap opera is Spidey at his best, and the entire wedding is exciting.
The art matches. Romita and Hanna’s work is moody in the gang scenes, but bright and energetic in the wedding scene. Laiso and Carlos have a lot of silly fun in the bachelorette party, while balancing Peter and Randy’s more dour bachelor party experience. Menyz and Valenza’s colors set the mood of each scene, making the color art a vital part of the storytelling.
The back-ups are a serious mixed bag. The shorts by Wells are interesting teases of what’s to come with good art but not more than that. Foxe’s teaser for his upcoming Spider-Woman series has a great hook. Slott’s stories are heavy handed but the art looks uniformly great. Lastly, the indie comics style shorts are very fun, with a decent giggle.
The problem isn’t the quality though, it’s that there’s so many. They just keep dragging on, with one after another after another. If they had been spread out amongst different titles more- such as different issues of this series, in Slott’s Spider-Man series, and so on- it might have landed much, much better. But Caramagna is an MVP for all the work he put into the issue.
Amazing Spider-Man #31 is available now from Marvel Comics.
Overview
This issue was just too much. If the back-ups had a common thread, it would have been much stronger, and way more worthwhile. But the art looked great throughout.
