"The Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “The Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format. It IS NOT a review of the film “Spider-Man: Homecoming.”

            At a demonstration on radiation, high school student Peter Parker was bitten by an irradiated spider from which he gained the arachnid’s incredible abilities. When a burglar killed his beloved Uncle Ben, a grief-stricken Pete vowed to use his great powers in the service of his fellow man, because he learned an invaluable lesson: with great power there must also come great responsibility. He became the superhero the amazing Spider-Man.

            Many years later, Peter had just moved into a new apartment after separating from his wife Mary Jane Watson-Parker. For nostalgia, he visited Midtown High School, his old high school, and did not like the status he saw it in. One night, while on patrol as Spider-Man, Peter encountered a mysterious man called Ezekiel Simms, who possessed the same powers as Spider-Man and knew Peter’s true identity. Ezekiel taunted Spider-Man about his knowledge of the origins of his powers, something that Spider-Man was unable to ascertain, before Ezekiel suddenly disappeared. A vampiric creature called Morlun who had to sup on the life force of those with superhuman abilities and his servant Dex arrived in New York City, where Morlun planned to hunt his next meal: Spider-Man. Peter’s Aunt May informed Peter Midtown High School was looking for professionals in fields of experience in waive of education degrees to serve as teachers at the school. Peter visited his old school again to apply, when a student came to the school as an active shooter. Spider-Man was able to stop him, but this experience caused a science teacher to quit. Fortunately, Peter had experience in the field of science and was hired as his replacement. On his first day as a teacher, Peter was surprised by Ezekiel, who made a generous donation to the school, and invited Peter to lunch. Ezekiel explained to Peter that his powers were totemistic, coming from the spider, an animal, and that his rogue’s gallery were also attracted by his totemistic characteristics, which was the reason why Spider-Man’s villains were frequently animal-themed. He invited Peter to his office, where he warned Peter that Morlun was coming for him and offered Peter a secure place to hide until Morlun passed on. Peter refused, afraid what Morlun would do to innocent civilians should he be unable to find his target. When Morlun finally made his presence known to Spider-Man, the two had a brutal fight, and Spider-Man was barely able to escape with his life. Spider-Man turned to Ezekiel for help, but Ezekiel refused to make himself known to Morlun. Spider-Man and Morlun fought again, and once again, Spider-Man was unable to defeat Morlun. Peter attempted to call his loved ones, preparing to say goodbye. Mary Jane did not answer his call, but Aunt May did. Aunt May offered Peter for Aunt May to stop by his apartment to pick up his clothes to bring to the cleaner’s, an offer Peter accepted before having to hang up. When Morlun found Spider-Man again, the two fought, but as Spider-Man was losing, Ezekiel joined the fight. However, Ezekiel was defeated by Morlun and seemingly perished during their conflict. Spider-Man broke off from the fight, desperate to find his ally, but failed in the search. This strengthened his resolve to defeat Morlun. During the fight with Ezekiel, Ezekiel managed to cause Morlun to bleed. Peter analyzed Morlun’s blood and conceived a way to defeat the creature. Spider-Man lured Morlun to a nuclear power plant, where Spider-Man finally defeated Morlun with Dex’s assistance. After taking a brutal beating but having emerged victorious, Peter returned to his apartment where he fell asleep. Aunt May arrived at Peter’s apartment to pick up Peter’s dry cleaning and found Peter badly injured and with a Spider-Man costume that had been tattered during Spider-Man’s fight with Morlun.

            Our story was briefly interrupted due to the tragic events of September 11, 2001, where terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York City. Spider-Man and the heroes of New York were unable to prevent this carnage and could only aid in the cleanup as New York and the world processed this attack.

            Returning to our main story, Aunt May left Peter’s apartment without waking Peter and instead taking Peter’s damaged Spider-Man costume. One of Peter’s students, Jennifer Hardesty, was falling asleep in class frequently. Peter inquired into Jennifer and learned Jennifer’s brother was a drug addict and was leaving Jennifer to take care of her brother. Peter attempted to visit Jennifer’s home, and instead found Jennifer was living with a few other teenagers in a damaged building without their parents. Jennifer was alerted that Jennifer’s brother Steve was overdosing, and Spider-Man had to rush the teenager to the hospital to save Steve’s life. Aunt May called Peter, telling him she needed to talk to him right away. Aunt May confronted Peter about being Spider-Man, and when Peter attempted to deny it, Aunt May called him out on it. The two talked about Peter’s reasons for being Spider-Man and doing what he did, and the two found they both felt a shared guilt in the death of Peter’s Uncle Ben. While Aunt May said she would have a hard time, she was forced to accept her nephew’s life and would still love and support him in every way she could. While Aunt May was coming to terms with Peter’s dual life, Mary Jane was continuing her life without Peter.

            Mary Jane called Aunt May to inform Aunt May that Mary Jane would be stopping in New York and wanted to meet up with Peter. During the call, suspicions arose in Mary Jane towards in Aunt May knew Peter’s secret identity. Jennifer informed Peter that several of the teenagers she knew who were mysteriously disappearing off the streets. Peter agreed to look into this mystery. Spider-Man found a man calling himself the Shade sucking a boy into a portal. Spider-Man fought the Shade, but the villain was able to escape. Aunt May informed Peter Mary Jane wanted to see Peter. Jennifer gave Spider-Man Lieutenant William Lamont of the 14^th Precinct’s name and told him to see him about the teenagers being abducted by the Shade. Spider-Man met with Lamont, where they learned the Shade had broken a ritual between the Shade and his prison cellmate Richard Cranston in order for the Cranston to gain supernatural powers to escape from prison and that the Shade had stolen Cranston’s powers, but the broken ritual gave the Shade imperfect powers. Spider-Man turned to Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme and Master of the Mystic Arts, where he learned the Shade was pulling people into the astral plane in order to stay tangible in the physical world and that the Shade went after the teenagers because the Shade felt that no one would miss them. Doctor Strange gave Spider-Man the Hand of the Vishanti before departing on an appointment and told Spider-Man to wait in the Sanctum Sanctorum until he was summoned. The Shade pulled Jennifer into the astral plane, and Spider-Man was pulled into the astral plane where he fought the Shade and freed the abducted teenagers. However, during this encounter, Peter missed his meeting with Mary Jane in the physical world and was unable to talk to her in person before she left to fly back to Los Angeles.

            Caryle of Nexus Industries invited supervillain Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus to his headquarters to discuss what Octavius believed to be an employment offer but was really Carlyle’s method of abducting Octavius in order to replicate Octavius’ technology that gave him telepathic control over his tentacles. Peter tried to call Mary Jane to apologize for missing their meeting, but Mary Jane refused to take Peter’s calls. Aunt May learned Mary Jane was preparing to be filmed in a movie and suggested she and Peter fly to Los Angeles to see Mary Jane and a movie being filmed, to which Peter agreed. While Peter and Aunt May flew to Los Angeles, Carlyle used Doctor Octopus’ technology to commit crimes and make money. Octavius was able to escape Carlyle’s confinement. Peter and Mary Jane talked, where Mary Jane learned Aunt May knew of Peter’s dual life. Mary Jane agreed to talk to Peter more after a day of filming her movie. Octavius found Carlyle in a hotel and the two fought. Peter learned of this fight and Spider-Man swung in to stop the two villains but failed to prevent their escape. The two villains turned their way to the movie studio where Mary Jane was filming at, and Spider-Man had to swing in and save Mary Jane, Aunt May, and the crew of the film. Following this, Peter, Mary Jane, and Aunt May met for dinner to discuss the status of their relationship.

            Okay, hi, we’ve discussed the synopsis of the graphic novel, now we’re going to discuss my own personal opinions on this book. It’s been a little while since I’ve done this, I know I promised on my last review I’d be doing this sooner, but I moved a couple of weeks ago and have been without Wi-Fi and have been unable to upload this review until now. Even as I am composing this post, I do not have Wi-Fi, I’ve just now posted it since it is available to me. But of course, you don’t care and that’s not what we’re here to discuss, we’re not here to discuss my life, we’re here to discuss the life of Peter Parker. So here we go. First off, as some of my regulars know, I have been a consistent reader of Marvel Comics for almost twenty-five years now. The content in this graphic novel was originally published back in 2001-2002, which is when I first became a consistent reader of Marvel Comics, and these comics were actually some of my earliest reads of Spider-Man back when I was first becoming a Marvel regular, so I’ve read these issues a long time ago and reading this Modern Era Epic Collection is quite nostalgic. I’ve read these issues many times over the years, but it has been a long time since I’d perused these particular issues, so this really was a treat for me to reread them. I will say that overall, I was a very big fan of when J. Michael Straczynski wrote for “The Amazing Spider-Man.” There was one particular storyline he wrote that did not endear him to me, we might someday be discussing that one if Marvel continues to release this series, but in general I liked the rest of his run on the series. I felt he was creatively talented. I particularly liked his idea for Peter’s career change. Making Peter a science teacher opened up a lot of opportunities for storylines and I thought that it worked very well. I enjoyed the introduction of Morlun, I thought he was an excellent villain, and I enjoyed the enigmatic Ezekiel, his insight on totemism was quite interesting to me and actually made a lot of sense explaining Spider-Man’s villains and it honestly made me wonder if all the previous writers who created these animal-themed villains knew what they were doing at the time of conceiving these antagonists. But what I liked best about this book was Aunt May discovering Peter’s secret identity. This plotline was great because it opened so many new doors now that his secret was out, and it was so interesting to me to see her reaction to this, something that I’m sure many readers had been wanting to see or considering what would occur should this very thing happen for a very long time. I found it quite humorous as to what Aunt May actually expected Peter’s secret to be. I will say I didn’t quite like the whole separation storyline between Peter and Mary Jane, it was a little awkward to read this, and I know that Marvel has done a lot in recent years to keep Peter and Mary Jane apart, something I am quite resentful of, and I didn’t enjoy them still being married but being in the middle of a separation period. However, had this separation not happened, this entire graphic novel would have been completely different, so I guess that I do have to appreciate the concept to some extent since I did actually thoroughly enjoy this graphic novel. And I will say that I thought the 9/11 issue was exceptional. Straczynski captured this horrific event and its impact on how it would affect a New York-based hero perfectly. I thought it was inspired and well-written, and there were several moments that broke my heart, but I feel like the most impactful moment was where the supervillains were at the site of the wreckage of the Twin Towers and how even someone as vile and evil as Doctor Doom could shed a tear on something this unthinkable. I lived through that day and remember every single detail of what I went through on that day, and I thought Straczynski did a brilliant job applying it to Spider-Man, and his message in this issue was just so meaningful that I thought this was the true crown jewel of his work on “The Amazing Spider-Man.” And I want to give a big shout out to the artist John Romita, Jr. I thought his artwork was astounding. I loved his work so much I actually started copying his version of Peter Parker’s hairstyle recently. I just love his artistic style, I feel it’s absolutely brilliant and a perfect illustration for this story and exactly what comic book art should be. I loved his nod to the original Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko, bringing back the webbing under the armpits, something that not every Marvel artist does. All in all, I thought this was a good book.

            Next up, we’re going to discuss accessibility. I’ve discussed what I mean by this in all four or so dozen of my reviews of Marvel graphic novels, but I know some of you are brand new to the world of Tim Cubbin reviews, so it’s something I am compelled to explain again, so even if you know what I’m about to say, please keep reading. Okay, so when I say accessibility, I mean how easy it is to pick up and read this book no matter what your level of knowledge of the subject material is. So, the question I am posing is, can you know absolutely nothing about Spider-Man or Marvel Comics and still understand everything that you are reading as you go through this book? So, I will tell you that the answer is a mix of a lot of yes and a little bit of no. This book is relatively highly accessible. I feel like it’s a great point for a person who is looking to get into reading Spider-Man who has never done so in the past. It is mostly self-explanatory, but there are a few details that might require a little bit of background knowledge of Marvel and Spider-Man, but I don’t think that not knowing them is going to be very detrimental to being able to understand this graphic novel. I think it would help to know them, but it’s not going to be too much of a problem if you don’t know them. This is building on forty years of Aunt May not knowing her nephew is a superhero, after all, and includes a classic supervillain, but the new faces and the career change do offer something of a fresh start. And this is marked as Vol. 1, but it is something to note that the first issue contained in this collection is not #1, so this is not starting with a new series at the time. However, this was the start of a new creative team, and it was enough to get me into Spider-Man at the time and ease my way into his history as I worked on his current storylines and explored his past a little bit. However, I did grow up watching the Spider-Man cartoon airing on television back in the mid-1990s, so I did have background experience on his history from when I was a child. Granted now in 2025 we have so much more Spider-Man media to get into, including movies, television series, and video games, many of which were not released back when this was first in publication. Heck, we didn’t even have any Spider-Man movies yet, something which Straczynski actually does make a joke about in this graphic novel which wouldn’t have a meaning to readers nowadays but back in 2001, it was actually funny. And let’s face it, nowadays, comics aren’t published for a young demographic anymore, so most new comic book readers these days have seen a movie or television series that caused them to want to read these comics in the first place, and Spider-Man is extremely well-known, so pretty much everyone who now starts reading a Spider-Man comic book for the first time already has some level of experience with the character. If you’re reading this review, I’m sure you know Spider-Man or else you’d have no real reason to be here unless you have some odd sense of devotion to me and read everything I post which is both flattering and a little weird because you’re reading something I’m saying about something you know nothing about or have no interest in despite having no actual commitment to the subject matter and are just here because it’s written by Tim Cubbin, which is kind of stalkerish, but that said, if you want to read this anyway, that’s totally up to you, I honestly can’t stop you from doing this, so please, feel free to continue stalking me, I welcome you to it, I’ll take all the readers I can get. But yeah, going back to Spider-Man, if somehow you’ve never even heard of Spider-Man and saw this book just sitting on the shelf at your local bookstore and thought that it looked interesting and that you want to read it, I think it’s not going to be too difficult to get into. I feel that the best background knowledge for this book in particular would be the “Spider-Man” animated series from 1994-1998, that would literally explain everything you would need to know to fully grasp the storylines in this collection. I’m not sure how other preconceptions of Spider-Man would work considering I can’t make myself not know about the history of Spider-Man, but I feel like even having knowledge of current Spider-Man media would assist in aiding you in understanding the content of this volume. Just knowing the general concept of Spider-Man’s origin is probably sufficient enough, but I’m not sure if there would be contradictions in your understanding of Spider-Man lore based on some of the more recent media, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe where Aunt May is not an old woman and Peter Parker is still in high school. But I think if you read this book enough, you could get past preconceived notions on who Spider-Man is in other stories in the multiverse and understand who Spider-Man is in this particular story.

            Wow have I been going on for a long time. I think it’s time to move on to the main reason why we’re all here at this review. The main purpose of a Tim Cubbin review is to iterate just exactly how good I think what I have read is. So, to give an illustration to that point, I give everything I write a review of a numeric score. I always work exactly the same. I score on a scale of exactly one to ten. If I give a book a one, then that means that this book was so horrible, I regret spending the money and the time I exhausted in reading this book. If I give a book a ten, then that means that this book was sheer perfection and that reading this book has been one of the biggest pleasures of my life. Now, if you’ve ever read any of my reviews before, you know I am not an easy person to please and that I am not really in the business of handing out tens. If I give a book a ten, that means it’s absolutely perfect and that I can find absolutely no faults in it at all. So that pretty much defaults every single one of my reviews to a nine because it’s very hard to actually be perfect. Now this book actually does deserve a high score, but I did find a few faults, as you know from my lengthy paragraph where I discussed my opinions on this book. However, the impact of these faults is not too significant to my score. When I score a graphic novel, I am looking at two things in particular. The first is if it has a good story. We’ve already confirmed that I felt it had a great story but that there were some things I didn’t enjoy. The second thing I’m looking for is outstanding art. As we discussed, that is something that I do believe I got from this graphic novel. So, combining the two is still going to turn out a pretty good score. And so, putting all the cards in the deck, shuffling them up and dealing out a score based on everything about this graphic novel, both the story and the art, the score we are looking at is… eight! I feel like it had a lot of good points about it, and it could have been a nine if a few more of the details were a little different, but as it is, an eight is still a really exceptional score from me and means that this was an excellent graphic novel.

            Okay, so to finish up the review, I’m going to tell you if this graphic novel gets the personal Tim Cubbin recommendation, and regardless of the recommendation or not, who do I think should be reading this graphic novel? At this point, you probably don’t even need to ask if I give my personal recommendation or not, and honestly, I probably don’t even have to tell you at this point because if you’ve been reading this review, it’s obvious that I’m going to give this book my personal recommendation, but I said it anyway. As to whom I would recommend this book to, I think anyone who watched the 1994-1998 “Spider-Man” animated series in its entirety would be the perfect audience for this book, but any Spider-Man fan would be on my list of people I recommend this book to. I’d tell you it would be for anyone who wondered what Aunt May would think if she found out her nephew was Spider-Man, but that honestly lost its meaning a while ago since in several continuities Aunt May knows Peter is Spider-Man, but if you’re a real old school Spider-Man fan, that applies to you still. And if you lived through 9/11, I would particularly tell you to read “Amazing Spider-Man” #36, it will totally resonate with you.

            Okay, this has gone on for long enough, I think we’re all ready to get back on with our lives and do whatever else we actually plan on doing today. That said, if you want to, this blog has over 150 posts, so if you want, feel free to continue browsing timcubbin.blogspot.com as there is plenty of other content here. I’ve written over four dozen reviews at this point, I think you can find other posts here you’d like. I have a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in journalism, so my posts are relatively professional, despite that fact that I don’t even get a penny for doing these reviews, but I gladly do them anyway. Sadly, I work part-time in a grocery store at the moment and don’t use my degree professionally, but that’s just how life is sometimes, you make do with what you have. I will tell you I have also written short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there are all kinds of different styles of content on this blog, but this is primarily for Marvel reviews. You can probably expect to see another review in the next couple of weeks as at the point of my writing this review there are already three more books I am planning to purchase soon, and I will review them as soon as I finish reading them. I post very frequently, and I actually buy every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Marvel Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I am able to, and if possible, I review them at my earliest convenience, so you can always expect a lot more content to come from me. Well, I do believe that’s all I have to say for the moment. All that’s left is for me to sign off with a few more words. And they are: Tim Cubbin… out!