"The Amazing Spider-Man: Sins Past"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “The Amazing Spider-Man: Sins Past” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Following a battle with the heroes of earth and the other-dimensional being Dormammu, Sorcerer of Chaos Morwen awakened on earth in the body of Tess Black, mortal daughter of the Asgardian god Loki. This caused Loki to feel a pain he could not identify, so he traveled to earth to investigate it. Peter Parker/Spider-Man, whose actions in the battle with Dormammu led to Morwen’s freedom, became Morwen’s target. The sorceress came to Spider-Man with an offer of power which Spider-Man had to accept, or else Morwen would destroy Spider-Man. Morwen gave Spider-Man a night to ponder her offer. Seeking mystical guidance, Spider-Man went to the home of Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Stephen Strange, but Doctor Strange was unavailable. Instead, Loki greeted Spider-Man. Loki and Spider-Man fought, but Loki emphasized he wished to stop Morwen. Spider-Man agreed to work with Loki in defeating Morwen as long as they were able to save Morwen’s human host. When Morwen returned to Spider-Man to hear Spider-Man’s decision, Loki recognized Tess, and Loki had to use his sorcery to reach Tess, banish Morwen, and save Tess.

            Peter’s wife Mary Jane Parker, an aspiring actress, had an audition for a role in a movie and had to fly to California for the audition. When she arrived to audition, she found out the director had been replaced and the new director had offered the role to another actress, believing that Mary Jane had no talent. Spider-Man witnessed a young boy trying to steal a bike. When caught by the cops, the boy pulled out a gun. Spider-Man swung in to peacefully settle the situation and protect everyone involved.

            Ezekiel Sims returned to New York, seeking Peter. Peter’s Aunt May Parker encouraged Mary Jane not to give up Mary Jane’s dreams of acting and tried to steer Mary Jane towards the stage. Ezekiel warned Peter that following Spider-Man’s last two supernatural battles, a third one with the Gatekeeper was coming, and this one was going to be the most dangerous. The Gatekeeper attacked New York City, unleashing a horde of spiders. Spider-Man fought the Gatekeeper, who revealed the reason Peter had been chosen by fate to be Spider-Man, and that Spider-Man’s true enemy was the pretender, Ezekiel, who had been using Peter to ensure Ezekiel’s own survival against the threats to the spider totems. Ezekiel abducted Peter and brought Peter to South America, where Ezekiel intended to sacrifice Peter to satisfy the forces that had been beset against the two spider totems, and the two battled for the final time.

            Mary Jane auditioned for the lead role in an off-Broadway play and got the part. While celebrating at Aunt May’s, a letter arrived for Peter. The letter was from Gwen Stacy, Peter’s girlfriend who had died during a fight between Spider-Man and Norman Osborn/Green Goblin. The letter was written in Paris before Gwen died, and Gwen was going to tell Peter something in the letter. However, this was only the first page of the letter, and there was more than one page. The letter had also just been sent days before from New York City. Peter went to Gwen’s grave, where he was attacked by two costumed assailants. Not wanting to reveal his secret identity, Peter fought back and escaped. Mary Jane helped Peter realize that Gwen had written a second page on top of the first page. Peter received photos of Aunt May and Mary Jane from his assailants with a threatening note included. Spider-Man went to his police contact Lieutenant Willaim Lamont, asking him to have forensics see if they could decipher what Gwen had written on the second page by analyzing the latent impressions. Peter received a phone call from the assailants, saying the assailants had Aunt May and that the assailants were aware Peter was Spider-Man and that Peter had ten minutes to save Aunt May. Spider-Man swung to the address the assailants provided, but it was a trap and they didn’t really have Aunt May. The assailants, Gabriel and Sarah, defeated Spider-Man, but let Spider-Man live, saying the two intended to hurt Spider-Man personally before ending him for good. Spider-Man received what forensics was able to recover of the second page of Gwen’s letter. Gwen revealed she had given birth to twin children Gabriel and Sarah shortly before she died. Peter recovered DNA from Gwen and the letter to test the DNA to try to determine if the assailants were Gwen’s children. The twins attacked Spider-Man as Spider-Man was running the tests, and Spider-Man unmasked Sarah, who looked identical to Gwen. The twins escaped, and the tests revealed an almost exact match. Peter came home to find Mary Jane had read Gwen’s letter. Peter told Mary Jane that Peter couldn’t be the twins’ father, and Mary Jane revealed that she already knew about Gwen having children and that the twins’ father was Norman Osborn. Spider-Man held a press conference, calling the twins to the site of Gwen’s death. Gabriel told Spider-Man the twins wanted to hurt Peter because Norman had raised the twins and had told the twins that Peter was the twins’ father and that Peter had abandoned the twins after Spider-Man caused Gwen’s death. When Peter told the twins Norman was the twins’ father, Gabriel didn’t believe Peter, but Sarah did, citing Peter taking DNA from Gwen to run the test rather than using DNA from Peter. Peter also told the twins Norman was the Green Goblin and was the one responsible for Gwen’s death. The police arrived at the scene of the conversation and shot at Spider-Man, Gabriel, and Sarah. Gabriel escaped, but Sarah was hit. Spider-Man got Sarah to a hospital. Gabriel retreated to a laboratory Norman had left for Gabriel and Sarah, where Gabriel discovered a recorded message from Norman and Goblin costumes Norman left for the twins to continue Norman’s work. The doctors were having difficulty treating Sarah due to the Goblin formula Sarah inherited from Norman. Spider-Man offered a blood transfusion to attempt to save Sarah’s life, knowing Peter and Gwen were the same blood type and hoping Peter’s mutated blood would save Sarah. Gabriel attacked Spider-Man, who was weakened from the blood transfusion, but an unexpected person stepped up to save Spider-Man and stop Gabriel’s threat.

            Charlie Weiderman, an old friend of Peter’s from high school who had also been bullied like Peter had been as a teenager, returned to ask Peter for a favor. Charlie was determined to earn a military contract on a chemical body armor that would make the wearer invulnerable and needed vibranium for his formula, something he couldn’t afford, but Tony Stark could provide it. Charlie hoped Peter held enough clout with Stark to earn Charlie a grant, but Charlie lied and said Peter would be supervising the project so Charlie could secure the grant. When Peter found that his name had been attached to the project, Peter told Charlie Peter was going to go to Stark with the truth. Charlie rushed to test his formula, and it literally blew up on him. Charlie survived and became invulnerable. When the first responders came to the scene, Charlie attacked them. Charlie came to Peter for help, asking Peter to access Charlie’s bank account to get Charlie’s money from Stark Industries out before the account got frozen or else Charlie would go after Peter’s loved ones. Peter went to Mary Jane and told Mary Jane to go to a hotel with Aunt May for their safety. Spider-Man fought Charlie, but Charlie was able to escape. Feeling Peter had betrayed Charlie to Spider-Man, Charlie went to Peter and Mary Jane’s apartment and set it on fire. Spider-Man fought Charlie again but lost the fight. Spider-Man then turned to Tony Stark and his technology to defeat Charlie and protect his family, but not before Aunt May suffered a devastating loss.

            Okay, now that we’ve got the synopsis out of the way, let’s move on to the personalized segments of this review. If you know the formula for these reviews, you know we’re going to start with my own individual opinions about this graphic novel, and if you didn’t know, now you do. Previous readers of my “The Amazing Spider-Man” Modern Era Epic Collection reviews will recall that I am a fan of J. Michael Straczynski’s run on “The Amazing Spider-Man.” This volume, however, didn’t hold up as well when compared to the previous two volumes. I’m not saying I didn’t like this book, but it wasn’t as enjoyable for me as Straczynski’s prior works for certain reasons. The Morwen story was entertaining, I did enjoy seeing Spider-Man team up with Loki. “Vibes” was a one issue story, and it was a good setup for Mary Jane’s character development throughout the course of this volume. “The Book of Ezekiel” was a little hard for me because I didn’t like how Ezekiel turned from being an enigmatic ally to being a devious backstabber. All the previous times he appeared, he’s been enjoyable to read, and it just was character assassination to watch him turn out to have been scheming against Peter this entire time in order to save himself. But if you want to talk about character assassination, let’s discuss “Sins Past.” Gwen having kids with Norman Osborn has to have been the low point of Straczynski’s run on “The Amazing Spider-Man.” Why on earth would Gwen Stacy ever have kids with Norman Osborn? That made zero sense at all. I know Gwen wasn’t a saint, but come on, that’s a bit of a stretch. And this also reflected poorly on Mary Jane, keeping something like this for so many years. Yes, her character is supposed to be good at keeping secrets, but this kind of secret is cruel. However, looking past the concept of Gwen having children with Norman Osborn, the story was intriguing. “Skin Deep” was interesting, seeing someone who had it almost as bad as, if not worse than, Peter growing up, seeing their friendship, and seeing how he reacted to finding himself with powers. As far as the story goes, it’s a little bit of a mixed bag of things to like and things to dislike, but in general, I found most of the stories to be at least moderately, if not relatively, enjoyable. Now, of course, this is a graphic novel, so we’re required to evaluate the quality of the art in this book as well. I am a big fan of the work of John Romita Jr., I think his work is exceptional, I love his style. I was a little dismayed that he didn’t illustrate this entire volume, but Mike Deodato Jr. is another fantastic artist in my opinion, and I loved Mark Brooks’ work on the flashback sequences in “Skin Deep,” the flashbacks had a throwback comic book look and I really enjoyed those. This collection is actually a rare occasion for me, where there were multiple artists that I found consistently visually appealing that I enjoyed better than the story. Coming up next, we’re going to discuss my opinion on the title. I thought “Sins Past” was a completely appropriate title for this particular collection. It was the longest running storyline in the collection, and it even fits well with the themes of the other stories in this volume, with sins of the past coming back to haunt Peter’s present. I also discuss if I feel the cover is appropriate for the content contained inside the volume. This book has a cover of Spider-Man web-swinging. In my opinion, this cover is adequate for this book. It doesn’t hint on any of the themes inside the book, but in all honesty, that doesn’t really matter, it’s a nice cover and it is sufficient for this book. Sometimes, simple is best. In fact, some of the other choices of covers would not have been perfect representations of the core essence of the book, so I applaud the editors for picking the simple option. I feel like the editors had a good marketing style for this book.

            Next up on the agenda of my personalized topics, I’m going to tell you how accessible I feel this book is. Now I know I’ve been over this over seven dozen times at this point, but every time I do a review, I always have readers who have never read one of my reviews before and have no idea what I mean when I throw around the word “accessible,” so once again, I am compelled to explain myself, so to my readers who already know what’s coming, please just bear with me. Anyway, the accessibility of a book I review is how easy it would be for someone who, for example, by some seemingly impossible way, has never heard of Spider-Man, to see this book available to them and then say “oh, hey, this looks cool, I want to read this,” then do so, and understand what is written with no outside information about Spider-Man or Marvel Comics. This volume is marketed as Vol. 3, and it relies on following stories begun in the previous two volumes, so not having followed Straczynski’s run on “The Amazing Spider-Man” thus far is detrimental to following “The Book of Ezekiel,” where Ezekiel’s story has been told over the past two collections. Also, knowledge about the history of Gwen Stacy is necessary for understanding “Sins Past.” I will not say that not knowing your Spider-Man history makes this an impossible read, but being out of the loop will lead to an amount of difficulty following these particular stories. I will say, though, this book contains issues from only one series, all consecutive issues, with no events or crossovers, so the flow of the story is smooth, and the narrative is perfectly linear. If you’ve never read a Marvel Comic book before and are looking for a place to start, I would not recommend this volume as your first choice.

            Okay, we’re at one of my most crucial segments of my reviews: the numeric score. Now, I know that all my readers come to these reviews for different reasons, some come mainly just to read about the story, but knowing just how good I think a book is when I review it is essential to writing an effective review. So, we’ll start off by discussing my scoring system. Some of you probably know it by now, it is extremely basic. I score on a scale of whole numbers ranging from one through ten. One is my lowest score, and that means that every remaining copy of this book that has yet to be sold should be removed from the shelves or pulled out of the warehouses or factories and obliterated, and the original plates should be erased so that this abomination can never be reprinted and will be removed from living memory entirely. Okay, I know that’s really extra right there, I’m just trying to emphasize a point. Ten, on the other hand, is the highest score I can possibly give, and that signifies that this book exemplifies sheer perfection in every way and is one of the best things I have ever read and I will not shut up about it until I have read my next book that I am going to review. For me, giving out a ten is extremely rare because to be a ten, I expect there to be no identifiable flaws in either the story, the art, the title, or the choice of cover, which is a lot of things to expect to be flawless, and if I do find even a single thing to complain about, I can’t in good faith give a book a score of a ten. Now, we’ve established based on my review so far that this book has aspects that I have found to complain about, which means you already know this book is not getting a ten. That said, there was a lot in this book I found to enjoy, there were parts of the stories I liked, I loved the art, and the marketing strategy was adequate. So, all of those factors are taken into account when I dole out my score. So, all cards on the table, when I deal out my score, what we’re looking at is… a seven! It was, for the most part, enjoyable, but the character assassinations were a bit much and the stories were not as good as some of Straczynski’s previous storylines in his run on the series.

            Coming up next on our docket, we’re doing the recommendation segment. This segment is to answer two independent questions. The first question is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers, or even to anyone who is unfortunate enough to get caught in a conversation about this book with me? Question two is, regardless of my personal recommendation or not, whom do I think is the perfect audience for this book, going beyond the obvious of fans of Spider-Man, Marvel Comics, or the creative team. So, to answer the first question, yes, I do recommend this book. If you read this review and now based solely on the words you have just spent the past few minutes reading you want to read the book I wrote about, I would tell you to get out there and find some way to get your hands on this book, either your favorite online retailer, bookstore, comic book shop, library, or someone else who has this book, and read it as soon as you possibly can. To answer question number two, I think the best audiences for this book are people who enjoy reading stories about supernatural threats, and people who enjoy suspense stories about things from the past coming back to have repercussions on the present.

            Okay, I think we’re just about ready to wrap things up. There are a few things I have to say before I hit the publish button. I’ve been doing this blog for over five and a half years now. I’ve posted over 180 times, so keep checking out timcubbin.blogspot.com for plenty more content. I’ve written short stories, poems, articles, essays, editorials, and over seven dozen other reviews just like this one. I’ve reviewed prose novels, graphic novels, comic book events, and manga. My current focus is mainly Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections and Ultimate Epic Collections. I purchase every new one as soon as I can after it is released and post a review at my earliest convenience after finishing reading it. I post on a very frequent basis. If you liked this post, feel free to check out “The Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home,” “The Amazing Spider-Man: The Life and Death of Spiders,” and “The Amazing Spider-Man: Big Time” for more “The Amazing Spider-Man” Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection content. Keep checking back regularly for my next review, which will definitely be up within the next two months after this post. I use two months as an oversimplification, you can probably expect it a lot sooner than that, I just don’t want to rush the gun or anything. My next review is going to be “New Avengers: Secret Invasion” in case you’re interested, so you know what to look for. Feel free to drop a comment, and share, like, and retweet, get me out there however you like or can. That’s all I have to say for now. Until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!