Buy my book! Buy my book! Nothing like a good reference to the 30-year-old TV show The Critic to kick off a bout of comic book reviews, eh? But seriously, go check out the Kickstarter for my new comic, Cover Bard #1! We’re almost at our goal and you could be the awesome person that gets us over the top! Imagine how much fun that will feel?

Comic Book of the Week goes to Amazing Spider-Man #1,000 for hitting such a nice milestone, and for also being a swell comic.

Meanwhile, I’m going to wrap up the Wolverine game this weekend. Solid play. I may or may not do a review. I’ll definitely have a review up next week on my thoughts on the first season of Lanterns! Loving the show! Can’t wait for the finale! Beyond that, I’m watching the latest season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and reading Harley & Ivy: Life & Crimes by Erica Henderson. Both quite fun so far. I love Henderson’s artwork.

Comic Reviews: Amazing Spider-Man #1000, Bizarro: Year None #3 and Uncanny X-Men #36.

Amazing Spider-Man #1000
Writer: Joe Kelly
Artist: Pepe Larraz
Colorist: Federico Blee
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna

Here it is! The big 1,000th issue of Amazing Spider-Man! How exciting!

Aunt May has suffered a stroke and Peter rushes to her bedside to be with her. Cormac is already with her. When Aunt May stirs, she can barely remember Peter at all, and it’s very traumatizing to the poor lad. Then Cormac reveals he has, indeed, been a costumed super-villain along along, one with the power to remove someone’s memories and turn them into physical weapons. He is Ravage, and he stole Aunt May’s memories of raising Peter. And now he wants to steal Peter’s memories of being raised by May and Ben. They fight, Spidey gets the upper hand when he experiences some of May’s memories of him and he finds strength. Then Ravage gets away when Peter has to save a falling cable car.

The back up stories tell various tales. One of them is about an aging Peter Parker in a nursing home, and an aging Mysterio showing up to mess with him. I really liked that one a lot. Bendis did a story where Peter fought some of his D-level villains in Times Square, and missed an Avengers party. I liked that one too. And then there were some others of varying quality.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

Alright, so, we’re going to judge this a couple of different ways. Let’s start with the main story and its connection to the ongoing Amazing storyline by Kelly. On its own, I liked it. The moment where Aunt May’s memories/thoughts/assessment of adult Peter give him the strength to defeat Ravage in this moment is pretty much perfect and works nicely for this anniversary issue. Kelly also uses all this memory stuff to look back at some of Peter’s most important life moments, including the incidents with the original burglar/Ben’s killer, and that is also pretty perfect for the anniversary. This story is very Peter/Spidey focused with a lot of his emotional heft behind it, while throwing in a super-villain fight and a big hero rescue. So it’s a strong Spider-Man story featuring a lot of classic elements.

But man, Cormac takes a really boring turn this issue in becoming Ravage. Obviously we knew something would be up with him, but to make him just a generic super-villain? Meh. He falls into that modern trap of just being so generic. Come on. Ravage?! That’s the best name you could come up with? So we’ve got Ravage in Amazing Spider-Man and Revenant in Miles Morales: Spider-Man. If you put the two of them side-by-side and didn’t already know their names, you wouldn’t be able to put the name to the character. Or, frankly, pick which one was fighting Miles and which was fighting Peter. Both villains also have a weird personal connection to each Spider-Man’s parental figure that has nothing to do with Spider-Man himself. So if neither Miles or Peter were Spider-Man, they’d still have to contend with Ravage and Revenant. I find that a little weird.

Beyond the main story, the rest were a mixed bag. Like I said above, I really enjoyed the ones about Old Man Peter and Old Man Mysterio and then the one by Bendis about the minor villains and the Avengers. Noah Hawley wrote the Old Man Peter story and it’s just so touching, seeing these old rivals come to an understanding. And he added a neat touch where Peter’s grandson is Spider-Man, and while the kid looks like a punk, he’s all heart and heroism. I enjoyed that. Then Bendis just has a lot of fun with Spidey fighting D-listers like Basilisk and White Rabbit, with the story capped off by a great scene with Captain America. Just really really nice; both stories getting to the heart of Spider-Man.

Frank Miller writes a weird story that focuses a lot on Hand ninjas over Spider-Man and then Peach Momoko’s excellent body horror artwork. Triple H, of all people, writes a story (with some help, I think) that touches on Peter’s history with wrestling. There’s a story about the police officer who was chasing the burglar in Amazing Fantasy. There’s one about Peter grappling with the death of Harry Osborn. Lots of different stories, some better than others. Artwork is pretty great on all of them.

Overall, I would say this is an excellent anniversary issue. The main storyline takes a huge step forward, for good or ill, and then a who’s who of classic Spidey writers and artists tell some really fun stand alone tales. Good times all around.

TL;DR: The main story has a lot of heart, which I like, and a less-than-stellar villain reveal, which I don’t like. The back-up stories are generally all good, with some real standouts to mark the anniversary issue.

Shorter Reviews

Bizarro Year None #3 by Eric Carrasco, Kevin Smith, Nick Pitarra, Michael Garland and Dave Sharpe

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

Another excellent issue as the story ramps up into Bizarro’s actual origin. The artwork is to die for and suits the subject matter perfectly. I don’t know where they found Pitarra, but how has he not been drawing a Bizarro comic his entire career? This issue is pretty straight forward in moving the story along and fleshing out our major villain, so not too much more to say than that. It’s very entertaining. And, like I said, buy this comic for the artwork. It’s insanely unique and just perfect.

Uncanny X-Men #36 by Gail Simone, Luciano Vecchio, Matthew Wilson and VC’s Clayton Cowles

Comic Rating: 7/10 – Good.

Both ongoing storylines wrap up in this issue, and both are equally mildly entertaining. Rogue fights off the demon infesting Gambit, and the X-Men more short, brutal work of the bad guys who were keeping Howler and other mutant kids locked up. Honestly, that second one felt really quick. Was this really only the first time this bad guy ranch appeared? In these past few issues? The X-Men cleaned them up quickly, but what if they didn’t happen to be living next door? That’s a nitpick. It’s an enjoyable read with great art and strong character moments — which makes for good X-Men comics.

The comics I review in my Hench-Sized reviews are just the usual comics I grab from Comixology any given week, along with a few impulse buys I might try on a whim. So if there are any comics or series you’d like me to review each week, let me know in the comments.

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