Amazing Spiderman #583 — (Main story): Writer: Mark Waid; Pencils: Barry Kitson; Inks: Mark Farmer; (Obama story): Writer: Zeb Wells; Artist: Todd Nauck
First of all, thank God for Mark Waid: his story, a slice-of-life look at Peter Parker told from the point of view of Betty Brant, is sophisticated, charming and deeply human, reminiscent of one of Kurt Busiek’s Astro City stories. Kitson’s and Farmer’s art isn’t flashy, but it’s clear and doesn’t get in the way, and for a quieter story like this that’s just fine. The story’s also self-contained (although a few subplots get thrown in), so all the new readers who’ve picked up this book will feels like they’ve received a full tale, and their money’s worth. Like Ed Brubaker’s Captain America #25 script, in another book read by many newcomers, it presents a solid, non-embarrassing example of modern superhero comics.
This is fortunate, because the rest of the book… not so good. The “regular” cover’s got Spider-Man on a wall in the background, looking at Parker, who’s in the foreground with his arms around two women and saying “Sorry, web-head, I’m taking the night off! Face it, cougars, you just hit the jackpot!” First of all, there’s no scene like that in the book (yeah, OK, it’s a callback to all the ’60s books with covers like that, but still). Second: cougars? Eeewwww.
Next, the Obama story: it’s only five pages (plus a splash page that’s the same as the variant edition Obama cover), and involves Parker in DC at the inauguration, and the Chameleon trying to take Obama’s place, because “If I had made it to the podium I would have been sworn in! It wouldn’t have mattered who I was! I would have been the President of the United States!” This is an… interesting reading of the Constitution, and it’s compounded because the Obama-disguised Chameleon, when confronted with the real one, immediately crumbles when asked a simple question about his basketball background, and in fact seems to have no idea how the game is played — this, from a supposed master of research and identity-theft. I know, I know: Wells only had five pages to tell the story. Still, there had to be some way to do it that didn’t require the protagonist to be an idiot (a “simple” story doesn’t have to mean a “stupid” one, as Spidey Super Stories should have taught us).
So: Obama story? Bleh. Cover? Bleh. Main story? As I said at the beginning: thank God for Mark Waid.
