Amazing Spider-Man #550

Kinky...

In Amazing Spider-Man #550, Spider-Man encounters Menace, a new, Green Goblin-esque villain. He avoids capture at the hands of Jackpot and the Blue Shield, only to get cornered by half of the NYPD. The action comes to a screeching halt when I light a candle at a local church in mourning for the $3.14 I wasted on this boring-as-cow-turds comic.

Let me return to my earlier doubts about the newness of Amazing Spider-Man #550. Writer Marc Guggenheim resorts to every old school Spider-Man commonplace he can think of: random wisecracks, self-referential editors’ notes, even cover designs full of text. Guggenheim is clearly trying to recapture the charm of the old Spider-Man comics by copying jokes that were original in the 60s. Too bad this is 2007. A writer shouldn’t have to mimic the things that made Stan Lee original during the Johnson administration, especially when other writers (think Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s solid arc on Sensational Spider-Man) have kept him fresh, sans imitation.

Salvador Larroca’s soporific performance is aided and abetted by colorist Stephane Peru, whose gentle tones will surely put more people to sleep than late night radio DJs. There’s one eye-catching page with a somewhat interesting mid-air fight between Menace and Spider-Man-- but sadly, that’s about it.

Worth the money? No.