Amazing Spider-man #539

Amazing Spider-Man #539
Writer: JMS
Pencils: Ron Garney


Back in Black! OMG!

No, wait... er, why should I care about this again? It's just a uni-switch, right? Like a sports team donning the road jersies, no? Well...not exactly. Despite the fact that Spidey's current descent into darkness just happens to coincide with the feature film introduction of his ole black uni, I think that dark days ahead call for a darker web-slinger. Its symbolic you see, it always has been. So the core question of this review, and of Spidey's existence in a Post Marvel Civil War world is, why Back in Black? Other questions remain important too, such as just how crucial is the mask and cape of a caped crusader? Just how much can a hero be summed up by his costume? Can a comic character become popular through nothing at all but a clever design? And of course all of these dove-tail nicely into the comic clusterfuck that has been Peter Parker's 'outing' in the New York press. When you come down to it, does a costume even matter anymore if everyone, friends and foes alike, knows exactly who you are?

Yet the aesthetics remain important. For much of Amazing Spider-man #539 Peter is shown being Spider-man as Peter Parker. No costume whatsoever. At first i thought this whole costume-less action sequences to be a bit silly and awkward. About halfway through the issue Peter's form is dynamic, swinging through the big Apple tracking down a lead. The only problem is his appearance is jarringly strange. His face harbors a scowl, his life after all, is a mess. Yet to me he just looks like one of those insanely flexible dancers who is angry he didn't land the last Gap Khaki television spot. Damn, I thought to myself, a man just looks plain goofy flailing about on silken threads in civvies.

So I suppose the answer to one of those introductory questions is yes. The costume is important. A cool design can make a rather goofy action look downright cool. At least i think so. Is this just a question of familiarity? Maybe its just because I'm so familair with the normal Web-head look, maybe I find the Peter Parker slinging so strange because I'm used to a different aesthetic. There may be no clear cut answer here. So let's reluctantly move on to the meanings attached to Back in Black.

Black makes sense. Peter's world has turned to shit. And not Just Peter's but MJ's by extension. This issue's artwork is brilliant in subtly describing the oppressive menace and hostility facing the extended Spider-man fam. On an early page we find MJ huddled and small at the bottom of tall thin panel, walking the streets of NY, clutching at herself as one does against a stiff brisk winter wind. 'Above' her in the panel is a massive skyscraper festooned with unsettlingly malevolent ads. The effect is immediate and intense, MJ has the weight and malice of an entire city on her back. The threat is all the more menacing because like a mob, it is faceless and it is everywhere.

Malice and the threat of violence pervades the issue. Even in his Gap Kahaki personae, Peter still manages to come off as brutally strong, capable of terrible things, things which might just be necessary to stop his world from completely tearing in two. Tossing a Jeep a few flights up into a building at a sniper is just the beginning. The only mis-step in the whole dark aesthetic is the visual crutch of too much Dark Knight Returns. The pages of Amazing Spider-man have always been slightly cartoony and youthful, the best Spidey artists don't avoid this and use it to their strengths. It is a look that is diametrically opposed to Miller's gritty old Batman, and when i see Spidey's black silhouette leaping off a towering building with that Miller-esque trademark white snarl of lightning slashing down behind him I can't help but feel unease. Poor Frank just rolled over in his grave. Wait, what... he's not dead? Well whaddaya know. Learn something knew everyday

So is Black something to hide behind, or something to wrap oneself in to scare the shit out of one's enemies? Or is it just plain easier to hide oneself when one drops the bright red and blue jumpsuit? We learn that Peter has stashed his old black uni under a gargoyle at the top of a skyscraper. But what is interesting is that the gargoyle is clutching at itself in the very same way we saw MJ shivering earlier. Granted this visual echo is subtle, but i would argue intentional. We are meant to be reminded that Spider-man had given up Black once before and built a spectacular and loving if not idyllic life with MJ since then. Yet all the while, buried beneath their relationship this dark incarnation lay waiting. As Peter tears open this old wound and frees a former self, what now is to become of the relationship he had pain-stakingly built upon his old skeletons? Dark times call for dark deeds (and duds, heehee) but will Peter be able to come away from all this the man he was before Marvel's Gettysburg? With all these questions floting around, you can't ask for a better arc opener than this.

Snake-eyes going on Voltron. if it weren't for those damn Miller moments... sigh.