'The Amazing Spider-Man: New Ways To Die' – Slott, Waid, Romita Jr, Granov (Marvel)


A quick post for you guys today as I've spent most of the day on a training course and my brain is feeling rather like melted cheese; I'm too old for this shit... ;o) But anyway...

I'll be honest, every time I see one of those 'pick up the first comic book, in the series, for £1.99' offers in WHSmith, I'm all over it. It's a great way to pick up entire stories, for not a lot of money, and when it's the wrong side of payday... You understand ;o) And that is why I'm sat here, ready to talk about 'New Ways To Die'. The book of course (sorry, couldn't resist...)

Life's never been easy for the web-slinging, wall-crawling Spider-Man but it's about to get a whole lot worse! Norman Osborn, AKA the Green Goblin, has returned, and this time he has some serious back-up – the Thunderbolts. Tasked with hunting down rogue heroes who operate outside the law, this group of 'reformed' villains have got the web-head in their sights. They all want a slice of Spider-Man, especially the former Scorpion, Mac Gargan, now fused with the Venom symbiote and deadlier than ever...

(Collecting The Amazing Spider-Man #568-573)

It has only just occurred to me, looking at the issue numbers above, just how much is going on in such a small space and also, how self contained it is. I'm sure it would help if you've read the preceding issues (a bit of context never hurts) but I came to it fresh and I didn't have a problem getting into it. That's not really surprising as the plot follows a familiar 'everyone is after a misunderstood Spider-Man' theme but there are also some mysteries to be solved and an interesting detour for a character that I didn't think would amount to much and then... Now there's a plot-arc that I always enjoy; super-powered redemption of a kind... Add a little detective work and 'Superhero/Villain/Kind Of A Bit Of Both' fights and you've got yourself a story that's very easy to get into, especially when Romita Jr. is on artwork duties. You can feel those punches and I'm still left wondering how Spider-Man' got up from some of them...

The thing is though, for all that good work, it still doesn't feel as if 'New Ways To Die' is doing anything particularly new with Spider-Man himself (Venom though, that's another story). Maybe a little 'before/after context' is needed here (which could cast the whole thing in a new light) but I didn't have that (not the book's fault but...) so what I ultimately came away with was the feeling that I could have been reading any 'Spider-Man' comic. A few fights and a misunderstood Spider-Man can only go so far I think...

Not a bad read then but by no means a read that blew me away. I wouldn't mind reading some more 'Spider-Man' though, does anyone have any recommendations?

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