Sunday, August 19, 2007

Amazing Spider-man #542 - Marvel


This is the issue where Peter finally goes after the Kingpin. Fisk is currently in jail, so that's where he has to go to meet him. But the Kingpin believes in doing everything in style. He has his suit brought in to him, to make sure he's ready for their meeting. Wilson starts with a long tirade. He's trying to break him down psychologically, and Spider-man's looking pretty somber. But then he springs in to action and is all over Fisk. But then he stops and looks at him and says, "I'm not here to kill you." He takes his mask off to show that he's Peter Parker, not Spider-man, and says, "I am!". And then, the frenzy he unleashes on him is relentless. He's fought Fisk before. He knows he's got power and stamina. He just has to wear him down, piece by piece. He gets to the point where he says he could kill him. All he has to do is shoot a stream of webbing down his throat, and fill his lungs. He's die from a lack of oxygen. But he says he's not going to do it right now. " . . I've learned something from you, Fisk. Something about cruelty and timing . . . I've done something far worse than kill you Fisk. I've beaten you . . . . . . the moment my Aunt dies, I'm coming back for you. And we're going to finish what we started. And as of right now, you know . . . you know that there is nothing you can do to stop me. I will come for you . . . and then . . . . you'll be dead. Meanwhile, you'll live with the memory of this moment, the humiliation of this moment . . . and the message of this moment . . ." Pretty strong stuff. Meanwhile, May is still in the hospital hanging on for dear life. J. Michael Straczynski really got in to the heart of these 2 characters with this story. The tirade from Fisk was . . . expected. He always goes for the emotional trump. Then Peter's lack of witty banter, and obvious determination, set the mood for him. But then he had to put the nail in the coffin by passing on his message of retribution should anyone else decide to mess with his family. Fantastic stuff. Also Ron Garney turned in a great artist job for this issue. I used to like Ron a lot. Then . . . I'm not sure what happened. I don't know if he was doing to much work, or maybe working to fast. Or maybe he was doing stories he didn't really care about. I'm not sure. But for a while his stuff wasn't all that great. This issue, however, turns that feeling completely around for me. This issue's art was fantastic. I don't know why. Maybe he was more in to this story. But this book looks beautiful. There's even a frame in here that has kind of a Frank Miller feel to it. It shows Fisk jumping across the panel at a motionless but taunting Peter. I'm telling you, this was the perfect art for this book. I hope he does this some more, because this is what I like Ron's work looking like.

No comments:

Post a Comment