AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #34
"Meltdown"
Recommended (8/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Pencils: John Romita Jr.
Inks: Scott Hanna
Colors: Dan Kemp & Avalon
Letters: Comicraft
Editor: Axel Alonso
Price: $2.25 US/$3.50 CAN |
I read JMS's first issue of Amazing Spider-Man, but lost track of the title somewhere amid the demise of Fandom.com, my acceptance of a new job and a move to another city and province. I didn't expect to connect much with the material three months later, but to my surprise, the story was powerful and fairly accessible.
Spider-Man is being relentlessly pursued by Morlun, and he turns to Ezekiel, the tycoon with similar spider powers, for help. Ezekiel, believing it to be a lost cause, turns him down, leaving him with the unenviable prospect of having his "spider-totem" life-force drained by the parasitic monster. Morlun draws him out of hiding by threatening innocents, and resolved that his end is near, Spider-Man pledges to go down fighting.
Romita's art steals the show here. He conveys the ferocity of the ongoing Spidey/Morlun battle, the hero's fatigue and the villain's unfeeling attitude perfectly. We've seen Spider-Man in a hundred do-or-die battles before, believing each was his last. But it's the depiction of this particular one that really sets it apart from the others.
So Morlun's an amalgam of the most potent forms of life on the planet, animal and vegetable? And he wants to absorb Peter Parker's "spider totem" powers? It's a bit much to swallow, but the emphasis isn't on the plot, but the conflict, and as a result, the story works. Ezekiel is something of a mirror image of the title character, and when he declines the call for help, it's as though Peter is letting himself down.
Straczynski's script does an excellent job of reinforcing the intensity of what's going on as presented in the art. Peter's desperation comes shining through. Though the idea of being pursued by a murderer is foreign to most of us, the idea of just wanting to lie down and rest, to give up, is something to which we all can relate, as is whatever we need to think or do to keep going when we've reached the end of our rope.
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