Whatever a Spider Can’s Amazing Spider-Man: Learning to Crawl #1.3 review

Amazing Spider-Man: Learning to Crawl has been a fairly decent revisit to Spider-Man’s origin, albeit slightly pointless. We’ve seen Spider-Man deal with his transition from celebrity to hero and we’ve seen Clayton Cole develop as a petulant teenage villain. In Amazing Spider-Man #1.3 the pair come face to face again and this time it has personal consequences for Peter. Check out the recap here!

That’s right, Peter Parker’s relationship with Aunt May is on the mend after a brief misunderstanding that saw her accusing Peter of making and selling drugs. Once that situation had been sorted Aunt May and Peter’s relationship was made even stronger, thanks, in part, to his acquisition of money after taking a picture of the Vulture.

However in a clever piece of writing whilst Peter and Aunt May’s relationship is going from strength to strength it seems that Aunt May’s relationship with Spider-Man seems to be irreparably ruined. It’s an interesting dilemma for Peter by putting him in a situation where the one person closest to him absolutely despises his alter-ego. Essentially, it’s a good way to really drive home the consequences of being Spider-Man, which is the central point of this entire mini-series.

One of the major plot devices of this seems to be the constant contrast and juxtaposition between Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Clayton Cole/Clash. It’s becoming abundantly clear that Clayton is essentially the opposite of Peter, he’s a kind of anti-Peter Parker/Spider-Man as it were. He never had the defining moment of having his parents leave and his uncle die as a direct consequence of his actions, therefore he’s heading down a path that Peter very easily could have traversed himself.

I’ve really liked how Clayton has developed and evolve throughout this mini-series. In issue #1 he was on the same level as Peter Parker and was a fairly sympathetic character. However as time has gone on he has become more entitled, more petty, more jealous and more arrogant as he transforms from admiring fan to bitter rival/adversary. In this issue he even got the typical villain origin moment where they declare their undying hatred for the hero.

I will say that for a comic exploring Peter Parker’s transformation from arrogant, superpowered teenager to humble underdog hero the storyline has been fairly light on the moments involving Peter Parker experiencing life-changing epiphanies and learning tough lessons. Instead he’s been gallivanting around with new friends and easily covering up his Spidey antics. I fully expect this to be the calm before the storm though as Clayton continues his transformation to fully fledged villain and Spidey continues to become a selfless hero.

Check out Whatever a Spider Can’s other Spidey comic book recaps and reviews
Amazing Spider-Man #1 recap, and review
Amazing Spider-Man #2 recap, and review
Amazing Spider-Man: Learning to Crawl #1.1 recap, and review
Amazing Spider-Man: Learning to Crawl #1.2 recap, and review
Amazing Spider-Man: Learning to Crawl #1.3 recap

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