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Amazing Spider-Man #2 Review: And Now … The Spider-Boat!

By D. Goodman

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Amazing Spider-Man #2
Written by Dan Slott
Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Cam Smith
Colored by Marte Gracia
Published by Marvel Comics

In issue #1 of the All-New, All-Different Amazing Spider-Man, readers saw that in the eight months since the Secret Wars came to an end, Peter Parker has been a very busy super hero. Parker Industries has grown to be a Fortune 500 company with offices all over the globe, Parker is designing tech for S.H.I.E.L.D. now, and Spider-Man is now publicly seen as Peter Parker’s bodyguard.

All in all, it’s a great time to be Spider-Man. It would appear that the infamous “Parker Luck” may be in hibernation, and Peter is happier than ever.

So why does it feel like it’s all going to come crashing down?

Maybe I’ve just been reading comics too long, but it seems like writer Dan Slott is going to an awful lot of trouble to convince everyone that Peter has moved into the next phase of his life, one filled with money, funny quips and lots of global adventures.

In a way, I completely understand the reasoning for this. With Miles Morales getting his own Spider-Man title at some point down the road, he will be taking on the role in the Marvel Universe that Parker once filled. Miles will be dealing with the trials and tribulations of being a super hero, a school student and an awkward teenager in New York in much the same way Peter did for many, many years. So making the Amazing Spider-Man series as tonally different as possible from that is the right thing to do. Peter needed a whole new direction, and this is a natural progression of what Slott had been doing since before the relaunch.

It just feels like Slott’s trying a bit too hard to convince us.

Amazing Spider-Man #2 is just as good as #1, and in some places is even better. Seeing Spider-Man with access to all this great tech is a lot of fun, and the fact he now has a Spider-Boat is just hysterical. The banter between him and Hobie Brown, a.k.a. the Prowler, reminds me of the classic issues of Marvel Team-Up I read as a kid, and it’s always great to see Peter actually having fun as Spider-Man and not constantly wracked with guilt..

The art by Giuseppe Camuncoli also continues to improve, as he seems to be getting more and more familiar with this high tech version of Spider-Man. As I said in my review of issue #1, his style doesn’t seem like a natural fit for someone like the Web-Swinger, but he seems intent on proving me wrong. Amazing Spider-Man #2 features a number of awesome double-page spreads and great smaller moments that show he has a solid grasp on the character, while visually moving him into the spotlight instead of in the shadows where Spider-Man has functioned for most of his career.

It’s just that my Spider-Sense is telling me none of this is going to last. At some point it’s all going blow up in Spider-Man’s face and the good times will be over, which will be a real crime.

The Bottom Line: Amazing Spider-Man #2 continues to entertain readers with a hero headed in a new direction, with new goals and new reasons for doing what he does. Slott and Camuncoli keep proving why they are one of the best Amazing Spider-Man creative teams in recent memory and will hopefully be doing so for years to come.

I just hope at some point, we aren’t looking back and saying, “Remember when Amazing Spider-Man was full of hope and jokes and showed Spider-Man at the top of his game? Because it sure is depressing to read right now.”

Next: Amazing Spider-Man #1 Review

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