REVIEW: ‘Amazing Spider-Man,’ Issue #90

Amazing Spider-Man #90 is written by Patrick Gleason,  penciled by Mark Bagley, inked by Andrew Hennessy, John Dell, Andy Owens, Wayne Faucher & Victor Ozabala, colored by Bryan Valenza, Dijjo Lima & Andrew Crossley, and lettered by VC’s Joe Caramagna.  It’s published by Marvel Comics. After weeks of recuperating and retraining, Peter Parker has finally put his webs back on and is Spider-Man once again. However, he faces one of his deadliest enemies yet in the form of Queen Goblin – and to make matters worse, Ben Reilly is nowhere to be found.

Gleason had previously written the script to Amazing Spider-Man #83, which took a horror-tinged trip into Peter’s mind. Now, he writes a more traditional Spidey tale, complete with all the web-slinging action and quips you’d come to expect. In one of the funniest bits of the issue, Spidey points out that one of the X-Men’s foes bears the name “Goblin Queen”. And on the serious side, there’s another dive into Peter’s mind when the Queen Goblin unleashes her “Goblin Gaze” on him, attempting to drown him in his own self guilt – not realizing that he’s fought said self doubt nearly every day of his life. Gleason’s already proven himself to be a great artist, but he’s also a great writer as well and I hope Marvel taps him to write more titles, Spider-related or otherwise.

Where the issue stumbles is its art. On the penciling side, Bagley remains one of the best artists to ever draw the web-head. The issue is one lengthy action sequence, featuring Peter and the Queen Goblin crashing through buildings and sailing over the sea. Caramagna makes the action scenes pop with his sound effects; a “FWANG” sound is heard when Peter crashes into a street light and a “CHOOM” when he crashes into the side of a bus. And every so often, the action will cut to Ben and his girlfriend Janine as they swing above the streets of New York. The final page is worth the cover price alone.

However, the army of inkers and colorists end up diluting the art. Lima, Valenza and Crossley have all done spectacular color art on previous Marvel books; here, their respective color art ends up having a muted tone instead of the bright and vibrant colors readers have come to expect from a Spider-Man book. The same goes for the inkers; while some images feel bold and eye-grabbing, others feel like they were rushing to complete the book at the last second. I don’t know if it was a fill in job or if Bagley constantly needs this many artists to provide finishes on his art, but the final product is suffering for it.

Amazing Spider-Man #90 puts Peter Parker back in the webs as he faces off against the Queen Goblin, with Patrick Gleason’s script making up for scattershot art. With three issues left in the Beyond Saga, I look forward to seeing how Peter and Ben take down the Queen Goblin and which Spider-Man we’ll be following in the aftermath.

Amazing Spider-Man #90 is available wherever comics are sold.