Marvel’s flagship comic, The Amazing Spider-Man, has been around for over half a century and continues to be the driving force behind movies, video games, and cartoons. However, despite the abundance of excellent stories about the beloved hero, there are still bad ones that make readers wonder how they ever got here. For example, the recent Dark Web arc, which just ended at the beginning of this year, sees the clone of Peter Parker, Ben Reilly, teaming up with Madelyne Pryor, the Goblin Queen of Limbo, to pressure Peter into giving up his memories.
What’s ironic is that Dark Web is meant to be beginner-friendly. But it’s far from a low point in Spider-Man comics, and it’s actually the best they’ve been in a while. Writer Zeb Wells delivers witty and breezy scripts, while returning artist John Romita Jr.’s boxy style and blue-collar aesthetic are well-suited to grounded Spider-Man comics. That’s always been the appeal of Spider-Man: the everyman hero who finds a way to grin and bear it, even when nothing works out.
The problem with The Amazing Spider-Man is that Marvel doesn’t know who its flagship Spidey title is for. For much of the last decade, Marvel has had no sense of who its audience is, and The Amazing Spider-Man has become comics as a tautological exercise. The series’ fixation on its own incredibly messy history with stories that continually revisit the character’s most controversial moments (clones, symbiotes, etc.) is a testament to this.
Marvel has periodically announced that Spider-Man will be going “back to basics” multiple times, only to inevitably end up where they started. The reason is arguably that The Amazing Spider-Man, despite being the main series about a relatable hero, hasn’t been interested in relating to anyone in a long time.
Recent comics such as Chip Zdarsky’s Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man and Tom Taylor and Juann Cabal’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man have addressed this by creating throwback series that focus on why Spider-Man matters and his alter ego as a member of a community. These are comics that can be given to people who are curious from movies or cartoons about Spider-Man and are hungry for more adventures.
Overall, while there are good stories about Spider-Man, Marvel still doesn’t know what to do with its most popular hero in its flagship comic, The Amazing Spider-Man. Instead of catering to its fans, Marvel seems to be focused on maintaining the brand, resulting in a listless series that is continually kept from forming a beating heart.
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