SuperSearnold - Comic Book Reviews

Greetings from your friendly neighborhood Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld]. Welcome to my comic book review blog – thanks for tuning in. Today is Monday, October 13th, 2008.

Today’s Issue:
Brand New Day Week comes to a triumphant close with Amazing Spider-Man #564. This issue technically marks the end of Brand New Day. I mean technically in the sense that after this issue, “Brand New Day” is no longer printed of the cover of every issue of Amazing Spider-Man. So for now, I’m going to take a break from Spidey. I think that perhaps one of the reasons I found yesterday’s comic book so perfectly average was because of how inundated I have become with Brand New Day. So I am officially declaring an end to Brand New Day Week and taking a break from Spider-Man. But don’t worry – I’ll be back soon for Kraven’s First Hunt and New Ways To Die. Until then, onto Amazing Spider-Man #564, which has an interesting creative team - 3/4 of Spidey’s Braintrust got to give a crack at this script. Marc Guggenheim (Brothers & Sisters, Young X-Men) wrote the first 8 pages. Bob Gale (Back to the Future, Batman) wrote pages 9-15. And Dan Slott (She-Hulk, Avengers Initiative) finishes us off on pages 16-23. The pencils were all by Paulo Siqueira (Birds of Prey, Ms. Marvel). This issue was published by Marvel in July, 2008.

Premise:
Spidey must stop Overdrive from making a delivery to Mister Negative. Meanwhile, there is tension between Peter Parker and his new roommate – Vin Gonzales – who hates Spider-Man and just found out that Pete lost his job.

Awesome Parts:
There were some great perspective shifts in this issue. We saw everything from Peter’s perspective first, then got the story from Vin’s POV, and finished it off with Overdrive telling his version of the events. They did a good job of making sure we got new information (especially new character reveals) each time the story was told - so it didn’t get old and stale like last week’s bread. Also, I like that they brought Mister Negative back. I think they’re doing a good job with these new villains of spacing them out, so we know they are still out there operating, but we don’t get sick of them appearing every single week. There was a great Back to the Future reference – ironically enough NOT on one of the pages written by Gale. Finally, I’d like to note that the braintrust has this working together thing down pat. The voice and tone of the book was completely consistent - no matter whose pages you were reading.

The Un-Awesome Parts:
On a negative note, all three authors sound identical. I was really hoping that I’d be able to tell when the writer had changed because each creator would put their own personal voice and touch to the story. But alas, it felt like a book composed by a single author. I also did not like Vin Gonzales – he was being kind of a jerk in this issue. I think there are great stories to be told with Peter rooming with a guy who hates Spider-Man (and who happens to be a cop, too.) But Vin doesn’t need to be an antagonist for those stories to be good. In fact, I think they’d be better if we sympathized with him and his perspective about Spider-Man. So I don’t like that he was being a jerk. Oh yeah – and remember a few days ago when I told you that you really didn’t need to read Swing Shift (the Free Comic Book Day 2007 Spider-Man story) in order to follow Brand New Day? Well… that’s no longer true. This story wasn’t told so poorly that Amazing #564 can’t stand without Swing Shift, but it certainly builds directly off the events that occurred last year.

My Recommendation:
What I like about this issue is that it’s a single story that encapsulates the new world of Peter Parker in a single issue. I recommend this issue for those who have been curious about what Peter’s post One More Day life is like. It will give you a glimpse into One More Day without committing you to a multi-issue story. Then, if you like what you see, you can go back and see exactly how Peter got to this point in his life.

That’s all for today - and for Brand New Day. Tomorrow I’ll have a special treat for you – a brand new comic drawn by SCCG’s fearless leader, Jason Dube. As always - thanks for reading - see you next time.
-Searnold

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