Title: Amazing Spider-Man #18.HU
Writer: Nick Spencer
Artist: Ken Lashley
Full disclosure, I totally expected to write this week’s pick on War of the Realms #1. With me currently binge-reading Jason Aaron’s run on Thor in preparation for the event along with playing the hell out of the latest God of War on PS4, Asgard has been on my mind. The first issue of the event was amazing!
And then I read Amazing Spider-Man #18.HU…
This issue just broke my heart!
You’ve probably noticed the strange numbering for this issue. I’ll explain as best as I can. The Amazing Spider-Man series is in the midst of a storyline called “The Hunted.” Classic Spidey foe, Kraven the Hunter has abducted many animal-themed villains along with Spider-Man since the beginning of Nick Spencer’s run. His ultimate goal was to provide basically the top 1% a chance to become hunters by offering them a chance to control specially designed cyborgs and hunt down said characters cordoned off Central Park. These issues with the “.HU” follower serve as focus issues on some of the side characters involved with The Hunted.
The focus of this issue is Spider-Man C-lister villain the Gibbon. However, after having read this issue, Gibbon was just dealt a sh*tty hand his whole life. Throughout his life, Gibbon was only trying to deal with the unfortunate circumstances, from his deformed visage to just wanting to be understood. Without getting ‘spoilery,’ the ending just pulled at my heartstrings. They say that the sign of a good comics writer is being able to take these lesser known characters and make magic out of them. Nick Spencer has shown an ability to do just this throughout his Marvel career, as evidenced in his Superior Foes of Spider-Man miniseries. He may be the only writer who has truly almost made me shed a tear for a barely known Spidey-villain.
If I wanted to be super spoilery, I would have posted the final page of the issue to show you just how good Ken Lashley’s art was. But I’ll spare you. This book surprised the hell out of me this week and I highly recommend getting this issue now!
Marvin Capistrano is a big fan of comics and provides occasional insights on choice comic book picks.
Images are property and © Marvel. They are solely used for review purposes only.
The Everydaynerdpodcast 