The Sensational Spider-Man #32

Released: November 30, 2006

Publisher: Marvel

Writer: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

Pencils: Sean Chen

Cover: Clayton Crain

 

A lot has happened to Spider-Man in a short amount of time: he’s died and been reborn, he’s gotten a new Iron Spidey suit, he’s unmasked, and now, he’s lost the Iron Spidey suit and joined the Anti-Registration rebellion. Amazing Spider-Man, as the parent title, has been jumping from main plot line to main plot line with little in the way of normal Spider-man tales in-between. Room thus opened up for two more titles, this one and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and both have had a hard time of telling the typical Spidey stories (one’s dark and the other’s Saturday Morning Cartoon) while jumping through hoops to stay in continuity. Once J. Michael Straczynski isn’t forced to tell tie-in stories, the three Spidey titles might become overexposure (three has tended to be the uber-limit when it comes to solo-superheroes).

 

As it stands, Aguirre-Sacasa is left still working with the ‘Spider-Man Unmasked’ banner, and rightly he should too since it is such a big deal. The problem is that we’ve supposedly had a large shift in time from the last issue to this one (Spidey’s gone rogue and ditched the Iron Spidey suit in favor of his classic duds), and there isn’t a summary page to explain it all. It just assumes you’ve kept up with the Civil War, which is a bad assumption to make since this book was intended to stand on its own, only acknowledging those large changes in status that affect Spidey. So not recapping the past events of Civil War will undoubtedly leave some readers in the dark.

 

This is a shame really since the story itself is a good one. This is a Mary Jane issue, similar to the one Reginald Hudlin did during the Other series, but you know, good. Mary Jane is now being asked to go through a lot of suffering for her husband and the entire issue is set on giving her motivation and reason for doing so, a point that needed to be addressed.

 

MJ talks to Sue Storm, who gives a good speech to talk some strength into the girl, and goes about her day thinking on the topic. She comes to the conclusion we all wanted: she choose to stand by him through it all and she’ll have the heart to continue doing so. It’s told through a mix of momentous flashbacks and dream sequences that Aguirre-Sacasa mixes well to create a nice narrative and emotional flow. It really works, which is why it’s even more unfortunate that some readers will pick this up and be utterly confused as to what has happened.

 

At the end of the comic, MJ finds Spidey broken and hurt in Aunt May’s arms but it’s unclear how he got that way. Is it a continuity glitch referring to the scene in Civil War 5 or is it referring to the two panels of Spidey fighting the Rhino? Obviously, we’ll find out next month but in any event: the continuity glitch would be extremely counterproductive after taking the time to flesh out MJ’s feelings about the Civil War and the Rhino would be ridiculous since it was earlier alluded to as a fight Spidey could get through easily.

 

Sean Chen has fill-in duties since both Medina and Crain need the extra time. Chen is obviously the artist (and named on the cover) but the inside credits still name Medina, which implies that he was supposed to draw it but had to let Chen step in to keep the book on schedule. This is a one-shot type of story that, while leading into another, is self-contained enough to work with a third artist. Crain’s cover art is gorgeous as usual, showing off his progress in drawing more fluid looking people.

 

Sadly, this is a good comic marred by a bad editing decision to leave out a synopsis of the past events. It can’t be helped—it suffers as a product for it. Aguirre-Sacasa isn’t ignoring the event, he’s specifically addressing it, and so a little helpful information to explain his story must be there to keep the reader from having to buy Civil War #5 as well.

 

Rating - 6