Mysterio's Deception Was Also A Deception By Mysterio
In one fell swoop, The Amazing Spider-Man #73 rewrote gigantic chunks of Spider-Man continuity, instantly making it one of the most controversial single issues to be released this year. There's a lot in there, and while it has delighted some, it has also confused and frustrated many others, who thought it was a little bit much to invoke that much Spider-Man backstory this close to the end of Nick Spencer's run on Amazing. Some would say it's pretty bad to spend the majority of your time trying to relitigate one bad story from the past, instead of doing anything new or worthwhile. These are the people that will also tell you that they have been reading comics for about what, ten years now, and in that time there have only been two writers doing the main Spider-Man comic, and both of them have been terrible, so at this point the sane option is to just wait it out, since Spencer will go away in the near future.
But worry not, confused and frustrated comic-book reading audience, because, as always, HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS is here to help. We've compiled a pretty breezy reading list, that will give you the full ins and outs of The Amazing Spider-Man #73, so that you can appreciate the twists and turns with their full historical context.
LIFETHEFT/PURSUIT
The debt Nick Spencer's run on The Amazing Spider-Man owes to J.M. DeMatteis' work of the 1990s, both on Amazing and on The Spectacular Spider-Man is massive, but its most pivotal events to understand last week's issue happen a short-while before that, when Mark Bagley and David Micheline drop the massive revelation that Peter Parker's recently resurfaced parents were in fact life-model decoys built by the Chameleon. Pursuit, which happens right after, reveals that the Green Goblin, Harry Osborn, was the mastermind behind it all, as revenge for the death of his father Norman. These two stories are cult classics, and they're the groundwork Spencer built his massive reveals on.
SPIDER-MAN: LEGACY OF EVIL
This 1996 Kurt Busiek one-shot fills out the backstory of Harry and Norman Osborn, building off of the reveals in Pursuit, and provides essential context for the motivations of each character in the stories that would follow, including the ever-controversial Sins Past, and all the way to Sinister War. It's also a very moody, almost gothic kind of story, which is exactly the kind of melodrama Spencer has been going for in the last three years.
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
You can't really understand Spider-Man if you don't understand all the context surrounding him, and Charles Dickens' grand novel of the French Revolution is absolutely required reading; admittedly, the references here are not as showy, but if you know, you know. You can't really understand why Carlie Cooper acts in the way she acts if you don't have the backstory that Lucie Manette provides.
THE OWNER'S MANUAL FOR THE 1998 MAZDA MIATA
It is a well-known fact that Harry Osborn drove a Mazda Miata for a large stretch of the 1990s, and as such, understanding the ins and outs of the Mazda Miata, especially the particulars of its interior when compared to the earlier models, is essential to get into the mindset of the mastermind of Peter Parker's misery. One can only imagine that Harry's struggle with the defogger on the rear window may have driven him to that all-too painful murderous madness; one can also imagine that the redemption he eventually found was inspired by the Miata's anti-lock breaking system.
BATMAN'S JUNIOR JUMBLE!
I know it might seem like a stretch. On paper (or, as the case may be, the cardboard back of a cereal box), the Batman Junior Jumble, a simple word search game featuring the words "BATARANG", "ROBIN", "CAPE" and "RIDDLER", might have absolutely nothing to do with Spider-Man. It is, nonetheless, essential reading, and Nick Spencer has been dead set on referencing it any chance he has. You can't understand Sinister War if you don't keep in mind the events that play out across this game. It's very important, and you need to have read it all.
With all that context in mind, you'll be more than ready to enjoy all the twists and turns of The Amazing Spider-Man #73. I don't know why you would, it's not a very good comic, but hey! Now you know.
HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS: MORE LIKE "SINS PISSED"
By the end of Watchmen #12, Rorschach, also known as Walter Kovacs, dies. It's a grim bit of chosen inevitability, as one person dies in order to protect a conspiracy that just killed millions more. Nothing else matters as much as this when telling that story. It all dies then and there, brushed aside in a flick of the wrist that leaves nothing but a smear of blood on the snow. I've seen many people wonder why Rorschach #12, and the eleven issues that precede it, take place in the same universe as that story. Well, it has a conspiracy, it has people getting murdered in the name of that conspiracy, and it's got one man who knows too much standing in the way. The point is that you know how the story goes, that by attaching itself to a text as indelible as Watchmen, Rorschach can create assumptions and expectations, and in turn, twist those assumptions and expectation as it tells a story about the assumptions and the expectations of the narratives that govern our world. It's a narrative about narratives, it's a comic about comics, and it has been from day one.
That's nothing new, but it all comes to a head in this final issue, as our detective faces the man at the top of the pyramid, and in the process finds himself across the man in blue that would kill to guard his secrets. From what happens in Rorschach #11, you know that a violent confrontation is all but inevitable. The Detective looked through a comic book writer's fiction and found something in there that was real enough to steel his resolve. But does that make him Rorschach? No, and here we have the issue's biggest twist, set up through eleven issues of non-linear storytelling, and delivered with a well-placed symbolic shape. Once more, Rorschach returns to Watchmen's nine-panel grid with deadly purpose. Zooming on the Detective's tape recorder, it centers one circle and two dots, in the shape of an hydrogen atom. Having experienced the story of Cummings and Myerson forward and backwards, inside and outside of time, the would-be-Rorschach became the would-be-Dr. Manhattan, his executioner. On the spread after, we return to the first double-page spread in issue #1, two bodies lying in pools of their own blood, once more signed by the atom. On the page after, we see the swing of a bathroom door and a bloody badge. To us, this is all fiction, small nods to the most celebrated comic of our time; but in Rorschach, set in a universe where Watchmen has happened, that fiction is absolute truth, and those events exist in symmetry.
There is fiction within truth, and truth within fiction, then. That's life, that's existence, and the real question is: what do we do about it? The Detective acted on it, did what he believed was right, and then, at thirty-five past midnight, he went to see a pirate movie. It's an escape into fiction that is more true, more honest, than the truth he just faced. As the series finishes, he's bathed in blue light, familiar shadows draped over his face. He is the Detective. He is Rorschach. He is Doctor Manhattan. He is something more, and so are we. There's no easy answer, but there is the answer you provide. Is that good? I don't know, you tell me. At the end of the day, that's all I have.
In short: it's a stand-out issue of a stand-out series. Tom King's script is maybe the most empathetic thing he's ever written, while Jorge Fornes and Dave Stewart have consistently impressed with their mastery over time, space, symbolism and mood. Reading it, and reading past it to make these reviews has been one of the most rewarding experiences I've had all year, and I'm so fucking glad I got to have it alongside you. Now we just have to keep going.
I loved Kieron Gillen, Esad Ribic and Matthew Wilson's Eternals from the start, but it's not until this week, and the release of Eternals: Thanos Rising, that I was able to put together the exact whys and hows of it all. Operating in a similar way as the specials in The Wicked and the Divine, it returns to the past so as to inform the future, and it showcases the work of one of comics' greatest artists, Dustin Weaver, whose art style fuses the sheer bombast of the grand cosmic Marvel work of Jack Kirby and Walt Simonson with the kind of demanding formalism of the more modern script-first comics. There's giant robot dinosaurs, yes, but its layouts are very purposeful, especially in their use of symmetry and repetition, to make the many horrors of its script land as hard and as violently as they do.
It's the story of Thanos, told from the point of view of the Eternals, putting together the many versions of the story that are out there. It is as horrible as you expect, full of sadness and violence and melancholia. But the most interesting part of that comic, to me, is to watch Kieron Gillen do what he does best, which is critique. In looking closely at the most consequential sin of the Eternals, as well as the schism and the war that brought it about, and in shining a spotlight on the many ways in which their systems fail and threaten everything, he arrives at the fascinating existential angst beneath Eternal society, and from that he mines some of the greatest drama you'll see in a comic all year. It's going to hurt, in a great way, and I want to be there for every moment of it.
I gotta ask: did this make sense to anyone? Please tell me, however you can. I don't know that I'm gonna be able to do anything about it, but, I'd like to know. Anyway, we're done for the week! Good job everyone! Have fun, tell your friends about this, subscribe, and then come back next week! And while you're at it, hey, HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS!