The Good:  The main story is pretty well done, mostly because it is nice to see one of Spider-man’ classic villains, Electro, back in the pages of Amazing Spider-man.  The Spider-stories of late seem to really be playing up the public hating Spider-man, especially since Dark Reign began.  I like this for now, however, I would not mind seeing this turn at least a little sometime in the future, maybe after Dark Reign ends.  I also like the modern take on the story, as the economy and large corporations getting bailed out by the government is a hot button topic, and is most certainly enough to get people enraged nowadays.  Normally I have a little bit of a problem with known super-villains being able to rally the crowds on their side, but if you read the news and blogs today people are certainly crazy enough over this kind of thing to side with a villain that is standing up for them against the big corporations.  The backup story was good for the most part and seems to be setting up an interesting story with Black Cat, who one of my favorite characters.  I would have probably enjoyed it more if not for the art.

The Bad:  There are two general things that I had a problem with in this issue.  The first was the buildup over the past months to The Gauntlet storyline, which was presumably to have to do with Kraven’s family.  Heck, they are even a large focus of the summary page in the beginning, but this book has nothing to do with them at all.  They are not even mentioned once in the story.  I suppose since this is the first issue of a longer storyline that they will probably be incorporated into it over the next couple of issues, but I was a little disappointed since I’ve been looking forward to seeing what the Kravens have in store for Spider-man.  The second problem I had was with the art.  The art for the main story was not that bad, but it’s still that kind of “sloppy” style that I’m not that crazy for.  This was not terrible in the main story and I actually liked the more classic take on Spider-man, however, the art for the backup Black Cat story was absolutely terrible.  Not only can you barely tell who people are, you can barely tell that they are people.  I guess some people like this kind of artwork, but I can not see how anyone would like this art style for a Spider-man story.  Heck, Black Cats costume is not even drawn correctly!  I’m not one who often lets the art take away from my enjoyment of a story, but it was so bad in the backup story, that it actually distracted me from enjoying the story.  Very disappointed in the art the past couple of issues of Amazing Spider-man.

My rating: 3.25/5

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