The thought that came racing in my head while I was reading this:

‘Has Brian Reed done Amazing Spider-Man before? If he hasnt….can he write it now?’

I was pleasantly surprised (and shocked) on how well written this was. Especially considering how Spider-Man is barely in this. I could go into how much false advertising it is….Seriously I know Spider-Man on the title will sell more copies but if he is only used as the recap page then call it ‘SI: Spider-Man’s friends’ or something…

Anyways this was very good. Brian Reed has a knack of humor and there is a lot of that going on. From great narration boxes introducing the character, to diaologue between the DB staff, to just a great use of Jackpot (more on her in a second). This felt like watching a Saturday morning character, just a ton of action and some one-liners thrown in. It’s amazing how in this one story (which again another mini which didnt need to be 3 issues) actually has done a better job using the new status quo then practically 99% of the brain trust on ASM. While on the other side of this we get the ASM Annual #3 (why? probably just cause they had no room for this other Jackpot story to collect) by Marc Guggenheim. It does an alright job explaining just who or what Jackpot is and here’s the problem with that. They took way to long to address it and the payoff no matter how good it could be….just falls flat. If they did this reveal like 5-6 months ago, this might’ve been rated better.

The art on both fronts I like, the SI mini by Marco Santucci and the Annual by Mike Mckone. Santucci seems to like playing around with the backgrounds or panel layouts; especially one seqence to show the characters running down a flight of stairs. McKone on the other looks almost exactely the same as Santucci…giving a couple more minor details…in fact McKone seems to be used more for more quieter moments then a faster, kinetic pace. I know McKone has done ASM afterwards but I hope maybe when this entire rotation of creative teams is done….maybe we can just has McKone, or Santucci, or Bachelo (wild card) stay on as permanent artist(s).

So yeah it is quite shocking but this was a good mini. Again it probably shouldnt be 3 full issues (nor another $16 purchase) but Reed definitely made me like Spider-Man again. We got the brain trust boring me to tears on one side, and Bendis causing me to spit out venom on the other side…It’s nice to know that there are seperate writers who know how to keep Spider-Man and his friends interesting.

As seperate stories: SI mini gets a 4/4 and the annual gets a 3/4.

(Oh and slow clap for Guggenheim who actually made a pretty interesting new villain for Spidey: ‘Blindspot’)