AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #639

The questions have been haunting readers throughout Spider-Man’s Brand New Day and now the answers are here in four double-sized issues! What really happened at the wedding of Spider-Man and Mary Jane? What does Mary Jane know about Spider-Man today? How did ONE MORE DAY affect the Marvel U? Joe Quesada and Paolo Rivera are here to pull back the curtain and fill in every blank…but the answers may come at a cost to all that Peter Parker loves. This 4-part arc will hold answers, resolutions, and set up the course of Spider-Man’s life for years to come…

…and all will be revealed with a whisper.

And in Part 2, it’s Mary Jane’s turn to come clean. What secrets has she been keeping? And who REALLY saved Aunt May? You may think you know the answer, but you’re about to find out the truth!

WRITER: Joe Quesada & Stan Lee
PENCILS: Joe Quesada, Paolo Rivera & Marcos Martin
COVER BY: Paolo Rivera

Price: $3.99
iFanboy Community Pick of the Week Percentage: 0.4%

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  1. On the topic of Dan Slott writing Amazing Spider-Man:

    Dan Slott has been the best ASM writer all along.  Looks at his accomplishments: 

    1. Introduced Mr. Negative 2. Paper Doll 3. Screw Ball 4. New Ways To Die Epic featuring battles with Bullseye, etc. 5. Anti-Venom 6. Molten Man arc 7. Fantastic Four excellent 2 issue arc that made JJJ into mayor 8. ASM 600 Featuring Doc Ock 9. Mysterio/Mr. Negative arc 10. Osborn battle in ASM The List 11. Introduced Overdrive & The Booker 12. Spider-Man Human Torch 13. Shattered Dimensions (upcoming)

    His accomplishments in ASM far outweigh those of the other writers, though the others were at times excellent as well.  They absolutely picked the best writer of ASM to stay on.  He has the most potential and consistently best ideas for ASM to continue to be the writer.  You need the top quality man for the right comic, and in this case Dan Slott is it.  The facts and quality of the stories point to the right man.

    I posted this elsewhere, but it fits well here in the ASM section.

    As for OMIT #1, I liked it.  Looking forward to where it leads.

  2. @KickAss.

    You are not wrong. I don’t think having a commity write a solo book was working, and Dan Slott was one of the best. His arcs have been among my favourites. That being said if Wacker wanted to give Joe Kelly and Max Fiamara (spelling?) an ongoing like Peter Parker: Spider-man or something that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

    I’m just looking forward to one writer, this one focus. The stories should flow better one to the next. I was getting tired of Peter and his interests changing from week to week.

    As for OMIT #1, I didn’t like it. I thought the mix of old and new was good, but it made me want a Peter and MJ reunion more than ever. Can you imagine any other story where the devil stealing your love form you would be acceptable. It’s time for the happy ending surely. Scott Pilgram would not stand for this – fight for your love dammit!

  3. @kickass I’m all for Slott writing ASM but I would rather they kept on Joe Kelly as well as Zeb Wells and keep them rotating. I think they all helped each other a lot and that helped the book and it’s direction.

  4. I still haven’t decided if I l liked OMIT #1 or not, but I do think it’s a good palate cleanser after the gauntlet and grim hunt.  I kinda like that they’re slowing it down for a couple issues before the next big arc starts up. 

  5. I didn’t get into Amazing Spider-man until 568 with the "New Ways to Die" arc,,,I missed all the BND stuff…I’m skipping this until they start a new arc with 640…dont care  for Joe Quesada as a artist or writer

  6. Personally I would rather have had Joe Kelly….Slott has been good but I think that the Anti-Venom, the Molten Man arc, and some of the Mr. Negative stuff was some of the weaker parts of BND….but the other things mentioned were pretty solid.  I am glad that it will be one writer and I think it will help to make ASM more consistant.

    As for OMIT, I really don’t see how anyone could have liked the story…..Spider-man missed his wedding cause a fat guy fell on him….I mean it was like they did that intentionally just to piss off everyone who already hated OMD/BND. 

     

  7. I actually thought that the first issue of OMIT presented a novel idea for telling a flashback, as they’re paying tribute to the Annual in which Peter and Mary Jane got married, but changed one little detail in it and that changed the whole course of events. Not too sure how this issue is going to pan out, however. I don’t really know what to expect.

  8. OMIT #1 really felt like a starter.  It’s up to #2-4 to really see how the story will turn out.

  9. @cubman,

    You’re right, they could have done so many different things for why Peter missed the wedding. There are a hundred examples of Peter being in worse situations and swinging off with a joke. I don’t think JQ even tried. He has an agenda, I think it blinds him sometimes.

  10. Mary Jane is like Kirsten Dunst for me. I just don’t see the appeal. I would’ve preferred they divorce or she die rather then a deal with the devil, but a separation, however it was come by, was desperately needed. She was dead weight, and added nothing to the last 8 or so years of Spider-Man stories I had read.

  11. @Otto 

    How much of the JMS run did you read? While he struggled with a lot of the powers and super hero stuff, his May and MJ were some of the best iterations of them ever written. If anything, MJ might have been too big a part of the story, but she was never dead weight. And with the wonderful (Eisner-nominated) Spectacular Annual that Matt Fraction did, which featured the marriage front and center, I’d say that it’s pretty safe to say that it was just an editorial decision to have Peter be single. That’s one thing, and completely arguable from either side, but I don’t think it was the case that MJ had become an albatross around the neck of the franchise.  

  12. I initially thought OMIT #1 was pretty weak, but as time went on, I thought better of it.  A solid 3/5 book.  I think OMIT #2 is stronger, maybe because I have gotten used to the shifting art styles (with one exception).  This issue basically re-works the events of OMD to now account for the fact that MJ and Peter were never married.  Some of the dialog is a little clunky and perhaps overly dramatic.  On the whole, I found the issue very entertaining and interesting, and I am curious to see what happens next.  This gets a 4/5 from me.

    The problem I had with the art is related to the panel with MJ on the bench.  That was just really weird, and the scene would have worked better without it.  That said, my problem with it may have more to do with the dialog in that panel rather than the art itself, but the art definitely contributed to the awkwardness.   

  13. I just read OMIT#1 and it was ok, not too thrilled with the art though.  MaryJane just didn’t look like MaryJane and Peter looked weird.  I did like how they mixed in pages from Annual #21 in with the new stuff. 

    I haven’t been reading Spider-Man since Brand New Day started, but was intrigued with the ad’s for OMIT to give this story a shot.  Since I’m not sure she will appear in this can anyone tell me if Aunt May knows Peter’s secret again or not?  The JMS run was one of the few times I actually enjoyed reading Aunt May.  I’m usually hoping she will die and that was one of my biggest dissapointments about BND.  Is she back to the boring, frail, wheatcake making, Spider-Man hating, super villian marrying cliche she used to be?

  14. @Rebis02

    May doesn’t know….but she did get married to J. Johan Jameson.’s father so that’s different.

  15. @kndoubleu – Dead weight in the sense that it dragged the story, slowed it down, and made it less interesting (if given the choice between watching Peter fight with MJ or fight with the Rhino, I’ll have to go with Rhino). It was a lot of extraneous hand-wringing that I didn’t need to read. So many writers have used Mary Jane as a source of conflict for Peter, I was wondering why he stayed married at the end of it. The bad times easily outweighed any good the two might’ve enjoyed. It’s like she knew he was Spiderman when they got married, but was shocked when he kept being Spiderman after the wedding. 

    I read maybe the first…two years of JMS? The last plot point I remember was MJ on the set of Lobster Man and the young hip Otto Ock-wannabe, but maybe I read after that. I found JMS’ run pretty tedious. Howard Mackie had Pete-MJ tension in the years before that, same deal. She hated that Peter superheroed around, eventually left, her plane got blowed up, Hulk was blamed, Spiderman finally accepted she was dead, then he found out she wasn’t. Blah blah. I didn’t read the Fraction one-shot so I can’t really speak to that. I guess I’ve always preferred a little more daring-do and a little less marital angst with my Spiderman. If I want to read about tense marriages, I always have the Lockhorns. 

  16. I thought this was a fantastic issue

  17. What a stinker. Somebody stock Joe Q before he completely ruins all the good that has been coming from ASM since OMD.

  18. The good news: it wasn’t as bad as last issue!  The bad news:  it was still bad and really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

  19. I though this issue was superb. I had no idea of what to expect coming into this, but I was really pleasently surprised by this. Say what you will about how Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage ended (both OMD and the last issue), but this issue featured very relatable and human drama concerning the couple’s falling out. Everything felt real and relatable, and some of the panels ver very emotional. I’m even willing to bypass Joe Quesada’s craptacular art to say that this issue was a tremendous success. 5 stars.

  20. @comicbookchris I know it was really emotional for me

  21. @peterparker: Absolutely. We’ve all had that conversation with our loved ones that MJ and Peter had in this issue. Not so much about crime fighting, but about the future, about kids, about the relationship and where we’re going to take it. All the conversations and emotions rang true and felt real, as I’m sure if anyone here has ever had a serious relationship, we were in this exact situation.

  22. alright comicBOOKchris, you convinced me.  I’ll have to go back and reread it and give it a better chance

  23. @comicbookchris you know I gave it a reread and it dawned on me how personal a story this is for Joe Q. I mean hell Peter even looks like him!

  24. @Pete Yeah I was thinking the same thing. There has to be something personal about him making Peter look like himself.

    I think this is great but I didn’t read ASM until after all the BND OMD OMG WTF BBQ stuff.

  25. @onasunday I have and it really was an all time run, that being said I didn’t have a strong negative reaction to the marriage nullification

  26. I don’t think this story is "personal" to Joe Q as much as he’s doing stuff like draw Peter to look like him to piss off/run the OMD stuff in people who don’t like it’s face….otherwise he would have come up with something better than Peter misses the wedding cause a fat guy falls on him or MJ won’t marry Peter cause she wants kids so bad….but she’s willing spend the rest of her life with him and not have kids……its poor storytelling and I have to believe it is intentional with all of the time they have had to come up with something good for this storyline.

  27. +1, cubman.  +1.

  28. I really like this story, but for some reason, I’m not liking the Quesada portion of the art. I usually quite enjoy his artwork, but there’s something about ti that just is not connecting with me. I think he’s drawing peter too schlumpy. He looks a lot like he used to draw Foggy Nelson. 

  29. @cubman i am going to have to really strongly dis agree, i REALLY doubt the CCO of Marvel comics would set out just to piss readers off, and the missing the wedding is actually a pretty good solution, since pete was already late to the wedding in the original annual so that is a good way to get out of the wedding

  30. The EIC of Marvel comics intent was to sabotage his companys flagship comic? That’s about as asinine as "The government was behind 9/11".

  31. I was going along with the issue pretty good. OK, they broke up because of this and that – blah blah blah – I can get with that. OMIT should of ended right there, 2 issues max. But then the last couple pages were like umm…what? Wait…but what about…errr….? Then the last page was just stupid.

  32. I don’t think Joe Q’s goal is to "piss readers off" or "sabotage his company’s flagship comic", but he’s so intent on creating his idealized version of Spider-Man that he’s seemingly blind to a significant portion, maybe even a majority, of the readers not liking it, a good chunk of those not liking it to the point of dropping it. He’s clearly not taking the time to draw his portion of the art with the skill he used to demonstrate, back when he was only an artist, like on Daredevil, and the writing appears to have been done with very little thought to at least making it somewhat believable for the characters involved. Mary Jane is being written as a complete bitch, which she’s not, and has never been. There’s a way to tell this story that doesn’t compromise the integrity of the characters or undermine their history; OMIT is doing both.

  33. Are you kidding?  They have thrown in little jabs about OMD in ASM and in other books ever since it happened just to kind of rub it in your face a little bit, and from reading/listening and even talking to Joe Q briefly I absolutely believe he would intentionally do stuff like this to piss off his detractors.  He is so intent that his direction for Spider-man is the right one that I think he gets a little juvenile about it sometimes.  I don’t think his goal is to piss off all ASM readers, just the vocal portion that were absolutely against OMD.  I didn’t like OMD but I have liked BND and even loved it at times but I have to believe some of the aspects of this arc are intentional because I know Joe Q can do a better job than this.  

    @peterparker18102:

    I don’t have a problem with Peter missing the wedding….that makes perfect sense.  I have a problem with him missing the wedding cause a fat guy fell on him….thats just retarded and with all of the time they have had for this story that they knew would be controversial they have to come up with something better than that. 

  34. oh btw I actually like Joe Q and I am usually a pretty big fan of his work…..just not right now.

  35. Oh I get it…not only is it Quesada’s goal to intentionally anmnoy readers, but he also has other writters a part of his secret conspiracy!!!!!!

     

    Seriously, run the scenario you’re presenting through your head.

  36. @Cubman: Kinda seems like you’re taking the whole thing maybe a bit too personal. It’s just a funny book. If it pisses you off that much, drop it for a while.

  37. @MisterShaw

    I’m not really taking it that personally and I’m far from the only person that feels this way, it’s just a little frustrating considering the amount of time they had to do this right and I don’t think they have.  I’m not gonna drop it cause I collect ASM and honestly as much as I’ve disliked the last two issues I do want to know how this whole thing is going to play out. 

    I actually heard a good interview with Joe Q today which made me think he didn’t draw Peter to look like him intentionally but I still got the feeling that some of the other things were done intentionally, and if not, he at least knew that it was going to anger quite a few people. 

  38. Whaaaaaaaaaaaack…

     

    I hate you for making me need to see your art, Paolo Rivera!

  39. I think it would have been better if they would have just left this story alone and not tried to revisit OMD territory.  This issue was indeed better than the first but still not something I am enjoying at all.  And no I am not going to drop the book I have read every issue of ASM since 1999.

  40. BND was fun while it lasted … OMIT ? GAG!

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