Amazing Spider-Man #693 Review

Amazing Spider-Man #693

Written by Dan Slott

Pencils by Humberto Ramos

Inks by Victor Olazaba

Colours by Edgar Delgado

Story

Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four clean up the mess left by Alpha in #692. Peter drops by MJ's for some advice on how to deal with Alpha. Alpha gets caught cheating on Chrissy with a cheerleader and the Jackal and his 'daughter' appear and capture Alpha and his family. Peter goes to Horizon to build an 'Alpha locator' with the help of Max Modell. Tracking down Alpha, Spidey is attacked by Jackal's spiderqueens. Spidey plays possum and discovers that Jackal is a clone. Another Jackal clone tells of his plan to clone Alpha to create a race of Alpha-males. The clones are a failure, Alpha breaks loose and Jackal pushes the big red button that dissolves his clones. Peter goes back to Horizon to find a way to remove Alpha's power.

Review

I'm going to come out with it: I hate Alpha! I really do. But maybe that's the point of the character – a character that's so damn hateable that it distracts you just enough so that you don't notice how bad the story actually is.

Slott is dealing with some pretty heavy themes here: nature versus nurture, playing God, and the ever present 'with great power comes great responsibility. The problem is it doesn't quite take.

Nature versus nurture is dealt with, in a way, with the cloning aspect of the story. However, such a theme needs more than two stand-out pages – the reveal of the Alpha clones not having the alpha energy powers, and the way Alpha kills them all, declaring: 'Without [my powers] I'm a nobody! No better than these stupid, worthless things!'

Peter playing God is very clumsily dealt with on the final page where MJ comes to Horizon Labs with some tapas for Peter because she hasn't seen him in days and finds him working hard at some fancy looking machines. Peter tells how he has tricked Alpha by telling him that is he sticks with the sidekicking and shows up for regular tests, there'll be a spot for him in the Avengers. What Peter is really doing is trying to find a way to take Alpha's powers away without killing him. I say this is clumsily done because of the role Mary Jane plays. Anyone who has seen Doctor Who will know that the purpose of the companion is to be the audience, to ask the Doctor the questions they themselves can't ask – 'What's that Doctor?', 'Why are you doing that Doctor?', and that is basically what MJ is doing and what Peter basically says is that he has every say in Alpha having his powers – he made him, so he can unmake him.

I'm sure as a Spider-Man reader you are more than aware of the phrase 'with great power comes great responsibility' and it's a lesson Peter had to learn the hard way with the death of his Uncle Ben, and what we have here is a superhero with all the power in the universe but absolutely no sense of responsibility. He's rude, he's selfish, he's arrogant; basically, he's a douchebag. To be quite honest, though, that's exactly what everyone at Alpha's age would be like. In fact, I think that's his only relateable characteristic.

It's not all bad, though – the artwork is superb. The action scenes are amazingly dynamic, 'Princess' and the spider queens are imaginative (and a little scary), and more that a couple of the Jackel's facial expressions had me in fits of giggles. There's more than enough great stuff to ignore Mary Jane's occasionally mannish features.

Conclusion

This issue has me a little torn. On the one hand there are a few swings-and-misses with regard to the plot, and Alpha being a hateable douche, but on the other hand there are a few things that could potentially be breadcrumbs leading us along the road to the landmark issue 700 that will 'change everything'. We'll just have to wait and see.

Read this issue? Let me know! I'd love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter. Cant wait to hear from you.

Nick