No One Can Hear You Thwip: Amazing Spider-Man #680 Review

The Amazing Spider-Man #680 is a buddy flick set in a zombie apocalypse occurring in space. If you walked into a movie studio executive’s office with that pitch, you’d be thrown out on your ass. Unless that executive worked for the Sy-Fy channel. In which case you’d be given their largest production budget to date: 75 bucks. Although they might go up to an even hundred, assuming Tiffany and / or Lorenzo Lamas was available.

My point is that this comic book is a big, glorious mess where I’m sure that the one “splorch” sound effect in tne book represents the sound of writers Dan Slott and Chris Yost throwing absolutely every plot idea they can think of at the wall… and it all sticks. I can almost picture those two guys saying, “Spider-Man… we bring in The Human Torch… and put them on a space station… what can they fight, what can they fight, what can they – space zombies! Now let’s write, but first: let’s take this TV apart!”

We open this book at Peter Parker’s employer, Horizon Labs, where Jolly Jonah Jameson is watching video of his son spacewalking outside of space station Apogee 1… which is a danger sign right out of the gate. To the best of my memory, John Jameson has been involved in three space missions: one almost crashed and needed rescue by Spider-Man, another was attacked by super villains on the launch pad, and on the third, he came back as a fucking werewolf. Why do people keep hiring this awful jinx for space missions? Considering how NASA reacted after the Challenger disaster, I can only see them sending Jameson back into orbit if they did it with a rocket and without a parachute.

Anyhoo, while Jonah and Peter are watching live, the video cuts out on John “Houston, We Have A Problem” Jameson, so Peter exits stage left to take advantage of his Fantastic Four connections to get a ride into orbit to effect a rescue, to find only the Torch at home. And that’s where the book really starts to click. Spider-Man’s friendship with The Human Torch was a mainstay of Marvel Comics when I started reading back in the 70s, and Slott and Yost fully embrace that these two dudes have a long relationship. And like most relationships between two straight dudes, it is based on good-natured insults and one-upmanship. The interplay between these two characters is just plain fun:

My spider-sense is going off.

Right. Your special power that tells you when to be scared.

…I can’t pinpoint it.

Don’t you get tired of sucking?

Beyond the characterizations and the dialogue, Slott and Yost have fun with these two characters in zero gravity. After all, The Human Torch isn’t exactly the guy you want wandering around in a tin can with limited oxygen, and Spider-Man learns the unique joy of firing off what amounts to two high-pressure spray cans on his wrists in zero gravity. Sure, these are little touches, but moments Slott and Yost use like this simultaneously amp up the danger to the two heroes, while giving them excuses to continue to rank on each other in a humorous manner. It’s smart writing, and more importantly: it’s entertaining as hell.

Giuseppe Camuncoli’s pencils are somewhat refreshing to me after recent issues, but I’ve gone on record that I’m not the biggest fan of Humberto Ramos’s cartoony, manga-style art. Camuncoli does simple, straight-ahead comic art, with realistic figures, expressive faces, and clear and unambiguous panel layout and storytelling. He delivers on everything from Spider-Man in action to giant space stations, although there are a few panels here that show the tell-tale sign of Photoshop effects, which I almost never think are necessary and are often distracting. Klaus Janson’s inks help the art, which is a bigger deal than you’d think; Janson has a unique and immediately-recognizable style which sometimes overpowers the original pencils. In this case however, there were only a couple of panels that screamed, “Yup! I’m a Janson panel!” Overall the two guys complement each other, and the art is solid, particularly as a possible entry point for people not familiar with comic storytelling.

This comic book will not make you smarter. It won’t make you long to learn more about the space program, and if you’re a Big Idea fan or a NASA Nazi, this is not the place to get your space program fix. However, it is about the most fun you will have reading a superhero comic this week. This is two writers screaming, “Fuck it! Do all the things!” And despite having a plot that has an elevator pitch description that would make Uwe Boll take a pass, it represents everything that is just pure joy and fun in a superhero comic. And best of all, as part one of a short arc, it’s a great jumping-on point for the book. Check it out.