Day of the Hobgoblins
By: Andrew Hines
With the end of the current series fast approaching, Peter Parker is in for what may be one of the craziest adventures of his tenure as Spider-Man. We've already seen him put the end of the world on the back burner (ba-dum tssss), possibly cure Dr. Connors for good and put the world's worst sidekick in a permanent time-out. Now, with both his life and identity on the line, two hobgoblins dueling it out and Madame Web seeing visions of a dark future, this is the beginning of the end for our web-headed friend.
Dan Slott has done a fantastic job in the nearly two years since his run on Amazing Spider-Man began back in 2010. The recent partnership with Christos Gage has been a really good one. There are all kinds of great characters in this issue. The story picks up after the events of #695, and the pacing continues steadily. The dialogue is great and in parts I found myself reading it in the voices of the old animated series of the 90s. The story's good enough and tackles the two-part arc pretty well. The character interaction is pretty good and the ending is just enough of a teaser to keep you interested in the next issue.
This is one of the best single pages of ASM in recent memory. The art team does very well with Giuseppe Camuncoli as the penciller and Dan Green as the inker. Camuncoli's art works well and Antonio Fabela's colors are the dominant force in this issue. This page to the right is one of the greatest intro pages I've seen in a Spider book for quite some time. The best part is the inclusion of the majority of the issue's cast. You really see just how dire it is for Spidey at this point. The framing and the scale of the page are just phenomenal.
This get's an "A-" simply because it's a little on the nose for Haloween being just around the corner. It's a good issue and a great middle point in this three-part arc, but the fact that it is the mid point doesn't help it. Buy this one. At the very least it leads us into the end of ASM. As a piece of that history, it's worth owning.
