The Amazing Spider-Man #13 // Review
Peter Parker is squaring-off against not one but TWO Hobgoblins. It’s okay...he’ll be fine. He’s got Oscorp tech backing him up behind the mask. (Yeah: he’s working for Norman Osborn now. It’s a whole...thing.) Of course, he’s only as good as his own reflexes, and it’s hard enough dealing with ONE Hobgoblin as he’s about to find in The Amazing Spider-Man #13. Writer Zeb Wells continues his swing with Spidey in an issue brought to page and panel by veteran artist John Romita Jr. and inker Scott Hanna. Spidey swings through another fun issue with a few bruises, scratches, and a whole lot of inner turmoil.
Norman Osborn is in the hospital. He can still do work, though. He’s got his laptop with him. It’s not exactly a restful place he finds himself in when his employee is...essentially battling a couple of people who have tech that’s A LOT like the kind his company makes. The employee in question is...well...Spider-Man. Norman can see that he’s fighting a couple of Hobgoblins. One couldn’t blame him for feeling at least a little bit responsible about the whole situation. Things could take a turn for the worse.
Wells gives Spidey a form-fitting sense of humor in another issue that manages to feel both breezy and weighty at the same time. The inner difficulties of Peter are balanced out by the outer difficulties of Spider-Man. It’s a perfect formula that’s worked really, really well over the years, and Wells has a solid grasp of it and a very respectably slick sense of humor that carries quite nicely through the panels. Wells opens the chapter in action and swings it through some drama before things hit the final panel with style and a respectable degree of poise.
Romita Jr. has a remarkably fluid understanding of how Spidey works best on the page. He’s worked well with the more acrobatic superheroes over the years. He knows how to best bring Spider-Man’s unique agility to the page in an enjoyably kinetic battle with a couple of Hobgoblins. Hanna anchors the action in a way that fits Romita Jr.’s art quite well. Though Romita Jr.’s style hasn’t changed a whole lot over the decades, it scarcely feels at all dated. The style that he’s maintained for several decades still works.
Peter’s bruised and beaten. He wasn’t expecting what’s happened, and he’s going to have a hell of a time rolling into his next issue, but this one continues a time-honored tradition of keeping Spidey spinning through the danger without allowing him much of a chance to rest. It would be exhausting if it weren’t for someone like Wells handling it as well as he does and someone like Romita Jr. bringing it to the page with such a breadth of style. Things aren’t going to get any easier for Spidey next month but then...when have they ever been easy for him?
