Noteworthy Issues: The Amazing Spider-Man #60 (February, 2021)

Well, if Peter is going to respond to the Kindred thing now, why did he take two issues to deal with Mr. Negative?

I mean, I still don’t know what that guy’s whole deal is.

Mr. Negative.  I get Spider-Man’s whole deal.

Issue:  The Amazing Spider-Man #60, February 2021

Writer:  Nick Spencer

Artist:  Mark Bagley

The Plot:  Peter pours his heart out for MJ, and not in the way you might think.

Commentary:  I have, for the most part, not been overly happy with what Nick Spencer has done of late.  I liked the start of his run.  He wrote what were basically fun Spider-Man stories, and I don’t ask for much from Spider-Man beyond “make him fun”.  At some point, the series got a lot less fun.  I’d say it was when Kindred became more than a vague threat, but that isn’t quite right.  It happened a bit before then.  Funny thing is, I know from The Superior Foes of Spider-Man that Spencer can do that sort of fun storytelling.

But then there’s an issue like this one that at least starts off promising, mostly by focusing on something Spencer has done very well, namely the Peter and MJ material.

This is about the point where I say I am not sure if I will continue with Amazing Spider-Man in its current run where Peter and MJ are split again because the Powers That Be think that’s the way those two should be for some stupid reason involving the long dead (in the real world) Gwen Stacy.

But the first half of this issue had MJ basically taking Peter somewhere and getting him to talk and say all the things he wants to say to Harry/Kindred.  It’s raw stuff, and while I don’t think Peter should be blaming himself for all of Harry’s mistakes–he even remarks at one point that one thing Harry and Norman have in common is they both always blame Peter for their mistakes–it is still very much in-character for Peter to blame himself for everything.  It’s a powerful and moving scene that made for a good issue.

Then Peter swings off and two of his closest friends/allies have meetings with bad guys setting up more stuff for later, and that part worked less well.

In fact, if the first of those two meetings derails some of the good stuff I’ve been seeing in this run, even as I haven’t liked a lot of what was in this run, I may get a wee bit upset.

Grade:  B-