Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #53

Background

A new super-powered bad boy brought to life out of the pieces of dead mobsters and a gamma bomb is terrorising NY. Spidey met up with him, but he escaped. Now Spidey's waiting to find him again...

Story 'Parts and Pieces'

This issue starts with MJ and Aunt May discussing Pete's alternate identity and how they feel about it. Pete rings from the site of Digger's rebirth and tells MJ all that he found out last (which we found out two issues ago, which I guess makes the issues new-reader-friendly, but amazingly slow for the rest!). Meanwhile, back in NY, the Digger is tailing Forelli and thinking evil thoughts on how to make Forelli pay!

Forelli is also the subject of Pete and MJ's conversation back at Pete's place. Pete is mulling over the current situation and he talks over his reasons for taking on a role as Forelli's bodyguard. But, fortunately for Pete, MJ is feeling a bit randy and shuffles him into bed for some hugs and kisses! It's a big deal, because they haven't done this sort of husband/wife thing since getting back together. And afterwards, Pete looks at her thinking soppy thoughts like, "she completes me".

While Pete's at home, Digger decides to attack one of Forelli's places. Of course, Spidey gets a buzz on his beeper as he's swinging above the city after leaving MJ to sleep. He arrives at the club. They fight. Digger gets angry when Spidey confronts him with the truth of his origin. Then some mobster dudes turn up with machine guns and open up on the scene. Spidey takes cover, but Digger gets it full-on and still stands. He smashes a supporting column and the roof falls in.

Spidey and the goons escape. Spidey is not happy that Forelli sent the goons. He checks to see if Digger is among the rubble, and finds evidence that the Digger was actually hurt, but has gone. Spidey treks over to Forelli's house and gets angry at him for sending the goons. Forelli's daughter walks in with some choice words of her own for Spidey, after seeing him mistreat her dad. Spidey's had enough, and leaves.

After Spidey has gone, Forelli laments to himself that he is scum and that he doesn't desrve his sweet daughter but rather the beating that the Digger wants to give him.

General Comments

This story is really dragging on! I can't believe its taken three issues, and it's still not wrapped up! Nothing really new has happened over the last two issues. Sure we've had some great character stuff wrapped around the main plotline, but overall it has been way too repetitive and strung-out.

This issue is slightly better than the last. Pete does say some things that go some way to repairing his out of character behaviour last issue when he took up Forelli's offer to be his body guard. But it doesn't really justify why he's getting so cozy with Forelli. I think it makes it even worse when it talks about what a scumbag Forelli is! I mean Spidey has been up against the Kingpin and other mob figures like Fortunato (he did cozy up with Jimmy Six a little though), but he's never worked for them and he never let the fact that they did things in secret stop him from trying to shut them down! I still don't buy that it's a logical step forPete to work for Forelli.

The only benefit is that he gets beeped whenever the Digger attacks. But the Digger makes such a ruckus that Spidey would be able to find him by himself without much trouble. Also, Pete's logic for having the beeper because the Digger is the greater evil and must be stopped before he hurts others would work for Forelli, too. It would be just as logical, or even more logical, to let the Digger go and wreck Forelli's operations, thus stopping innocents being hurt by what Forelli does. I mean, the Digger is only targeting mob operations now. But even that scenario wouldn't be totally in- character. The Spidey I know would try his best agianst all odds to bring both the Digger and Forelli down!

Anyway, glaring plot annoyances aside, the art is nice. The stuff between Pete and MJ is nice. And the action scene even played out pretty well, with some nice visuals. Lets just hope JMS wraps this storyline up next issue and gets on with more interesting stuff, and keeps steering clear of that mystical spider stuff (yeah, fat chance).

Overall Rating

A slightly better version of last issue.