Doctor Doom tricked Doctor Strange into giving up the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme. In Amazing Spider-Man #61, Doom manipulates Spider-Man into defending Earth in a cosmic contest. If he survives, perhaps Peter Parker will learn why Doom picked him over all of Earths mightiest heroes. But first, a man who cant safely deliver a Rick Jones record to his girlfriend must defeat eight demigods. Read Full Review

Doom enlists Spider-Man as his champion, tasking him with battling an ancient god and its seven scions to protect Earth from supernatural threats. At first, Spider-Man flat-out refuses. But he quickly learns he has little choice, as Doom has already put his plan in motion. Armed with magical armor and an assortment of enchanted tools, Spider-Man has no choice but to face this otherworldly challenge. Read Full Review

This issue is easily the best issue of Spider-Man in recent memory and is an incredible first step forward for the series overall. It's a bold story that's hit the ground running from the start and it's an issue that's a MUST READ for not only Spider-Man fans but all comic book fans. Considering where this story could be going, it's going to have massive ramifications for the entire Marvel universe. Read Full Review

This is a winning opening issue to the story arc, as the art is fun and matches the fun vibe of the dialogue and pace. Amazing Spider-Man #61 is a refreshing, action-packed ride that embraces both the humor and high-stakes drama that fans love about Spider-Man. With Joe Kelly's witty, fast-paced dialogue, Spider-Man's personality shines through, offering levity even as he faces off against a new wave of supernatural threats. Read Full Review

Mild plot hole aside in Doom's choice of champion to go up against these mega-powerful demons,Amazing Spider-Man #61 is that rare comic that lives up to the hype by putting our hero in less-than-familiar circumstances, threading the needle in such a way that it still feels like one of their token stories throughout. If this issue is any indication, "The 8 Deaths of Spider-Man" is going to be a real treat from start to finish. Read Full Review

I absolutely love McGuinness art in this issue. Not only are the character designs fantastic, but the action is visually stunning and impressive. Read Full Review

There are fantastic art and narrative choices made in this issue, but it is not quite enough to stop me from worrying about the future of this arc. Read Full Review

Amazing Spider-Man #61 begins a new arc with a new creative team by naming Spider-Man as Dr. Doom's champion to fight and die to protect the Earth, over and over again. Joe Kelly does his level best to turn a predictable concept into a meaningful story, but the entire issue barely rises above mediocre. If nothing else, Ed McGuinness and Mike Farmer's art looks great. Read Full Review

Amazing Spider-Man #61 got "The 8 Deaths of Spider-Man story off to a rough start. Going back into the well of the typical Peter Parker presentation kept this story parked for much longer than it should have. It wasn't until the second half of the issue that the story finally started to get going. Now that we got all the set-up out of the way hopefully it is all up from here for the "The 8 Deaths of Spider-Man story arc. Read Full Review

It’s nice to have unique looking faces again.

This feels like it’s going to be a filler arc, so I’m rating it as such. Fun little jaunt.

Yeah I didn't hate this as much as other people seem to have. While there are irksome things, like Peter being a bit stupid - handing over a broken record instead of just saying he didn't get it (although maybe you could argue he wanted to show Shay that he put in the effort but circumstance failed him) - but I don't think the first half of this book is really that bad. I don't think it's even abnormal for a Spider-Man comic. This is just how his social life is 95% of the time, especially post-Brand New Day. What saves it is the lack of reaction from May, Shay and Randy. If they hated him for it then I'd be annoyed, but they mostly just accept it. It's a little bit of arrested development but that's just inevitable as long as they want to keep Peter in his status quo.

The opening with Burnout was actually really dynamic. It's a big sequence showing off Spider-Man. His abilities, his personality, etc. It may matter later, it may not. But it served as an introduction. Spidey telling off Doom, while not a new idea, is certainly necessary when the whole premise of the book is that Spider-Man works for Doom. You have to show that Spider-Man wouldn't willingly do so unless the circumstances were that extreme. You could've had the circumstances be that extreme from the get-go, but then you'd lose perspective. You would assume that the reader definitely knows all the characters. Sure, 95% of them might but there are always people reading these characters for the first time, especially at the start of new creative runs.

As for Spider-Man's dialogue, I didn't mind it. The jokes were really rapid fire, and plenty didn't hit, but there were some that worked. I'm fine with that as well. I can't say if Joe Kelly intended for them all to hit. If he thought he was writing a great five minutes. I can say that Spider-Man is kind of not funny. He can be funny, but he's often not incredibly funny. It's built into the character since Stan Lee. Readers, and even writers, kind of forget that Spider-Man is not supposed to have a 100% hit average for his jokes. He throws them out there while fighting, and sometimes they land. That's part of writing and understanding the character, in my opinion. Finding that ratio. Does Joe Kelly nail it? No. He's maybe doing *too much* of a Stan Lee impression with how fast he throws them out there. But I don't think this characterization is out of line with Spider-Man proper.

The biggest failings here for me were the art and the premise. The art felt really flat compared to previous McGuinness issues. And the premise itself has not yet sold me. I'm kind of just waiting for this to be over already. more

I am soooo not kidding that years ago, I said to myself that Marvel needs to put Spidey in an isekai...and wow, I guess this is pretty darn close

Really, are we really salivating out the mouth for this?

I understand why people are excited for this new run. No more Zeb Wells, now we can start fresh. Well not exactly. Starting this issue the first panel was striking and really popped out but the dialogue in the action panel was so disjointed and lame I had to look it over a couple times to really find the flow. Which there wasn't any flow at all no matter how hard one tries.

Going on, it seems like a step up that we are now reading from Peter's perspective but it feels to fast paced and rushed and when the moment Doctor Doom comes in the impact is not what it should be. It all just comes off kind of schizophrenic.

SPOILER

When Peter becomes like Doctor Strange or whatever Doctor Doom turned him into so Spider-Man can fight the forgettable generic demon thing, Peter has to die each time and when he dies for the first time being sucked into the black hole of the demons mouth it was just. Dumb. Even explaining this moment for this poor humble reviewer here has deduced some IQ points.

Like it was something you would come up with when talking to your goofy friends when you use to be in middle school. When your a middle schooler at that time maybe that idea sounded really epic bruh, but on paper its just stupid. Maybe the lack of build up toward Peter's horrifying black hole death is what ruins the moment maybe?

After finishing this the same feeling came over me like when I finished #6 of the Zeb Wells run. But at least I enjoyed the first 5 issues, until it quickly got scrapped and it went downhill from there as we all know. Yet here we are a new start and already I am so underwhelmed and feel like there is no thought to this. It just feels like pulling out so many tricks at once you see through the illusion right away.

I don't care if people don't like what this review says who will actually read it? But if you even go far back too those old comics even to the very beginning of Spidey's existence, even with some of the silliness it all made sense to a degree. This is just bad.

Only giving it a 5.5 because I don't want to be to harsh for the new start but not liking its direction.... Screw you I could give it a 2 but at least the art is nice... more

I haven't been looking forward to this story... It feels gimmicky, like the title came first and the story was built around it. It's always weird when the tone of a super-hero comic changes into realistic and lethal consequences when it's always been about beating the odds and cheating death (I'm thinking about the pre-Krakoa Rosenberg run on X-Men here). It's different if it's the ground rules, like Suicide Squad or Strikeforce Morituri. Not looking forward to the rest of this.

There's a reason why Hickman's Ultimate Spider-Man is doing well. I have hopes that Marvel's Flag Ship title will improve, but this first issue is middling at best. Kudos to Ed’s artwork. He draws a strong Spidey.

It's average...nothing more to add.
Why though do 'critics' give it marks of 9.5 or laughably 10? The 'Death of Gwen Stacy' is a 9.5, how can a critic give this the same? Please, explain and let me understand the logic.

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daspidaboy - Nov 16, 2024

maybe comic book standards got lower

DVE - Nov 19, 2024

They got it free

Kreniigh - Nov 19, 2024

I have always wondered this. Is this issue as good as Watchmen? As good as the best issue of Sandman? If not, how can it have the same score as those?

Hex - Dec 2, 2024

Positive reviews pretty much guarantee that they continue to receive issues for free. Consistent criticism if you're a smaller reviewer or don't work for an actual company/site means you might get cut off. I also think that daspidaboy is right. The overall quality has dipped across the board from the big two. While there are still standouts that actually deserve 9s and 10s, objectively, there should really be more middle of the road scores. Not everything needs an 8 or even a 7.

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I had some fun with it, but it's not nearly enough to justify this corny issue. ASM is just annoying to read.

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Gio - Dec 9, 2024

Absolutely that's how I felt reading this.

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Wow, this really didn't work for me. Ed's art is great as always, but first half felt like a chore. This whole "Peter Parker is down on his luck, with little money and poor management of his relationships" is definitely not what I expected to read after Wells' run started the exact same way and ended with Peter moving on and having something stable in his life. It doesn't feel at all like a continuation to what Zeb did in his run. And Spider-Man dumping his problems on a 10-year old just feels so irresponsible and childish.

Peter's dialogue just feels off here. I don't know, maybe I was used to Zeb's dialogue, but here he is so wordy while also saying a lot of nothing with a lot of misses in humor

The second part was better. Peter handling the trauma of dying was interesting, but otherwise this whole gimmick feels random. And just screams of Spidey office having no idea what to do next.

And why is May scolding Peter for not getting his life together? Wasn't the whole point of last run just that? Like am I crazy, or did Kelly just ignore the entire point of last run?

I'm not even kidding when I say that this might be one of the worst first issues of any ASM run I've read in a while. more

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daspidaboy - Nov 13, 2024

I think in general, the main problem with modern amazing spider-man isn't how Peter Parker is never going to grow and mature because of cyclical story-telling. It's that there's no good story, there's no good writing. I don't mind if Peter is going to stay the same, but at least have solid writing or make Peter likable. Modern Amazing Spider-Man isn't bad, but it's just forgettable and mid. and that's worse imo.

Gio - Dec 9, 2024

Yes exactly, I only gave it a 5.5 because at least the art was nice I guess. The dialogue was disjointed and there was no flow very all over the place.

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Most of the dialogue here is just bad. Unfunny jokes, Peter feels like a teenager still, people talking at Peter and everything sailing over his head. Marveling at the fact that he stood up to Doctor Doom despite the fact that he's done it countless times. Whether or not he was the Sorcerer Supreme. Everyone here just felt a bit lifeless. Aside from Kevin. And what was even the point of introducing Burnout? Could he come up later? Sure but as of right now he's nothing and it had zero impact on the story. Just a device to remind readers of Doom's power which isn't necessary because he's DOOM! Kelly seems to be trying a bit too hard to be meta-relevant. We know all of the annoying problems in the world. AI on our phones, corporate ads invading our daily lives aren't really commentary I need from Spider-Man unless it actually matters to the plot. Which in this case feels incredibly contrived. Doom not wanting to do the work of fighting the Scions of Cyttorak is very in line with how Doom operates. But To have Spider-Man do it? I'm sorry but even Doom's monologuing didn't agree with that one. Now all of a sudden, because of a suit change, he just knows the "cool secret names of things"... Show. Don't tell. First rule. Already breaking it. I really want the ramifications of Peter dying and being reborn to have meaning in the future but I'm hard pressed to believe that the significance of that will carry over. Something this important to a character's perception of the world should carry weight and while it does here, it's only in service to a McGuffin plot.
This may be the least I have ever cared for McGuinness' work. That might have something to do with the colorist changing from his previous arcs on ASM but this felt way flatter in terms of vibrancy and pop that was apparent in his older issues. Things here felt a lot more cartoony at the wrong times and traditional when it could have used more expressive features from Spider-Man. It also had this issue when there were multiple characters on a page that everyone looked way less detailed and on model.
I'm just going to assume this entire arc was rushed to get the Wells transition kicked off as quickly as possible. This whole storyline didn't feel like the natural progression it would have taken in preparation for a new writer. Even May is sick and tired of Peter spinning in circles. I really wanted to read every issue of ASM but if this is all I have to expect from this arc, I might jump off next issue. more

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motorik - Nov 20, 2024

You have perfectly and completely encapsulated all of my issues with this comic. It is an affront to Spider-man. I am done.

Hex - Nov 21, 2024

At least we have USM.

motorik - Nov 27, 2024

USM rocks.

Gio - Dec 9, 2024

Exactly thank god for USM because this ASm is trash

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