Everything old is exactly as you remember it, and that's not worth the price of admission.
Much like this week's Batman #100, Amazing Spider-Man #49 is a "landmark" issue (if you add the old numbering this is #850, but they restarted it, so does that even count?) amounts to much ado about nothing as all the sturm und drang of a gigantic slobberknocker amounts to next to nothing being different than you'd normally assume.
The cover of Amazing Spider-Man #49. Credit: Marvel
The murderous Sin-Eater has reborn with a new shtick — blasting criminals with a shotgun, leaving them completely reformed and powerless, those powers flowing into Sin-Eater. Already on his playlist is a host of very wild abilities: Count Nefaria, Whirlwind, the Living Laser, and Mister Negative, just to get warmed up. In the last panels of the previous issue, the unstoppable Juggernaut caught a blast, meaning he's the next set of powers in the blender. Alongside a horde of fanatical Sin-Eater followers in green baklavas, the Sin-Eater besieges the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane (imagine Arkham Asylum in the Marvel Universe), intent to eat the sins of Norman Osborn. Only Spider-Man stands in the way, and all his arachnid-related friends in "The Order of the Web" (Ghost Spider/Spider-Gwen, Miles Morales, Silk, Madame Web, Spider-Woman, another Spider-Woman) argue about whether or not Sin-Eater should be allowed to shoot Osborn.
Many people — including people in this comic — think the whole "fight to save Osborn" is stupid. Osborn does something extremely Osborn-y that is so retrograde and so exhausting that it's like that one person at karaoke who tries to sing the same song later in the night.
There are some backup stories that are okay, even as the Beatles-themed one seemed a little dated.
There is a laundry list of talented people working on this issue. Still, the retrograde nature of this reset heavy storytelling leaves a "story" with no consequences, fighting with no conclusion, thunder with no lightning. Watching Peter Parker suffer is not enough to call this entertainment, and this degree of production budgets and values could be used in much better fashions. RATING: NO. JUST … NO.
Amazing Spider-Man #49
By Nick Spencer, Marcelo Ferreira, Josemaria Casanovas
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN reaches another landmark and we're celebrating Spider-Style! As if things weren't bad enough for Spider-Man with Sin-Eater's reign of terror reaching riot level THE GREEN GOBLIN IS BACK! Spidey has been through a lot, but even the worst things that have ever happened to Spider-Man have just been a prelude for what happens here, with an epic main story by a veritable Hall of Fame of Spider-Creators. As if that wasn't enough, this issue also boasts a collection of prestige short stories by Tradd Moore, Kurt Busiek, Chris Bachalo & Saladin Ahmed!
Hannibal Tabu is a writer, journalist, DJ, poet and designer living in south Los Angeles with his wife and children. He's a winner of the 2012 Top Cow Talent Hunt, winner of the 2018-2019 Cultural Trailblazer award from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, his weekly comic book review column THE BUY PILE can be found on iHeartRadio's Nerd-O-Rama podcast, his reviews can be found on BleedingCool.com, and more information can be found at his website, www.hannibaltabu.com.
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