Amazing Spider-Man by Wells & Romita Jr. vol. 1: World Without Love

“Beyond” was a step in the right direction after Nick Spencer retconned “Amazing” into the ground.  What Zeb Wells and John Romita Jr. deliver here, however, is much more in line with what I expect to get from a Spider-Man comic.  Some parts of it are familiar:  Peter has once again nuked his life (including his relationship with MJ) into awfulness and Tombstone is letting New York’s criminal underworld know that he’s in charge now.  Richard “The Rose” Fisk, son of Wilson, is looking to contest that as he works to re-establish himself as Spider-Man looks to stop that from happening.  Which will make for a welcome distraction from the debt collectors, a disappointed Aunt May, and frustrated friend Robbie Robertson who wants his buddy Peter to cover him while he pops the question to his girlfriend Janice.  Who is also the supervillain known as the Beetle, and daughter of Tombstone.  Just another day in the Spider-life for our hero!

While I could’ve done without Peter working through the wreckage of his life (again), my guess is that Wells’ long game involves building up the title character again.  Surprisingly, this isn’t as much of a problem as I was expecting as the comedy and the drama actually work really well here.  Wells has always been a funny writer and while he gets Spidey’s voice quite well here, he also mines some good material from the supporting cast.  Digger in particular as the multiple-personality Gamma-powered thug’s overwhelming self-seriousness never gets old.  He also delivers some new twists on familiar material as Tombstone’s plan to deal with Spider-Man is surprisingly dark… until you find out what’s really going on.  Even then, the writer isn’t done with the twists as Spidey and the mobster look to be stuck with each other for the foreseeable future, whether they want to be or not.

Illustrating all of this is one of the best spider-artists of all time:  John Romita Jr.  He’s done so much great work with the character over the years that you’d wonder why he’d want to come back again, but I’m glad he did.  Romita’s work is full of the trademark energy and style that you’d expect from him, and he gives this opening arc a pleasantly familiar look to it.  Like you’re reading a classic Spider-Man story that happened to be released today.  So yeah, “World Without Love” is very much a case of “Everything Old is New Again,” but I’m all right with that because the execution is spot-on.  After these last few years, that’s what I want to see from “Amazing” right now.