Amazing Spider-Man by Nick Spencer vol. 10: Green Goblin Reborn

…With the wrap-up coming here as the Sin-Eater takes the fight to the current administrator of the Ravencroft Institute, Norman Osborn.  The thing is that based on what the vigilante has been doing to all of the other supervillains, why shouldn’t he be allowed to do that to Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis?  As Peter points out, they still don’t know exactly what Sin-Eater has been doing to these supervillains besides stealing their powers and leaving them repentant.  Then there’s the fact that Spider-Man isn’t the kind of hero to let negligence take care of his problems — not after what happened to Uncle Ben.  This is in spite of the group of Spider-Friends who try to convince him to leave the monster to his fate.  When that plan inevitably fails, they decide to save Spider-Man from the deaths they’ve foreseen for him whether he wants them to or not.

There are things I liked about this volume.  Chief among them was how Spencer manages to get across the idea that Spider-Man and the Green Goblin’s antagonism towards each other is a real tragedy.  They could’ve done some real good working together and we get a glimpse of what could’ve been here.  The problem is that this is only a small part of this volume and the overall storyline is crushed under the weight of how predictable this business of whether or not Spidey is going to deliver a permanent solution to Osborne’s villainy after all these years.  (Spoilers:  Of course he isn’t.)  Not helping matters are his Spider-Friends who are just there for added drama and nothing else.

The art is strong, of course, with Mark Bagley, Ryan Ottley, and Humberto Ramos turning in expectedly strong work, and Federico Vicentini showing that you shouldn’t underestimate him just because he’s the least famous artist in this volume.  There are also some cute short stories at the end of the volume, since issue #49 is also “Amazing Spider-Man #850.”  They’re a nice bonus, but not worth picking up the volume for.  Which is something I’d only recommend to people invested in this storyline at this point.  With these past two volumes, Spencer has plowed his run on “Amazing” into territory that’s not as fun or entertaining as when he’s indulging his funny side.  The only reason I’m onboard for the next volume at this point is because I still need to find out who Kindred is.  After that, who can say?