Amazing Spider-Man by Nick Spencer vol. 9: Sins Rising

…Well, it turns out they’re leading to the kind of grim, dark storyline that’s the antithesis of what we got in the previous volume.  It all starts with a special issue devoted to refreshing and modernizing one of Spidey’s foes who has managed to stay dead for a few decades now:  The Sin-Eater.  Stanley Carver once thought it was his mission to cleanse New York City of sin, but he eventually realized that he was the real problem and set him self up to go out via suicide by cop.  Except now, thanks to Kindred, he’s back and now he’s got some additional powers to help him live up to his name.  Powers that will help him purge the sins of supervillains and… leave them begging for forgiveness?  It’s a setup that seems like it’s too good to be true, and Spidey has been around long enough to know that’s exactly what it is.  The problem is that he has to figure out what Sin-Eater’s real goal is before he can rope in enough followers to his cause and take his crusade to one of the Web-Slinger’s oldest and most dangerous foes.

Yeah, the good times are over for now as things look to get considerably darker in “Amazing” for a while.  I wouldn’t have a problem with what Spencer is doing here except that he’s not bringing a whole lot that’s new to the table here. While the writer uses the Sin-Eater to make some points responds to authoritarian strongmen who take the law into our own hands, it’s still not enough to make what he’s doing here feel fresh or interesting.  “Sins Rising” ultimately feels like just another story where the bad guy comes back bigger and badder than before to make life worse for our hero.  It just happens to be missing the parts that I like most about Spencer’s run so far.

I will give him credit for coming up with a pretty decent cliffhanger.  In fact, it’s so well positioned that it essentially means this storyline is being spread out over two volumes…