Amazing Spider-Man #559 Review

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #559
Written by Dan Slott
Art by Marcos Martin

For some reason, I hate to admit this about a Brand New Day story, but I really, really enjoyed this issue. Maybe the first storyarc just had to deal with having the taste of One More Day still in my mouth or the expectations of having to prove all the retcons and magic nonsense were worth the effort, but I found myself loving just about every minute of this issue. To be honest, I think it actually felt like I was reading the old Spidey again. It was fun, easy to get into and there were lots of things happening throughout the issue to keep me interested and entertained.

First up, we open with the new villain, Screwball, in the act of fleeing from Spider-Man after a daring daytime robbery of some random gambling den. She and Spidey engage in some great back and forth banter, which lasts just long enough not to feel forced or get stale, as they make their way across town, both highly agile characters doing various acrobatic feats along the way.

Screwball, if you haven't heard, is an internet attention whore that has people set up to film her robberies and escapes in action and broadcast them live on the internet on her very own webpage.

She actually manages to elude Spider-Man, prompting him to ask how she's managing this with his spider-like speed and agility. She only quips she's into parkour and he's too slow to keep up. This leads to my only complaint with the issue, being that they use the word parkour about a million times, as if they are beating us over the head with it, but it's only a small gripe. As she makes her last escape, she quips that it's all about the "Parkour luck", which actually made me laugh a bit as even Peter groaned out a, "she did not just say that", in reference to his Parker luck.

This was only the opening act of the book and the rest focuses on the paparazzi aspect of this storyline, in that Peter gets reassigned to the paparazzi section of the paper to put his "ninja photography" to work on catching celebs in action, which he takes a liking to and is actually quite good at doing with his spider powers.

I found it interesting that we've never seen Peter try this before or, at least to my knowledge, it has never happened in the books. It just seems like a natural fit and it was a nice twist to the character. I don't forsee him staying with it, everyone from Robbie to Aunt May and even Harry were a little annoyed and concerned over his bottom feeding new job.

Finally, the other new villain, who I had the least amount of interest in, Paperdoll (think that's her name, it wasn't actually stated), was actually incredibly interesting, and creepy to boot! I'm not sure what her powers are, but she seems to be able to blend into walls and has a fixation with paper that seems to have some connection to her powers. She's obsessed with a celebrity that Peter was covering earlier in the issue and is stalking him. She bought an entire newsstand's stock of DB paper's simply because his picture was splashed on the front page and went back to her apartment, which is covered with photos of him, and pinned a new one up. She "shed" her skin, for lack of a better term, and appeared ghost-like or paper thing, possibly blending into the wall, and was kissing the photo.

The art was really good for this issue, as well. Marcos Martin is a great artist, but I don't hold him up in the top echelon, like a McNivan or Hitch or what have, but his style really fit this book and I loved one page where he had Peter mulling over what to do with a photo as he walked up, down and around a building before coming to a stop upright as he made his decision. Great stuff.

Verdict - Must Read. Definitely worth picking this issue up, even if you dislike much of the BND stuff. At the very least, you can drop it after the three issue story is over. However, I think you'll all be very impressed with this issue and, hopefully, the entire storyarc.

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