Writer: Nick Spencer

Art: Patrick Gleason, Matthew Wilson, and VC’s Joe Caramagna

Release Date: November 6th, 2019

Price: $3.99

I’ve entered into the “Land of Confusion”!! Check out the Genesis or Disturbed versions of this song. It’ll be time better spent than trying to understand this nonsense.

I’ll preface this review by saying I’m not a comic expert or ASM expert. Very far from it. I haven’t even read Spencer’s whole run. With that being said, I don’t think I’ve ever been more confused after reading a comic. Ever.

While many fans bemoaned Dan Slott’s run, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, is it? Spencer’s run is one of the most lopsided runs I’ve read. Some really good issues, some really bad. Way too many peaks and valleys for this reviewer. Issues 30 and 31 were some of the best I’ve read. As tie ins to Absolute Carnage, they managed to tie into the event while also getting back to the Kindred story. Issue 32 quickly jumped to the Spider-Man 2099 story. Even that worked ok for me. But now without finishing the Kindred, or Spidey 2099 stories we’re thrown into yet another one. Why??!!

And to have a cliffhanger ending with Doom in Hitman’s sights in ASM while Doom is shot in the head by Taskmaster in the Doom book? Which editor at Marvel thought that having two sniper hits on Doom in the same week but by different shooters was a good idea? It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’d literally be like Bane breaking Alfred’s neck in Batman, and Mr. Freeze breaking Alfred’s neck in Detective comics both in the same week.

It’s just a jumbled, uneven mess. Maybe Spencer was trying to juggle too much with Absolute Carnage, Spider-Man 2099, and attempting to write his own story. Spencer even throws some shade at himself by having Spidey say to himself “man I’m so confused right now”. That’s the understatement of the year!!

The only saving grace is the art by Patrick Gleason. He’s just SO good and seemingly born to draw Spidey. But looking ahead we won’t have Gleason at all on art in December which really is too bad.

Final Thoughts:

As I read this utterly completely confusing issue I actually got mad at myself because I’ll never get that time back. The fantastic art is the only thing preventing me from giving this issue a negative score. If that’s even possible. And to give ASM this low a score really makes me sad. It should be held to a much higher standard and treated as such by the creative team.