Written by: Zeb Wells
Art by: John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna
Colors by: Marcio Menyz
Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover art by: John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna, Marcio Menyz
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: August 10, 2022

Amazing Spider-Man #7 follows Peter Parker as his life slowly gets back on track. The Tombstone business is behind him, and he has a promising job offer. Unfortunately, the sins of the past are too hard to forgive or forget.

Is It Good?

Amazing Spider-Man #7 is a fine issue for one reason. It reminds readers just how dangerous the Vulture can be for an old dude with a wingsuit. Wells, if nothing else, has a knack for reinvigorating old (some would say campy) villains as formidable threats.

However, it’s everything around Spidey’s conflict with the Vulture that feels off. Let’s start from the beginning.

Peter is invited to the new Oscorp to meet with Norman Osborn. The meeting turns into a hard-sell job offer by Norman who appears to be on the straight and narrow after his rehabilitation at the hands of Sin-Eater. The setup is serviceable yet precarious as Peter can’t help being suspicious due to their mutual history.

Wells creates a sound foundation for suspicion and tension, but he takes it too far when suddenly, MJ shows up to rub salt into a wound that Wells has yet to define. Add into the mix MJ’s beau, Peter, and an out-of-place appearance by a clumsy new Oscorp intern, Kamala Khan, and the entire scene starts to feel incredibly forced. This is a case where less would have been more, and Wells tries to pull in cameos for foreshadowing but doesn’t execute the appearances organically.

Meanwhile, Adrian Toomes, aka Vulture, has a heart-to-heart with this granddaughter when she informs him she’s cutting off all ties after learning about his past. Toomes flies into a rage because the person responsible for tipping off his granddaughter is Spider-Man, or so we’re told. Therein lies the problem. Toomes suddenly goes on a murderous revenge mission for something we never see happen, aren’t explicitly told has happened (Toomes assumes), and Toomes is further incensed after saving Spider-Mans’ life in legacy issue #900… and that didn’t exactly happen the way Tommes thinks it did.

In other words, the shortcoming of this series under Wells is the tendency to show the aftermath of big moments without showing those big moments. You only get the aftertaste without the meal. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we still don’t know what happened in Pennsylvania, where Spider-Man went for six months, what Peter did to burn so many bridges, or how MJ has two elementary-age kids. Now, pile on a conversation between Tiana (Toomes’s granddaughter) and Spider-Man that may or may not have taken place, and Wells is racking up a laundry list of questions without answers.

Romita Jr’s art in this issue is some of the better art in this run. The body proportions are less distorted, and the fight scene between Vulture and Spider-Man is the highlight. So, come for the action, but try not to get frustrated with the lack of story development.

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About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Final Thoughts:

Amazing Spider-Man #7 enters into a new arc with Wells doing what Wells seems to do best, reinvigorate villains. This time, Vulture gets his moment to shine, and it’s a doozy. That said, Wells’s weakness lies in showing consequences and aftermaths to events you never see or are explained, so Vulture’s motivations are suspect. In short, a deadly Vulture battling Spider-Man is a sight to behold, but the poor setup in the writing hinders more than it helps.

6.5/10