Amazing Spider-Man #38 Review

Written by: Zeb Wells
Art by: Ed McGuinness, Mark Farmer, Wade von Grawbadger, Emilio Laiso
Colors by: Marcio Menyz, Erick Arciniega
Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover art by: Ed Mcguinness, Marcio Menyz
Cover price: $4.99
Release date: November 22, 2023

Amazing Spider-Man #38 concludes Rek-Rap’s spider-whanging adventure against Re-Po to a close. Meanwhile, Silverman and Count Nefaria’s scheme to put the Gang’s of NYC at each other’s throats bears fruit.

Is Amazing Spider-Man #38 Good?

Amazing Spider-Man #38 is a dopey yet exhausting comic to read. Zeb Wells continues to put Rek-Rap front and center in a misguided attempt to kill time in preparation for the Gang War event to get going. However, the few pages devoted to setting up the players and circumstances of the Gang War event fall into the “tell and not show” trap, so you don’t get much by way of gravity, momentum, or urgency, except through the arrival of a new villain shrouded in shadows.

When last we left Rek-Rap and his sidekick, Spider-Man, they were both swallowed up by the Repossessor demon, now nicknamed Re-Po. Now, Rek-Rap and Spider-Man engage in a multi-day journey to escape Re-Po’s gulle,t just in the nick of time to save Randy Robertson from getting sliced up by Re-Po in retaliation for a perceived slight while Re-Po was still a living human. In a quick move, Spider-Man tricks Re-Po into eating himself, which blips the demon back to limbo for good.

Elsewhere, Hammerhead plants red herring attacks across the city to convince rival gangs that they’re attacking each other. With Silvermane and Count Nefaria’s help, Hammerhead is positioned as the linchpin that will prevent an all-out Gang War. When Silvermane and Count Nefaria are convinced they hold all the cards, a mysterious new player cuts them down to take over the game.

What’s the big reveal in this issue? As many readers have already guessed, Re-Po is the medical billing collector who hung out outside Peter’s apartment at the start of Zeb Wells’s run. Apparently, the collector was killed at some point and re-instantiated as a demon in service to Goblin Queen. When and how this happened is never shown, but honestly, it doesn’t matter.

What’s great about Amazing Spider-Man #28? If Marvel Editorial will, for once, choose to bestow a small measure of mercy on ASM readers, this will be the last time we see Rek-Rap for a very long time. He’s a throwaway character that doesn’t make much sense (in humor or behavior), and he overwhelms Spidey’s comic with over-the-top shenanigans and bad slapstick. For once, Marvel has an opportunity to make a good decision on Wells’s run by putting Rek-Rap on the shelf like the failed Robot Chicken sketch idea he is.

What’s not so great about Amazing Spider-Man #38? The negative aspects of our reviews covering ASM are starting to get too long, so I’ll summarize by saying the two worst parts of this comic are Rek-Rap’s filler adventure and the complete lack of dramatic tension in Wells’s Gang War prelude. If Wells can’t be bothered to breathe life and enthusiasm into the scenes designed to get readers excited for Gang War, how are the readers supposed to get excited for Gang War?

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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Bits and Pieces

Amazing Spider-Man #38 mercifully puts an end to Rek-Rap’s adventure against Re-Po. The story is silly (not in a positive way) and relegates Spider-Man to a sidekick in his comic. Meanwhile, the prelude scenes meant to generate hype for the forthcoming Gang War event are as energetic as a news report about the weather.