The Amazing Spider-Man #5

By Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos & Edgar Delgado

Once again, Slott has delivered a fine issue. It’s not the best to date, but there’s just enough that works to give it a decent grade. Action and a possible love triangle is certainly enough to keep us hooked. Let’s not completely ignore the bad, though.

While Black Cat and Electro prepare to ruin Spider-Man’s life, Parker and Silk are busy making out and getting interrupted right before they bump uglies. Apparently, there is some sort of mystic connection between them that makes them hot for each other at all times. When the supernatural is thrown into Spidey’s powers and origin, it really doesn’t work on any sort of level. That’s not to say that this can’t be interesting. Slott has weaved in the magic mumbo jumbo in such a way that prevents any major groans from the audience. Only a quiet groan and slight eye roll is required.

Black Cat and her new electric lapdog are going around the criminal underground, collecting power and waiting for their time to humiliate Spider-Man. Most mob bosses have to be fried to death in order to relinquish power because they just don’t see Hardy as any sort of threat/power. The problem here is that they’re not wrong. Black Cat doesn’t feel like a threat at all, just a bitter jerk with a hired thug that’s the real danger. Perhaps that’s enough to take her demands seriously, but Slott still needs to give the reader something to convince us.

The art by Ramos continues to impress. It doesn’t seem that long ago when our eyes were twitching in pain over Spider-Man art. This is certainly not the case anymore. Things used to be a little too exaggerated and cartoony. Now, Ramos has found a happy medium that gets better with each issue. Combined with Delgado’s colors, this issue looks pretty great.

If you can accept the mystic crap and Black Cat as a badass mob boss, things will read much more smoothly. In any case, it’s certainly not the worst issue. Slott is still on a bit of a roll of putting out mediocre to good Amazing issues (with the exception of the ruined Learning to Crawl). Comparing it to the past, I would call that a tremendous victory.