Amazing Spider-Man #613

[cyberghostface]

First off, Aunt May and Gary Stu Jameson run into Peter's psychotic Latina stereotype roommate...



And Brand New Electro gets a power upgrade...

Comments

[thokstar]

Ignoring that the art burns and that Michelle is still an awful character idea, their big idea for Electro is to effectively turn him into Living Laser? Really?

[cainofdreaming]

I think Living Lightning might also want to have a few words with Electro about copyright infringement.

[filthysize]

Heh. I was thinking Livewire.

[espanolbot]

Now all he needs are large thighs and an accent that I can't place... Brooklyn? I dunno, the main character in Tank Girl had it too.

[lynxara]

Michelle seemed to be an okay idea to me, but the entire wedding plotline was just a big ol' pile of bullshit.

[sandoz_iscariot]

WIMMENS IS CRAZY

Seriously, I almost expected her to start throwing cats at Aunt May and Col. Sanders there. What a terribly written character.

[neuhallidae]

This. I was just waiting for her to rip that comb out and chuck it at May's head.

[intertobamf]

Michele being a Crazy Cat Lady would probably redeem the character.

[darkknightjrk]

I was thinking the same thing.

[xdoop]

It's not like she doesn't have reason to be angry at Peter.

[sandoz_iscariot]

I don't see how slamming a door in an elderly woman's face is an appropriate response to this.

[xdoop]

It looks like she's slamming the door as they're walking off.

[sandoz_iscariot]

I didn't read the scene that way, but even if it is, Michelle is still being incredibly rude to the wrong people.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Uh... what exactly is he doing there? (Also, his 'HA! SCIENCE!' is classic.)

[theanswer]

Is Peter trying to give him a facial? <_<;

[angelophile]

I'm not sure which kind you mean, but that is unfortunate placement of a webbing splurge on the last panel of page 3. Close your legs, Peter.

[theanswer]

That's the panel I was talking about. It looks odd. o_o

[phoeixmessiah]

No, no, Peter should spread his legs more often :-D. Black Cat shouldn't be the only sexualized character in his book...(as an example I know there are other girls in the book)

[stubbleupdate]

He's not the Mad Thinker any more. He's just the Thinker. He went to Anger Management. It's canon

[aaron_bourque]

What the hell is with the coloring? Everyone's color is subdued and "realistic," except Spider-Man, who almost looks like he stepped out of a 4-color page.

[lynxara]

A lot of modern comic book coloring ends up looking like this. It's always unappealing and kinda dumb.

[aaron_bourque]

No, I know that, but they usually ALSO have the heroes colored subdued and realistically. It's like they got someone else to only color Spidey.

[autolychus2]

I thought they were trying to make him "pop", which isn't a bad idea in a panel, but doing it throughout is ...

[lynxara]

Actually I meant the problem where everything is colored realistically except the hero, because the hero is an absurd thing that could never exist.

I've seen attempts to make the hero fit in by making the costume colors more subdued or whatever, but I've seen the goofy technique from this issue all over the place (especially in DC books).

[darkknightjrk]

I'll give the title this--the story's been consistantly shitty, but I LOVE the artist for this. I hope he does more work. :)

[kingrockwell]

Motto, I'm not getting all the art-hate. The writing deserves everything people slog at it and more, but the art's pretty nice here.

[sianmink]

AUGH THE ART IT BURNS

[sianmink]

On second look the art may actually be okay but the coloring is horrific.

[autolychus2]

Yeah, it's the coloring.

[2cards_short]

No one sees it?

"Did...did he just transmit...himself over Spider-Man's Web?" and the panel above it.

[cainofdreaming]

I dunno about that one, but looking back at the whole sequence the panel above the panel above "Did..." etc looks kind of unfortunate. Though, looking at how high the 'lightning' is coming from, that'd make Peter almost freakishly long.

And kinky. Exactly what in Electro's newly bald head would make him so... err, springy?

[foxhack]

ELECTRIC ORGASM

[skalja]

So. Wait.

For the past FORTY YEARS Spider-Man's webbing has been non-conductive -- not necessarily a perfect insulator, but non-conductive -- and now Electro can transmit himself along it?

... *sigh*

[queenanthai]

IT'S SCIENCE WE DON'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT

Credit to xdoop .

[superfangirl1]

Re: Credit to xdoop .

[lamashtar]

Hm. I was gonna make one myself, but can I gack yours?

Re: Credit to xdoop .

[superfangirl1]

Gack away! :)

[psychopathicus_rex]

Actually, it HAS been represented as conductive once or twice. If I remember correctly, Spidey once tried to interrupt an experiment the Lizard was doing by tossing a Spider-Tracer into an electric ray on the end of a long strand of webbing (it makes sense in context). It worked, but A: the Tracer was keyed to his Spider-Sense, so the ray delivered a jolt to his central nervous system, and B: the ray went 'BZZZRT!' along his webbing and nearly fried him. So it's a damn good thing that the Lizard wasn't in a killin' mood at the time, because he was in no shape to face him just then.

[skalja]

Okay, I bow to your spidernerd!fu. XD Seriously, though, I could've sworn his webbing's been non-conductive before.

Maybe it just depends whether it's solidified or not?

[psychopathicus_rex]

It actually makes a sort of sense that it'd be conductive - I mean, it is basically fast-drying liquid, of a sort, and if you caught it before it was fully hardened, you might be able to get some conductivity out of it. I'm not sure just what level of liquidity is necessary for that sort of thing to work - if, say, a puddle of ketchup or Elmer's Glue could act as a conductor, then fresh-squirted webbing probably could as well.

[skalja]

It's a shear-thinning liquid polymer, though, so it basically hardens as soon as it's forced out of the web-shooter nozzle. I don't know/remember if there's an air-drying component as well, but if so it's very, very fast.

(Credit to spider-editorial of the 1960s -- I just did some quick 'net research and that aspect of canon seems to hold up just fine!)

On the other hand, we are talking about the speed of lightning. Which is appparently half the speed of light at most, but still.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Half the speed of light is pretty damned fast. If there's the slightest hint of moisture left in that stuff, that lightning would be ON it.

[toasty_fresh]

Did Aunt May just get back from the American Frontier or something? That dress is nagl.

[psychopathicus_rex]

While Peter Parker's life continues to be a harrowing mess thanks to the Terrible Latina, the Spider side of his life is actually not written too badly here. I liked the 'whole neighborhood can hear you cackling maniacally' line.