About Heroes

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Artists: Ron Garney & Bill Reinhold

Mild Spoilers Below:
After a lackluster Civil War finale with lackluster art (the last seven pages aren't McNiven, there's no way he penciled that bad) this issue manages to deliver a sastisfying conclusion. If you can't remember the cliffhanger of last issue, Wilson Fisk hired a sniper to shoot either MJ, Aunt May or both of them, and we saw the two women in his sights as the last issue ended. This issue picks up in the middle of the giant battle in Civil War #7, and sees Peter return after it has ended. A lot of it is him speechifying to the readers how he's fighting for the people, blah blah anti-reg stuff. That's boring. What thrilled me about this issue was the end, and how it harkened back to Spider-Man lore. That's right, I liked who got shot, or rather, how they got shot. JMS set it up so that like Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy, Peter will always feel responsible for this event. His Spider-sense goes off and he tackles one of the women to save them, doing it so fast that he forgets about the other one. From here on out, he will forever be saying to himself, what if I wasn't so hasty, I could have prevented it. Which is similar to the thoughts he's had about Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy for the last 50 years. For those thinking, Spider-man was boring for the last 15+ years, pick up this book, it's about to get more interesting. What is sad is that they had to resort to this in order to make Spidey interesting again, rather than revisit the older issues. Maybe JMS tried that (see Sins Past), and got such a bad reaction from fans that now he feels he has to create something new. The argument could go on forever, but I thought the way it was written and set-up was well done.

Ron Garney is amazing. Where was this Ron Garney on JLA though? Like the last 6 issues, this book is nothing short of breathtaking art-wise. Garney draws Peter at a ripe 30, not a 21 or 35 like other artists. He also has a great feel for the other characters appearing in the book's battle scene. Nobody looks ugly, unlike McNiven in Civil War this week. The two page spread of the battle in Manhattan is nothing short of beautiful. It's exactly the sort of thing I want to see regularly in my books. Another thing that Garney is a master at is emotion. Peter, MJ, Aunt May all emote, which is hard to say about other comics art. This really hits you in the gut with it's art, and the writing helps as well. If you're not reading Civil War, at least give this issue a chance. B+