REVIEW: Amazing Spider-Man 654.1

This week I am writing about a book I had given up reading a while back; Amazing Spider-Man. I decided to try the book one more time because Marvel has a new gimmick – the ‘.1’ numbering – which they believe new readers will see as the perfect jumping on point.I read Amazing Spider-Man, # 654.1. Right now, I will say that the biggest selling point for me was Humberto Ramos’ art in this issue. Outstanding! Now I want to give you a rundown of the story that goes with the art … Spoiler Alert!

We start off with a government controlled Venom and his host is none other than Flash Thompson. The venom suit portrayed in the book looks more like a military black-ops outfit; I thought it had a Spider-Man Noir vibe to it. So with this outfit, Flash/Venom infiltrates a big party filled with all kinds of rich socialites. With the symbiote turning itself into a tuxedo, Flash/Venom goes out on the dance floor with a beautiful woman, of course, and plants a symbiotic tracking device on her. Mission completed!

After the mission, back at Project: Rebirth HQ, the scientists use a “sonic purge” to separate the symbiote suit from Flash. It is at this point we learn that Flash has a 48 hour period of time before the symbiote suit starts to permanently bond with him and the government has various fail safes implanted into Flash in case the symbiote gets out of hand. Now that we know the government is keeping us safe, we see the symbiote suit being removed from Flash Thomspon – GASP! – he has no legs!

Now for the second mission for our legless wonder, the rescuing of a kidnapped banker who works for one of the Middle East’s largest oil company and this mission doesn’t go to well. During the rescue and eventual shoot-out, a grenade is thrown and blows off Flash/Venoms’ legs (his reaction to this leads me to believe that he lost his real legs in a similar fashion). It is at this moment when Venom rears his ugly head and shows his teeth, literally. The banker that was supposed to be saved by Venom is now a witness to a gruesome slaughter. Even better, while all of this is going down, the ‘Venom Wranglers’ have lost contact with the symbiote and have no idea what is going on. Venom and banker-man make it out alive and for some reason keep the secret of Venom’s incident to themselves (brown trousers time, anyone?). The people at Project: Rebirth have a feeling that something hinky is going on, but don’t know what. At the end of the issue, Flash goes home to his girlfriend, Betty (Brant I assume), who is upset that he has missed a funeral for a woman named Marla.

So that’s the basic rundown of this ‘.1’ issue. Seeing as I have not read an issue of Amazing Spider-Man in a few years, I wouldn’t say this was a “perfect jumping on point for new readers” by any means, but it was still a pretty decent one. The things I had questions about were things like; How did Flash loose his legs? How did Flash get involved with Project: Rebirth in the first place? Who the hell is Marla?! Minimal things that, I’m sure, will be answered as we continue to read the series, well, we hope will be answered.