Writers: Zeb Wells
Penciler: John Romita Jr
Inker: Scott Hanna
Colorist: Marcio Menyz
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editors: Kaeden McGahey, Nick Lowe & C B Cebulski
Cover Artists: John Romita Jr, Scott Hanna & Marcio Menyz; Carmen Carnero & Alejandro Sánchez; Giada Perissinotto; Rickie Yagawa & Alex Sinclair
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $4.99
Release Date: October 9, 2024
Spider-Man convinced Janice Lincoln to send her father to the Big House. Lonnie Lincoln's lawyer, Michele, bailed him out of Rikers. Instead of preparing his legal defense, Lonnie made a beeline for his daughter. When Spider-Man tried to stop Lonnie from killing Janice, their fight roamed from Janice's apartment to an upper-level office in an adjacent building. As Lonnie Lincoln, aka Tombstone, grabs Spider-Man and crashes through a window, he asks Spider-Man if he wants to get crazy. But what could be crazier than a father trying to kill his daughter? Let's thwip into Amazing Spider-Man #59 and find out!
Story
Janice flees her father and her tragic life. While growing up, her father rarely saw her to insulate her from his business. But her future with Randy derailed when Shotgun blew up their wedding and sent Tombstone to the hospital. She took up her father’s business, and it consumed her. Despite her love for Lonnie and Randy, Janice pushed them out of her life. So, her dad gave Janice her life back by kicking her out of his business. Then, when she rekindles her romance with Randy, Spider-Man gives Janice a chance to usurp Lonnie again.
Janice may be the Beetle, but she's also a moth to the flame of her father's organization. Tombstone sees the monster lurking inside. Janice will retake his empire and push away everything good in her life. So, in Amazing Spider-Man #59, when he catches Janice in a subway car, Lonnie treats her like a monster. He wanted this to be as clean as breaking her wings in the Battle Of Central Park. But that’s not how you slay monsters.
Spider-Man distinguishes between villains and monsters. He never thwips Tombstone. But Spider-Man lacks the baseball bat he wielded at the Monster Metropolis. So, he wrenches a light pole out of the pavement, follows Tombstone into the subway, and beats him with it. In Zeb Wells' story, Spider-Man tells Lonnie that it’s over. But for Lonnie, the threats to his survival will never cease. Life forced him to become a monster to ward off continual attacks during childhood. Wilson Fisk warned Lonnie that Madame Masque threatened everything he built to protect himself against the monsters. Janice has become another bully who made his childhood miserable. Given the opportunity, she will force Lonnie to battle monsters in Rikers until they finish him off. So, as Spider-Man fights Lonnie to protect the man against the creature inside him, Lonnie battles Spider-Man to ward off the monsters.
Art
John Romita Jr and Scott Hanna’s detailed art catches every moment of Lonnie's desperate fight for survival. Spider-Man's battle with Tombstone relegates Wilson Fisk's tension-relieving fight with Lonnie to a minor scuffle. The combatants use everything at their disposal, even passing subway trains, to beat the other senseless. The vicious fighting suggests that Spider-Man may kill Lonnie to save him. Yet, it’s equally sad to see Janice leap into the subway car in a mix of street clothes and her Beetle costume. Unlike Tombstone and Spider-Man, she tried to fit into both worlds but belonged to neither.
Tombstone and Spider-Man hurtle through blue night air toward a yellow-lit city. Their impact creates a blaze of yellow in Amazing Spider-Man #59. Glowing yellow streetlamps reveal Janice's descent into the subway. The brutality of the fight summons white and yellow spider stars around both men. Overhead lights blaze like suns as Spider-Man slams the metal pole into Lonnie's back. The yellow station light and the headlamps of oncoming trains illuminate Marcio Menyz’s vibrant combatants as they fight amid the brown dirt and gray rails. Yet the blood covering the horizontal wrinkles in Lonnie's white skin and Janice's vertical fingernail scratches that reveal red facial muscles suggest a link with the man who covers his features with a black web of lines and a red mask. Then, a red Hang Loose sign appears on the back of Tombstone's black blazer when Spider-Man's words make Lonnie reconsider the situation.
Joe Caramagna’s uppercase black lettering in dialogue balloons and narrative boxes grows bold for inflection, swells and changes color for increased volume, and shrinks for lowered voices. Enlarged and colored dialogue threatens to burst dialogue balloons in Amazing Spider-Man #59. Colored and transparent sound effects enhance the broken cartilage and ligaments, the train drivers' ire, a time-lapse of Spider-Man and Tombstone wrestling, Tombstone flinging dirt at his opponent as in the Battle Of Central Park, and an act that threatens to cut short Peter Parker’s attempt to control his life and ensure a future with someone as wonderful as Shay Marken. Thanks to Marvel for providing a copy for review.
Final Thoughts
Attacked by his allies, family, and society, Tombstone unleashes his monster to survive. So, in Amazing Spider-Man #59, Spider-Man reminds Lonnie Lincoln that he doesn’t have to be a monster to thrive.
Rating 9.4/10
To preview interior art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.
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