CBR senior staff writer Brian Cronin has been writing professionally about comic books for over fifteen years now at CBR (primarily with his “Comics Should Be Good” series of columns, including Comic Book Legends Revealed). He has written two books about comics for Penguin-Random House – Was Superman a Spy? And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed and Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? And Other Amazing Comic Book Trivia! and one book, 100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, from Triumph Books. His writing has been featured at ESPN.com, the Los Angeles Times, About.com, the Huffington Post, Vulture and Gizmodo. He features legends about entertainment and sports at his website, Legends Revealed and other pop culture features at Pop Culture References. Follow him on Twitter at @Brian_Cronin and feel free to e-mail him suggestions for stories about comic books that you'd like to see featured at brianc@cbr.com!
Amazing Spider-Man has basically been two separate books for the last few months, as Peter Parker has been lost in outer space, leaving Ben Reilly and Norman Osborn back on Earth trying to fill in for both Peter Parker (Ben) and Spider-Man (Norman). Those have been surprisingly big shoes for both men to fill, but it is not like Peter is having a great time in space.
He was sent into outer space by the mysterious Hellgate, who showed up on Earth thinking that Spider-Man was someone who was destined to teach him something, and he was disappointed that Spider-Man was so, well, WEAK. He stranded Spider-Man in outer space with the simple message of, "Get stronger."
In this CBR exclusive preview of next week's Amazing Spider-Man #19 (by Joe Kelly, Pepe Larraz, Marte Gracia, Marcio Menyz, and Joe Caramagna), we see what Spider-Man is willing to do to GET stronger.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #19 (LGY#985)
JOE KELLY (W) • PEPE LARRAZ (A/C) • VARIANT COVER BY LEONARDO ROMERO
AMAZING VISIONS VARIANT COVER BY LEE BERMEJO
AMAZING VISIONS VIRGIN VARIANT COVER BY LEE BERMEJO
VARIANT COVER BY LEE GARBETT • VARIANT COVER BY TBA
SPIDEY VS. HELLGATE, ROUND TWO!
The spacefaring SPIDER-MAN heads back to Earth – only to find HELLGATE standing in his way! Spider-Man’s finally strong enough to beat the most powerful foe he’s ever faced…right?!
32 PGS./Rated T …$4.99
In the preview pages, we see Spider-Man spending some time with his new cosmic love interest, Raelith, a warrior who is part of the same alien race as Hellgate. She was raised to believe that she was a lower form of life than the others on her planet, and it took seeing Spider-Man heroically risking his life to protect her in a recent issue for her to realize that she had more strength of will than she ever knew about.
She is inspired by Spider-Man's heart, and it had led her to be attracted to Spider-Man, and, as we see in this issue, has also led her to love Spider-Man, but not in the way that Spider-Man is probably worried about (the kind of love entanglement that causes too many issues back home).
This whole motley crew of aliens came together in the first place because the villainous scientist, Dr. Xanto Starblood, captured them to experiment on them. The only captive he didn't experiment on was Spider-Man, because he was intrigued both by Spider-Man's intelligence, but also his mission - to get stronger.
The other aliens are wary of how much time Spider-Man still spends with Starblood, trying to improve his strength for a rematch with Hellgate. Now, as Spider-Man prepares to go home, Starblood believes he has found a way to increase Spider-Man's powers, but he actually counsels him NOT to use the serum, as he fears Spider-Man will lose his humanity in the process, and he has actually gotten kind of used to Spidey.
So Spider-Man has a pretty impossible decision on his hands, and you'll have to pick up a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #19 next week to find out what he decides!
Source: Marvel
English (US) · 