includes: Amazing Spider-Man # 652-657 & 654.1
the premise: When the return of Alistair Smythe claims the life of someone close to him, Spider-Man resolves that "no one dies" from here on out. Later, after the Human Torch ignores Spidey's proclamation and dies anyway, Spidey visits the Fantastic Four and recalls his friendship with the Torch. Plus: the new Venom.
the lowdown: The three part story that leads off this arc really isn't anything special. It's a perfectly acceptable disposable story about Spider-Man fighting one of his more disposable villains, but really not anything more than that. It's drawn by Casselli, who gives the story a little more traditional look than Humberto Ramos did on the prior arc, and co-written by Fred Van Lente. The death at the end feels pretty tacked on, and come on - no one's really getting excited about Spider-Man fighting Smythe again. He's just not all that interesting.
Neither is the awkwardly placed 654.1 all that wonderful. It has nothing to do with anything else here - it's a pilot episode for the new Venom series, except it's not by the Venom creative team. It introduces Flash Thompson as the new Venom and sets up his series - certainly nothing that couldn't have been done in Venom #1, but I guess it gets more eyes on it if it's in "Spider-Man." I've always hated this stunt.
The last three issues here, though, are quite good. #655-656 are drawn by Marcos Martin and as such look amazing. Those issues deal with the fallout of the aforementioned tacked-on death, and while they lack much emotional gravitas, they feature Spidey doing a relatively thoughtful re-assessment of his methods and priorities. This is coupled with Spidey having lost his trademark Spider-sense, and Slott does a really good job of depicting all the ways Spidey relied on it. #655 has an extended silent sequence, and though it doesn't quite work - it really just serves as a reminder that we've seen the whole song and dance before - it's terrific to look at.
#657 is where the money's at, though. This issue follows closely from the death of the Human Torch over in Hickman's Fantastic Four. It's meant to be read after the epilogue issue of the "Three" arc, and features Spidey buddying around with the FF telling Torch stories. Each short flashback story is illustrated by a different artist, with Martin drawing the framing sequence. These little short stories are gold, esp. the Ty Templeton-drawn campout story. Superhero comics rarely do sentimentality well, but this one captures the moment almost perfectly. It goes from wistful to funny and back with consummate skill - I can even forgive it for using the hackneyed "message from beyond the grave" device to conclude. Definitely the best single issue since "Big Time" began.
the verdict: Though these issues are bundled together for collection purposes, they're only loosely connected - they do, as the title implies, involve life and death I guess. The stories run the gamut from so-so to the Human Torch issue. I liked the run as a whole well enough, but you'd be fine to just pick up #657 on comixology for $1.99.
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