Review- AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: WORLDWIDE VOL. 3

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: WORLDWIDE VOL. 3 (Marvel, First Printing, 2016; Softcover)

Collects Amazing Spider-Man #12-15, Annual #19, and material from #1 (cover dates Annual 1985- September, 2016)

Writers: Dan Slott with Christos Gage (#5) and back-up stories from #1 by Robbie Thompson, Dennis Hopeless, and Anthony Holden and Louise Simonson (Annual #19)

Artists: Giuseppe Camuncoli and Cam Smith with back-up stories from #1 by Stacey Lee, Paco Diaz, Javier Rodriguez, and Anthony Holden, and Pat Redding and Mary Wilshire (Annual #19)

Colorists: Marte Gracia with back-up stories from #1 by Ian Herring, Javier Rodriguez, Israel Silva, and Jordie Bellaire

I borrowed this book from my local library.

You can almost hear Dan Slott yawning, as his boredom with the character is palpable. The Peter Parker/Tony Stark/Mary Jane Watson love triangle is uninteresting and unbelievable. Spider-Man has always had a soap opera aspect to it, but the CEOs duking it out for the girl next door turned supermodel angle is absurd.

This set-up brings us an attack from The Ghost, an Iron Man foe, lending credibility to my theory of Slott's boredom with writing Spider-Man. He has since been sent packing and is the writer of Iron Man now. This is a stopgap where we get to the meat of this arc. The revelation of the identity and motivation of Regent which has been brewing since #1 in this new series.

Regent attacks the once prevalent doppelgangers to add their powers to his: fake Spider-Man (Miles Morales), fake Thor (She-Thor), the Falcon version of Captain America, the new Ms. Marvel, and a seemingly younger Nova. I don't recognize most of these fill-ins and am glad that they are gone.

The battle with Regent was enjoyable, it's just the backdrop of how we got there that made me groan. CEO Peter Parker will never sit well with me. The book ends with a potentially tragic episode with a member of the supporting cast whom I won't name.

The inclusion of Annual #19 was a nonsensical case of padding the page count. Okay, so Mary Jane was the Iron Spider in this story for a minute. That has nothing to do with Annual #19, where she was mistaken for Spider-Man. The story in and of itself is passable enough, although I remember hating it as a 12 year old kid who bought it off of the spinner rack at 7-11. This story has been reprinted recently in two other books, so it's double dip city for the faithful. The creators are not listed in the table of contents either, although the original issue credits are intact.

The back-up story that introduced Regent in Volume 1 from Issue 1 is included here. While the inclusion makes sense, it is also a double dip for anyone who bought Vol. 1 in this line of books.

The “next issue” blub...Before Dead No More Begins Next! We have preludes to events. It's a long-winded way to milk it, isn't it? Kind of like Slott's endless Twitter tantrums of yore.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3 out of 5.

The OCD zone- This is the part where I go into tactile sensations and materials used in physical media. Those with heart conditions, high blood pressure, or women who are pregnant should exit my blog at their earliest convenience, as their safety cannot be guaranteed beyond this point.

Library copies are fascinating studies in the durability of these books. I look at them like science experiments, as the average human handles their books like the Samsonite Gorilla when compared to how I handle my books.

Paper stock: Fair weight coated stock with a glossy sheen.

Binding: Perfect bound paperback.

Cardstock cover notes: Laminated cardstock cover.