Classic Comic Review: Amazing Spider-Man #316/317

Amazing Spider-Man #316-316
Written by David Michelinie and illustrated by Todd McFarlane
Published by Marvel Comics (1989)

I read that a lot of people liked it when I reviewed older comics that my dad and other people read when they were younger. I didn’t like the Secret Wars or silent GI Joe issue but there were a lot of people who said that this was the best Venom story and that I would really like it. It was okay, but not as good as everyone was saying. So I read the two issues that make up the story. Venom was put away by Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four but he got out somehow and now he’s looking to hurt Spider-Man again.

I’ll go over my likes. I like in the first pages where Venom is chasing down the guy in the sewers and he thinks the guy is lying to him. Venom finds a rat and webs it up into a ball until the rats dies because there is no air coming in the ball. The guy promises that he won’t tell anyone about what happened or that Venom is back and Venom believes him because he says he can tell if people are lying because of their eyes.

I like the fight with Black Cat and Venom when she is snooping around Spider-Man’s old house. She was gone for awhile and came back and didn’t know that Spider-Man got married to Mary Jane but Venom mentioned it and she got upset. I thought that Venom was going to just kill her but they had a pretty big fight and she got smashed against the wall but she was still living after the fight. I like how Venom turns into Eddie and goes to Peter’s house to bother Aunt May and he was all like, ‘can Peter come out and play’. Spdier-Man is really angry that Venom went to his house but Venom promises that he only hurts back people like Spider-Man, not Mary Jane or Aunt May. My favorite part was when Venom puts his arm around Aunt May and he starts to change to Venom and Peter is trying to hold back his arm and he needs two hands to do it.

Each time Spider-Man tries to get away from Venom to find help or whatever Venom is able to follow him because his senses aren’t working. I liked when Venom and Spider-Man had their big battle on the beach and the Venom costume went underground to capture Spider-Man and pull him back through the sand and punch him. It was cool to see him use the powers like this.

I didn’t like the way that Spider-Man was drawn. His eyes were too big and there are too many lines on his costume for webs. I don’t like the way Peter Parker and Mary Jane and Eddie and the other regular people looked, either. They looked kind of creepy. I wasn’t sure what that was about. I like the way the webs were drawn and the buildings and beach and stuff like that. I just really didn’t think the regular people were the same. I didn’t like that Spider-Man was running around so much. He’s tough but there were a lot of times when he was trying to just escape from Venom and hide out instead of capturing him. I thought it was weird that he tried to get the police to help when he called then as Spider-Man but without the mask. The fight at the beach was too short. Venom is following Spider-Man and wanting to kill him and Spider-Man finally meets Venom but they don’t really battle. They talk a lot and then Peter pretends that he wants his black costume back and when it starts to leave to go back on him Eddie gets knocked out from the pain. They both get knocked down from the pain but Peter wakes up first and leaves Venom in the sand so he can call the Fantastic Four. I didn’t read the next issue but I bet Venom got away while Peter was somewhere else making a phone call.

So there were a couple of good parts in it. I liked it better than the Secret Wars book but I don’t think it was as great as people were saying. I hope the next book people pick is better. I’ll still read some old comics but I think the new ones are way better.

My Rating: 7 out of 10