Amazing Spider-Man #618 Review

The Gauntlet: Mysterio

The Gauntlet continues along with the reappearance of Mysterio! I always thought Mysterio had one of the goofiest outfits of any super-villain, what with his green and purple outfit and fishbowl head. Anyway, isn't Mysterio dead? Well, as we all know in comics, deaths are never permanent (Except Kraven's. His death was epic and fantastic. Please don't bring him back and ruin it!!)

Most of this issue deals with the gang war between the Maggia crime family and that of Mister Negative (I always thought that was a goofy name.) In the beginning of this ish, it appears that key members of the maggia are being hunted down by Mr. Negative's forces. This leads to potential Peter Parker love interest Carlie Cooper investigating these various crime scenes, and she also gets humorously put down by the other sops, who don't conside rher a "real" cop. Apparently that's because she doesn't live up to the long shadow cast by her father, a former cop.

Meanwhile, Spidey is at a maggia hideout while Negative's forces, dubbed the "inner demons" attack, and he helps the maggia fight them off, rationalizing that he also has to help save the lives of scumbags too. Afterwards, a maggia member thanks Spidey, which a person on the street hears and surmises that Spider-man is helping criminals. Oh Peter will your luck ever change.

Later, we discover that the maggia members we thought were dead actually are alive. They faked their own deaths thanks to the help of their newest colleague, Mysterio! Also, Mysterio apparently has also created some illusion that causes Carlie's dead cop father to come back alive. This is part one of three, so we'll see more of this story.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.0. This issue reminded me story arcs from the late 70's, early to mid 80's that were organized crime related, like "Gang War". In fact, Silvermane appears to lead the Maggia, in his late 70's, early 80's robot gear. That reminded me of Black Cat-era Spidey story arcs. In fact, I think in the 190-ish issues of Spectacular Spider Man there was a long Silvermane-in-his-robot-gear vs. the Kingpin story arc. This is kinds like that.