The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1 Recap/Review

The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1

The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1 Recap

Our story begins in the Parker home within the Regency domain on Battleworld. This area is a version of New York City, featuring some all too familiar characters… Mary Jane is chastising her husband Peter Parker for making more web fluid at the dinner table. But Spider-Man doesn’t want to be running out on his next patrol. His wife is worried, as Peter has been busy lately. He’s not sure what’s up, but it seems like the other heroes of New York – Moon Knight, Daredevil, Iron Fist – they’ve all been taking it easy, and Parker feels like he’s been picking up the slack. MJ thinks he should explain to them that he has has a wife and kid now, but Peter doesn’t think it works that way. Mary Jane points out that their young daughter Annie is getting old enough that she is starting to pick up on her father’s double life, so Peter vows to keep his superhero antics out of the house.

Not long after this, Peter arrives at the Daily Bugle with a fresh set of Spider-Man pictures, only to find the paper can’t publish pictures like that right now. The mayor is trying to avoid a city wide panic, as rumour is, the superheroes of New York are being killed off. Punisher, Moon Knight, and some kid going by the name Night Thrasher have all been found dead, while others, including Iron Fist and Daredevil, have gone missing.

Peter panics at this news, and goes to the Avengers Mansion, hoping to find some answers. Jarvis greets Spider-Man and says the others are already here. It turns out the Avengers are aware of this problem, and have gathered the surviving heroes to figure out what is going on. Heroes without powers are being killed off, while those without abilities are going missing. Xavier’s school and all of the X-Men have recently disappeared.

Shocked, Spider-Man asks Iron Man why he hasn’t heard about this before. Tony simply reminds him that he’s always been a bit of a loner, and isn’t the easiest person to get in touch with. Peter confides in his fellow hero that he has a wife and a baby girl – he can’t risk losing them, or them losing him. Iron Man says he didn’t know that, and offers to let them stay here at the mansion, but this will blow his secret identity wide open. That identity is what has always held Peter back from being a full fledged Avenger, however, if he’s willing to share with them his secret identity, they’d be honoured to have him on as a full time member.

This is all too much for Peter, so he calls his wife to see what she thinks. MJ isn’t sure what to do, and asks if they’ll all have to wear masks and adopt code names. Before she can continue, the doorbell rings. Meanwhile, Captain America is discussing a likely suspect – Augustus Roman – CEO of Empire Unlimted, a company researching superhuman powers and abilities – as the most likely person responsible for the missing and dead heroes. A call then comes out from Hawkeye – there’s been a full scale prison break over at Rykers. Captain America knows this can’t be a coincidence, to he orders everyone to confront Augustus Roman as a team.

But a thought of dread occurs to Peter. He knows somebody who was staying at Rykers, somebody who knows him very well, too. As the Avengers set out to face Roman, Iron Man is surprised to find Spider-Man is gone. Peter races back home, only to find Venom waiting to greet him. The villain taunts Peter, but the hero doesn’t listen. Parker goes into a fury, attacking Venom without holding an ounce of strength back. Bones shatter and crack in Spider-Man’s body but he doesn’t care. Mary Jane and Annie flee, however, she has no idea where to go.

Meanwhile, the Avengers close in on Empire Unlimted, until Roman appears before them, a changed man. He declares himself Regent of this domain, and demands the surrender of the Avengers. They assemble but are no match for this new enemy. When the Hulk attacks, Regent grabs the hero’s arm, and teleports it off. Somehow, this man now has every one of the X-Men’s powers. Soon, he’ll have the powers of the Avengers, too. Today begins the Age of Regent.

Mary Jane continues to flee from Venom, but the Symbiote gives chase. She comes across a building that’s on fire, and, thinking on her feet, she forces her way into a fire engine and turns on the sirens. This incapacitates Venom long enough for Peter to catch up. Parker attacks his enemy relentlessly, forces the villain into the fiery building. The heat affects Spider-Man almost as badly as it does Venom, but the two manage to keep fighting anyway. But Peter is thinking very differently than what his old enemy is used to. Parker manages to collapse a major support structure on top of the villain. Venom is shocked – Spider-Man would never do this! But Peter makes it clear that this monster will never threaten his family again.

Eddie Brock and the symbiote die as Peter emerges from the flames. He did what he had to do. This was the day the Avengers died. Every last hero died… even Spider-Man. Only Peter Parker lived on. A dad in a stupid red-and-blue suit. Peter learned that day that what trumps great power… is an even greater responsibility. As the Vulture carries out a nearby mugging, Parker focuses on Annie, who he reminds to always look both ways before crossing the street.

It’s not a perfect world. But he looks after him and his. And that’s… good enough.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1 Review

Hello and welcome to Comic Island! My name is Arden and this is my recap, and review, of The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1.

Yep, it’s another Secret Wars tie-in. I hope you guys liked this one. So are you ready for this review? Because I’m going to have to be brutally honest. Are you ready for the cold, hard truth? Well I hope you’re sitting down, because here we go… this is one of the best Spider-Man comics I have ever read in years! And that includes quite a few comics I really like – Superior Spider-Man, Spider-Verse, and even all that stuff with Miles Morales – yeah, this little comic here trumps all of them in my eyes.

So why do I think this? Well some of you probably already know why simply from the recap But maybe others don’t quite see what I see in this issue. This was a Spider-Man story that was new and different, but also one that tells us a lot about Peter. We’ve never quite seen Parker at this phase in his life, and the shift away from super-heroics is one that feels natural given the situation. And then there’s the art and writing, which really work well in this comic. The panels are a little weird at times, like I’m not sure why Tony looks so angry… in a helmet… but it works where it is needed, like with this brilliant, desperate showdown with Venom. The artist did a great job at conveying the chaos in this fight as well as Peter’s desperate sense of urgency, which is also depicted very nicely through Peter’s own internal monologue.

What really sells me on the comic is this ending. We learn that some responsibility is more important to Peter than his vow as Spider-Man. Which informs something that I think is important here. Parker outright murders somebody in this comic, but it feel natural. Not for Spider-Man, as killing seems completely out of character for this superhero, but it feels true to Peter Parker as a husband and father. And that is what works so well here, is that this feels like the natural conclusion to what happens if Peter gets a wife and child. It becomes incompatible not with being a superhero, but being a responsible Spider-Man. So him both quitting and killing as a part of this story feels quite warranted and I really liked the story on the whole.

This story exists in a complicated little world of continuity. To really understand this, you need to know what’s going on with Secret Wars, what One More Day is, the fact that Peter and Mary were going to have a child today, and hey, some people probably don’t even know that Mary Jane and Peter used to be married for a while. I can’t explain all of this in one small review video. But if you understand and know Spider-Man like I do, this issue is kind of a big deal. I miss MJ’s relationship with Peter. They’re a real team and a great example of a solid couple in fiction. It was so great to see them together again, and as a long term Spider-Man fan, it’s a real pleasure to be able to review a comic like this. I doubt this will be permanent, I mean the real version of Peter Parker is running around in the core Secret Wars series right now, but I don’t really care about this story’s explicit continuity either. It was a cool story and one that showed us a new side to Peter Parker, and I thoroughly enjoyed this comic for it.

So yeah… recommended… thumbs up… check out this comic if you know what’s good for you. And the best part about all of this is that this is issue number one. For one thing, I’m very curious to see how Peter adapts to a civilian life. And the other thing is, while it’s pretty easy to ignored someone like this, it’s pretty hard to ignore something like this. Sooner or later, Peter will have to deal with the Regency, and I am very eager to see how things go down in the rest of this mini-series.

Let me know what you’d like to see in the comments section below. And, as always, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and keep reading comics.