The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #5 Comic Book Review/Recap

The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #5 – I’ll always be there for you.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #5 Comic Book Recap

At the Regent’s Headquarters, the remnants of SHIELD attack the baron of this domain. But they are no match against the despot, who easily knocks his attackers back. Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and Dagger are all scraps, none of whom ever had powers the Regent deemed worth stealing. He turns his back on his attackers, not deeming them a threat worthy of his attention. So Hawkeye uses this opportunity to fire the inhibitor arrow, only for the Regent to catch the missile without even looking. He has Peter’s Spider-Sense now. Spider-Man is dead. They all are.

As Peter slips away, his life flashes before his eyes. But he is surprised that his memories aren’t of dodging bullets and pumpkin bombs. He doesn’t even think of being bitten by that spider. Peter only remembers the stuff that matters. Love and loss. A first kiss. A last goodbye. A new beginning. Family.

Meanwhile, the Regent’s scientists are monitoring his powers. Spider-Man’s pod is holding with minimal tissue decay, when suddenly, they detect a new power signature within the building. One that is similar to Spider-Man. Annie and MJ appear through a portal, and introduce themselves. Annie is then surprised when her mother orders her daughter to go kick some ass. The lead scientist is not worried though, as her own suit channels powers from a much stronger hero. But Annie is hard to hit, and pretty soon, the woman is robustly defeated. Meanwhile, MJ easily handles the non-powered scientists. She demands to know how to stop the powers from getting to the Regent, but the scientists say that’s impossible. The equipment merely monitors the pods for the purpose of study. The Regent would never trust anyone with a set of controls.

So MJ comes up with a new plan. She orders Annie to begin destroying any pod that Peter isn’t in, while she puts on the scientist’s power suit. In no time at all, the Regent detects this tampering, and bursts into the pod room. But Mary Jane is ready, and prepares for a fight. However, over in Peter’s pod, he hears Annie shout for her mother. Parker then wakes up, filled with emotion – love, fear, and hate. He bursts through the pod, and attacks the Regent, knocking him clear out of the building and all the way down into the city streets.

The Regent is frustrated, and restates his need for Parker’s powers. It has all been for the greater good, and now Spider-Man is ruining everything. But the Regent is rapidly losing his powers as Annie and MJ resume destroying the other pods. In spite of this, his many powers are still more than enough to handle Peter, so Annie wants to go help. MJ tries to stop her, but Annie won’t listen. However, before she can go help, Hawkeye blocks her path.

Outside, the Regent realizes he doesn’t need Peter. Just a Spider-Sense. And Annie will be more than suffiecient. Peter cries out no, but there is nothing he can do. Suddenly, Annie pounces on him, and hits him with the inhibitor arrow, given to her by Hawkeye. The Regent finds himself depowered and without his suit.

This frustrates the Baron who knows that this technology is not allowed in this domain, but the Parkers have never been one to follow rules. The Regent calls them fools. His body has been enhanced, and even without the suit, he’s more than a match for the father and daughter. But Mary Jane arrives, and says he’s going to have to deal with all three Parkers. They give him a resounding beating, but the Regent manages to grab Annie by the throat.

By now, a crowd has gathered, and they see Roman Augustus for who he really is. As they look on in disgust, Peter begs the Regent to stop, while discreetly grabbing a piece of Mary Jane’s power suit. He claims that Annie’s Spider-Sense is weaker, and offers himself instead. All he asks is that his family be kept safe. And that he makes sure Annie does her homework and eats her veggies. She also gets a quarter every week for allowance. This causes Roman to laugh.

Peter thinks on why he always tells jokes. It centres himself, while calming civilians. And it also rattles the bad guys. With Roman, his eyes are squinting, his vision is impaired. And he tilts his head back… exposing his jugular vein. This madman is holding his daughter by the neck. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for her. But he has to win this… while being the person she needs him to be.

Father and daughter hug, and Peter realizes he can do this. He can keep her safe – without compromise. In this moment, Parker renews his greatest vow.

Mary Jane asks what would have happened if his daughter was in any real danger, and whether or not he was prepared to kill Roman. Parker doesn’t answer, and only smiles at her. Meanwhile, SHIELD manages to cobble together a means to hold the Regent, and they congratulate the Parkers on a job well done. Roman mocks them all, saying that everybody is doomed. When asked about their next move, Annie knows exactly what to do. After all, there is no problem in the world that can’t be solved with some banana pancakes.

As the family enjoys breakfast together, they remark on Roman’s crazy plan to fight some guy named Doom. Annie asks for some syrup, and is reminded to say please.

In a perfect world, you’d get a happily ever after. Not us. Every chapter of our lives ends with a big ol’ “to be continued.” Because our story keeps going on. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #5 Comic Book 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 #5.

Now this was fun. It was a great ending to a great tie-in. I really don’t have a lot of negative stuff to throw around here. That being said, this issue unlike the previous ones was full of a lot of corny moments, including Peter bursting out of his pod thanks to the… power of love? As well as a few dumb lines including another version of the “Face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot” that felt so… lame I kind of wanted to burn my eyes out with a hot poker. And there was a really bad joke about Annie’s allowance that was cringe worthy on a level that actually surprised me.

But a few lousy moments are easy to overlook when we consider the phenomenal art work, excellent storytelling, and overall high quality of this comic. I love the idea of Peter looking back on his life and not focusing on his time as Spider-Man but rather on the people he cared about the most. And the ending, where he decides he can be both a father and Spider-Man, really speaks to the long erroneous assumption that Peter somehow can’t be both a parent and a superhero. And by the way, a lot of fans somehow think that the whole idea of being both Spider-Man and a father is somehow irresponsible. To me, that’s an ongoing insult to any real life emergency worker or soldier that happens to be a mother or father themselves. It’s nonsense, and Renew Your Vows does a really good job at showing why. It is an excellent comic, and outside of the Ultimate Spider-Man stories, is one of the best Spider-Man stories I’ve read in years.

But I’m afraid that’s it. Going forward, it looks like Spider-Man is going back to normal, as the next Amazing Spider-Man comic post Secret Wars reeks of a “back to normal” vibe. It’s all about Peter going high-tech, and his company going global. Zzzzzzz… oh, I’m sorry, I fell asleep for a second there. Because that’s stupid and I’m going to have to go back to being perpetually annoyed by Spider-Man comics again. Ah well, Renew Your Vows was fun while it lasted, but I made it very clear when all this started that this was always going to be temporary. The writing was on the wall for a long time, and you never should have gotten your hopes up about this version of Peter Parker sticking around. Because that’s just setting yourself up for disappointment. Me, I’m just happy this story was a lot of fun and had a great ending. And though I’m going to miss Annie and Mary Jane, I will always enjoy this little excursion with them.

Perhaps one day Marvel will be smart about something and return to us a Peter Parker with a heart and soul, like the one in this comic. He doesn’t have to be a father and husband, but he needs to be grounded in street level crime. Personally, I’m just going to try and ignore corporate stooge Peter Parker for as long as possible until they do something interesting with the character, and that’s the best way to get Marvel to change their ways. Fight them with your wallet. Don’t buy boring Spider-Man comics, and make no mistake, this is going to be boring. I’m like 90% sure of that. Spider-Man driving a car is boring. Spider-Man running a worldwide company is also very boring! Now he’s more like Batman than ever before, and I don’t need that. We already have a Batman, and his name is BATMAN.

But this? This was great. Renew Your Vows was everything Spider-Man comics should be. It was grounded, well drawn, and well crafted. It was moving, fun, and inspiring. And by the looks of things, it is everything Post-Secret Wars Spider-Man isn’t. Yes, I recommend Renew Your Vows. It is an oasis of good Spider-Man in a desert of nonsense. Drink it up while you still can, because odds are it’s going to be a long time before we ever get anything like this again.