Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #8 Review - Marvel Monday

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #8

 

Writer: Gerry Conway & Ryan Stegman

Art Team: Ryan Stegman & Jesus Aburtov

Marvel Comics

Release Date: June 14, 2017

Cover Price: $3.99

Mommy M.J. Goes Venom

Renew Your Vows has been a highlight of Marvel’s monthly release schedule since it started for me personally.  When I got wind this issue would feature a little bit of ‘Venom’ as well, I was ecstatic with joy, since I also love me some symbiote action whenever I can get it.  So with that brief background setup let’s get right into issue #8 of the Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows and see what’s in store for us readers.

The issue starts off, below the streets of New York City, as Spider-Man and Spinneret (M.J.) take on the always dastardly Mysterio. The old villain has laid a trap for the two heroes so that Spinneret thinks Annie is in danger, which ends up working against him, as MJ drains all of Spider-Man’s powers to lift a subway car tossing it in Mystertio’s direction.  Annie vanishes into thin air, revealing it was all a trick by Mysterio, and we begin to see MJ doubt her abilities to be a hero and do things the ‘right’ way.  Spider-Man does his best to ease his wife’s concerns but this will be a major story point moving forward.

Up next is the Osborne clan and we see lil' Normy still up to no good and working on something that will obviously draw the attention of the Spider family down the line. Meanwhile his Mama Dukes, Liz Allen, is seen on RNN Television News by M.J., pimping a new prototype science that she claims can “tap into the true human potential.” 

M.J. tracks down Liz immediately to try to understand more of what she was revealing on the RNN television program.  Liz shows a prototype suit, to M.J. dressed as Spinneret, mentioning human trials aren’t yet allowed, but if M.J. is willing to keep things “off the books”, so to speak, she’ll allow her to give it a ‘spin’.  This is the reveal we were all waiting for this issue because the suit is none other than a ‘Venom symbiote prototype’ that M.J. can control simply with her thoughts, in typical symbiote fashion.  I do have one complaint about M.J. just so willingly giving into the symbiote and that is, she went through this with Peter previously! I know this is an elseworlds type story, but for story’s sake, since Peter has had these experiences too she should be wary, but this may also come in later issues and I’m just not being patient enough yet.

M.J., in her new suit, hits the town, stopping crimes right away gaining confidence in her new found abilities. However when she gets home, Peter recognizes she is 100% exhausted and spent, sending her to bed, and offering to take care of Annie for the remainder of the night. While M.J. is sleeping she begins having a dream/nightmare of Venom taking control of her and her family. When she wakes up underneath a bridge she knows things are off in her new threads.  Surprised as hell, M.J. drops from the bridge, hitting the water, and when approached by two fishermen to make sure she’s ok, lunges at the pair in full Venom-ed out attire. 

The issue concludes with M.J. back at home the next morning with her family, having already prepared breakfast, and housing a bunch of food like it’s all brand new to her.  Peter can sense something is off, but with M.J. saying she feels better than ever, our issue concludes with hints that this is obviously not the case.

Overall this is yet another issue in the series that had a ton of moments I really enjoyed setting up the next arc of this fantastic series thus far.  I’m interested to see if Peter’s past experiences will come into play in future issue of the series, hopefully discovering some new character cameos along the way. 

The young Osborne stuff is still playing out slow, and doesn’t interest me a whole lot, unless there is a twist I don’t see coming with it, so that would be one story beat I’m not feeling in an otherwise great overall series. This however is a nitpick more than a legit complaint that I can overlook for now because it doesn’t dominate any single issue. The art continues to be fantastic and has a bit of a throwback feel with an updated look I really enjoy. I just can say enough good things about this and I recommend it to just about any comic book fan especially if you love family centric titles.    

Bits and Pieces

Renew Your Vows continues to hit the high points of Spider-Man lore, keeping readers engaged in a well done elseworlds tale.  This was a setup issue for the arc to come, and had some good moments highlighting M.J.’s plight, with great art to compliant the series as usual.

7.5/10