Comic Info
Comic Name: Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows/Spider-Verse
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Adam Kubert/Scott Hanna/Ty Templeton
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2015
Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1 Variant
Reprints Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1-5 and Spider-Verse #2 (August 2015-November 2015). When Regent takes over Manhattan and kills all the Avengers, Peter Parker, Mary Jane, and their young child Annie realizes remaining in hiding is their only hope. As the years pass, Regent continues to grow stronger and Peter and Mary Jane discover that raising a child with superpowers could be dangerous. Spider-Man is forced to reveal he is alive and becomes a target of Regent…but Regent doesn’t have a family helping him.
Written by Dan Slott, Warzones!: Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows is a Marvel Comics limited series that ties in with the event series Secret Wars. Featuring art by Adam Kubert and Scott Hanna, the series also has a short story from Spider-Verse #2 by Slott and Ty Templeton.
I am not the biggest fan of Slott’s run on Spider-Man. He had a vision for the character, but I didn’t particularly like his vision. That doesn’t mean it was all bad and much like his Superior Spider-Man series, I kind of liked this entry.
Peter Parker made Spider-Man. He had his own world, he had a supporting cast, and he enjoyed being a hero more than his standard life. This series feels a lot more like the traditional Amazing Spider-Man with these factors despite advancing the character’s life and story. It feels like a true What If? world that stands alone from Secret Wars (despite a few references to Doom).
Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #4
Though he doesn’t fully come to fruition here, I think Regent was kind of interesting. His goal was overall a heroic one (he wanted the power to take down Doom), but as it is shown, power corrupts. This is a nice flipside to Spider-Man and his belief that powers often ruin his life. He chooses not use his powers even though he feels he should use them.
The story feels a bit rushed due to the limited “five issues” of the series, but the art and writing do flesh out both Annie and show Peter and Mary Jane’s married life rather well despite this. Annie is an interesting creation and different from the May “Mayday” Parker that was created for Spider-Girl, and she does remind me a lot of Power Pack (who also made an appearance here).
Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows shows potential and it must have shown potential for Marvel because after Secret Wars they did spin the series off into a standalone. The series’ lack of deep involvement with Battleworld and Doom probably helped, but there were a number of fun series in the Warzones! and Battleworld titles that had potential. Peter Parker and his family played heroes again in Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows 1: Brawl in the Family.
