Review: ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ #54 Has A Whole Lot Of Torture Porn

Kindred stands revealed as Harry Osborn, serving as judge, jury, and executioner to Spider-Man. Peter Parker must pay for his sins and that means dying at Harry’s hands over and over again. How else is he going to learn his lesson?

The trouble with Amazing Spider-Man #54 is that we don’t know what that lesson is. What are the web-head’s sins? This issue does nothing to illustrate that. Instead, it focuses on horrific violence as Kindred brutally murders Peter again and again. We’ve already seen stuff like this throughout this series and this arc in particular so writer Nick Spencer does little more than tread water in this issue.

Although it’s been shown repeatedly as of late, we are treated to a few more examples as to how powerful and deadly Kindred is. Artist Mark Bagley makes us feel every blood-soaked punch, every sickening thud as Peter is killed over and over. Since this takes up the majority of Amazing Spider-Man #54, it gets to the point where it’s just uncomfortable.

There’s an early sequence that really stands out, when Kindred initially lets loose. This is shown as five vertical panels, bookended by Kindred’s sickening smile. Inker John Dell highlights the darkness here, between the shadows looming around the villain and the emptiness in his eye sockets. Colorist Edgar Delgado makes these panels pop with a selective use of red, only appearing in Kindred’s hood, the rock he uses as a weapon, and all the blood.

Each time Peter dies, he seems to be reliving his past. These quick flashes are shown in a faded light to differentiate them from the horrors of the present. The people in Peter’s life, like Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy, and Flash Thompson are shown prominently. All the while, Kindred taunts the wall-crawler in his chilling voice. Letterer Joe Caramagna continues the use of the scratchy word balloons to convey a truly monstrous tone.

All of this serves to break Spider-Man down. Our hero is at the point where he’d give anything for this pain to stop, but Kindred’s not through with him yet. There’s one more trick up his centipede-clad sleeves and it’s going to pack quite a punch. All of this would be much more compelling if we had any idea what he wants, what happened to Harry to transform him into this villain, and why any of this is happening. Absolutely none of that is clear so we have to sift through this torture porn with the hope that Peter Parker will rise above it all to come out on top.

While this looks terrifying on the surface, there are no teeth to these actions. Nothing has been done to build Kindred up as an interesting villain, even with his identity revealed so he comes across as a force of nature. Spider-Man may as well be fighting the wind at this point.

Amazing Spider-Man #54 from Marvel Comics is currently available at your local comic shop and digitally through ComiXology and Amazon Kindle.