Comic Book / Back in Black (2007)

2 Following

Back in Black is a 2007 Spider-Man storyline whose main arc ran through The Amazing Spider-Man (1999) #539-543. It was written by J. Michael Straczynski with pencils by Ron Garney, and served as the penultimate storyline of Straczynski's run on the title.

Soon after unmasking himself in front of the world, Peter Parker ended up fighting for Tony Stark's pro-registration faction in the Superhuman Civil War. However, Spider-Man eventually defected from Stark's side, and he and his family became fugitives from the US government.

In the aftermath of the war, Peter's Aunt May has been shot by an assassin hired by Wilson Fisk. As his aunt lies in critical condition, an enraged Spider-Man dons his old black costume^note For clarity, this suit is not the symbiote, but a cloth costume which Peter wore afterwards up until his first encounter with Venom. to signal to his foes that he is no longer playing by his usual rules. Still pursued by the authorities, Peter ruthlessly tears through New York's underworld until he tracks down the man who ordered the hit, promising to make him pay with his life.

In addition to the main arc, Back in Black tied into Spider-Man's other two monthly titles:

• Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #17-23 (by Peter David and Todd Nauck):
  • Sandblasted (#17-19): With his father framed for murder, the Sandman is determined to save him from death row, seeking help from none other than his old foe Spider-Man.
  • Consuming Passions (#20-22): Spidey must rescue Flash Thompson from being impregnated and devoured by the spider-controlling Miss Arrow.
  • Fighting Words (#23): Spidey confronts J. Jonah Jameson over his unjust firing of Robbie Robertson.
• The Sensational Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #35-40 (by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and various artists):
  • The Strange Case of... (#35-37): When several Spider-Man impostors begin appearing around New York, Peter sets out to find their creator.
  • The Last Temptation of Eddie Brock (#38-39): Dying of cancer and plagued by the lingering memory of the Venom symbiote, Eddie Brock learns that Peter's Aunt May has been transferred to the same hospital as him, and considers taking a final revenge against his hated enemy.
  • The Book of Peter (#40): As May lies dying, Peter reflects on the tragic losses he has endured as Spider-Man, and has a conversation with the One Above All.

The Back in Black banner was also used for the first two issues of the new bimonthly title Spider Man Family (Vol. 2), though these stories were tied less directly to the main event:

• Homesick (#1): By Sean McKeever and Terrell Bobbett. An interquel set during Spider-Man's period with the symbiote costume. After taking control of Peter's unconscious body to bust some arms dealers, the symbiote ponders its new home on Earth.
• Undone (#2): By Sean McKeever and Kano. An interquel set during Eddie Brock's time as Venom, prior to auctioning off the symbiote in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man. Spidey, the usual target of Venom's murderous hatred, is surprised to find the villain ignoring him in favour of a businesswoman with whom he has an apparent history. This soon leads Peter to unearth secrets from Eddie's past life as a journalist.

Back in Black led directly into One More Day, a crossover arc between the three monthly Spidey titles which concluded Straczynski's run on The Amazing Spider-Man, while also cancelling Friendly Neighborhood and Sensational in favour of turning Amazing into a thrice-monthly series to make way for the Brand New Day era.

An alternate scenario of this arc was explored in the 2008 series of What If?. In this issue, the bullet that originally hit Aunt May instead strikes Mary Jane, killing her instantly. As a result, Peter's revenge against the Kingpin has an even more violent outcome than in canon.

The storyline's title was used for the eighth episode of the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), though the episode's plot has little in common with the comic arc aside from the appearance of a black-suited Spider-Man. "Back in Black" has also been used as a subtitle for comics featuring other Marvel Comics characters, including the miniseries Deadpool: Back in Black and the collected editions of Charles Soule's Daredevil.

For the AC/DC album of the same name, see here.

Tropes: Back in Black

• Badass Normal: Wilson Fisk's status as this is deconstructed in this arc. Ordinarily, the only reason he can hold his own with Spider-Man is that Spidey holds back to avoid seriously injuring or killing normal humans. When Spider-Man doesn't do this, he absolutely curb stomps Fisk and makes clear how easily he could kill him if he ever felt like it (this, after Fisk had publicly made a big deal out of how he was untouchable and how he could face down, say, Spider-Man).
• Break the Haughty: Fisk spends much of the arc as a Smug Snake who believes he holds all the cards against Spider-Man. A single one-sided battle later, Spidey has both destroyed his pride and forced him to live in fear of his inevitable demise at the wallcrawler's hands.
• Bullying a Dragon: Fisk hires an assassin from prison to kill Spider-Man after he has unmasked himself. The assassin hits Aunt May by accident, and when Spider-Man comes looking for him, Fisk mocks him to his face. Spider-Man responds by effortlessly beating Fisk to within an inch of his life — and promising to come back and finish the job if Aunt May dies.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Upon cornering May's shooter Jake Martino, Spider-Man promises him a quick death if he tells him about his employer. When Martino is shot by a second hitman before he can answer, Spidey rides atop the ambulance on the off-chance that he wakes up. Although Martino dies in the hospital, Spidey soon locates the other hitman due to tagging him with a Spider-Tracer, and learns this way instead that the Kingpin was responsible for the shooting.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: The Kingpin's body is nearly pure muscle, and his strength is as close to human perfection as you can get without the Super Soldier Serum. As this arc demonstrates, however, this has limits as the Kingpin doesn't have a hope against people with genuine super powers. When Peter stops holding back, Fisk is utterly demolished without laying a single finger on him.
• Cruel Mercy: After Spider-Man thoroughly beats Fisk and leaves him humiliated in front of the prison population, he allows him to live with the knowledge that he is not nearly as invincible as he thought himself to be, and that Spidey will inevitably come back to kill him once Aunt May dies.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Kingpin has always assumed that since he usually has fought near-equally with Spider-Man, that he was capable of eventually taking the web-head down. He gets a major reality check when he is stupid enough to have Spider-Man's aunt shot "as a message." Spider-Man invades the prison where Fisk is living like a king at the top of the status pyramid and confronts the Kingpin. After sitting through the Kingpin's "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Spider-Man proceeds to effortlessly and brutally kick the ever-living shit out of the Fat Man. The Kingpin never lays a finger on Spider-Man, and Spidey makes it crystal clear to everyone watching the fight that the Kingpin never had a chance at all of doing so.
  Spider-Man: The moment my Aunt May dies, I'm coming back for you, and we're going to finish what we started. And as of right now, you know – you know that there is nothing you can do to stop me. I will come to you, and I will count: One…two… three. And then you'll be dead. I swear to you, on my life, on her soul, on everything I hold dear, you'll be dead. Meanwhile, you'll live with the memory of this moment, the humiliation of this moment, and the message of this moment, which is directed at the rest of you, and everyone you know. Put the word out: If anyone comes near me or my family again, if anyone even touches them or anyone else who matters to me – you will experience firsthand what happened here today.
• Entertainingly Wrong: During the last part of the main arc (ASM #543), the nurse comments with a private detective that they found some radioactive substance in Aunt May's blood. The nurse tries to piece together the whole scenario: the patient's niece's husband either accidentally or deliberately shot her; while the nephew and niece-in-law were distracted, May escaped to the hospital, the nephew tried to finish the job in the hospital bed, but an accidental shot broke the window glass and alerted the staff; the niece-in-law and the nephew return to the "crime scene" to poison the poor old woman with some substance.
• Evil Costume Switch: Downplayed with Spider-Man's black suit. While Peter doesn't turn evil, he uses the costume switch to make clear to the Kingpin that he isn't joking around this time and in fact acts far more ruthless and angry than usually, nearly beating Fisk to death.
• Exact Words: Peter makes it clear that he intends to kill the Kingpin for what he did to Aunt May. When a battered Fisk tells him to Get It Over With, Peter replies that he never said he was going to do it today. Instead, he allows Fisk to live with his humiliation while waiting for the day May dies, knowing that Spider-Man will return to finish him off and there's nothing he can do about it.
• Fugitive Arc: Spider-Man and his family are still hiding from the authorities after his falling-out with Tony Stark during the Civil War event. To avoid being connected to Peter Parker, Mary Jane poses as May's niece and has her registered to the hospital under her maiden name Reilly.
• Internal Reveal: The Kingpin was established as the one who hired May's shooter in the preceding War at Home arc, but Peter does not learn this until the end of Back in Black's second issue, when he apprehends the hitman who took out Jake Martino and hears Fisk's voice on the other end of the phone.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Fisk is on the wrong end of several from a very pissed Spidey.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: After his initial, silent beatdown of the Kingpin, Spider-Man decides to let Fisk know how serious he is about ending his life:
  Kingpin: Well? You said you were here to kill me. Are you here to fight, or dance? Say something, damn you!
  Spider-Man: All right. What this suit stands for, what it means... is something you can never understand. It represents a promise about all the things I said I would do— and all the things I said I would never do... All the lines I said I would never, ever cross because doing so would destroy everything this suit stands for. And that, you see, is why you're confused. I'm not here to kill you.
  [he removes his suit]
  Peter Parker: I am.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The Kingpin loses his smugness when Peter effortlessly kicks the shit out of him, making it crystal clear to everyone watching the fight that the Kingpin never had a chance at all of winning against Spider-Man.
  • A subtle, background example occurs for everyone else in that issue as well; during the fight, the other prisoners are watching from the sidelines, taunting and sneering at Spidey and cheering on the Kingpin... until it becomes abundantly clear just how out of his depth the Kingpin is, at which point everyone goes quiet. And from the horrified looks on their faces as they keep watching the fight, it's clearly dawning that if Kingpin is utterly screwed in a one-on-one fight against Spider-Man, then every time they've gone up against him he could have easily torn them apart had he not been holding back out of mercy. Needless to say, when Spidey notes that his warning to the Kingpin to never target anyone he cares about again is equally applied to everyone else present, absolutely no one is in a mood to argue.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In ASM #542, Kingpin is all suited up and ready to fight when Spidey shows up back in the black costume. He proceeds to humiliate Kingpin in a fist fight in front of all the other inmates, pointing out that for all his influence and power, Spider-Man could crush him like an insect because while he's physically just an impressive specimen of normal humanity, Spider-Man is superhuman.
  Spidey: You forgot something, Fisk. Something you should have remembered before you decided to put a bullet through someone too old and frail to get out of the way. And it's this: For all your money, for all your cruelty, for all your big talk... you don't have any real power. You can't fly, can't stick to walls, can't turn into living flame or stretch out across a twenty-foot room. At the end of the day, you're just a fat man with an attitude... a balloon just waiting for someone to stick a needle in it. And me? I'm the needle.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Donning his black costume to let everyone know that he means business, Spidey tears across New York until finally locating and delivering a huge beatdown on the Kingpin, threatening to finish the job if he can't find a way to save Aunt May.
• Shared Fate Ultimatum: Peter tells the Kingpin that he will come to finish him off on the day that Aunt May dies.
• Throwback Threads: Spider-Man regularly wore his black costume from the mid-to-late 1980s before switching back to his familiar red-and-blue duds. Two decades later, he dons the black suit again for the duration of this storyline.
• Underestimating Badassery: Fisk thought he could always take on superpowered characters, based on how he went toe-on-toe with Spider-Man. This time, however, Spidey does not hold back. Before thousands of criminals, the Kingpin is beaten within an inch of his life and survives only because Spidey decides not to kill him just yet.
• Unstoppable Rage: When Aunt May is shot and nearly killed, Peter loses it big time and tracks down the responsible party. When it turns out to be the Kingpin, Peter effortlessly and quite savagely beats the living shit out of him, then informs the battered, broken Kingpin that if May dies, so will he.