Skin Deep

The four-part "Skin Deep" storyline in "The Amazing Spider-Man" is a tale that bring's Peter Parker's past together with Spider-Man's present. Collected in Volume 8 of these trade paperback reprints, the story is written by J. Michael Straczynski with pencils by Mike Deodato, inked by Joe Pimentel and colored by Matt Milla, the flashback sequences are penciled by Mark Brooks, inked by Jamie Mendoza, and colored by Brian Reber. The contrast between the past and present might be too much, but you have to admit that you can tell them apart as you go along. The story begins with Peter late for school and substituting for another teacher and dealing with an unruly student. That he looks out the window and sees Charlie Weiderman. Sudden we are back to when Peter was in high school and Charlie became the new kid in class. You see, "The unwritten law of the classroom is that the school geek only gets a break when and if an even bigger geek moves into the neighborhood." You guessed it: Charlie is that geek, and when Peter finds he is no longer low man on the school totem pole, he makes sure he has nothing to do with the new kid. Peter was ashamed of what he did that day, so when Charlie shows up to ask a favor he is more than willing to listen. Charlie wants to get a big military contract for coming up with a new type of body armor. It would have to be from some kind of porous polymer compound that could cover every part of a soldier but still let oxygen breath through. That last part is what is stumping Charlie, along with something to absorb the energy of the incoming bullets. Charlie thinks the answer could be vibranium, the expensive natural material found only in the kingdom of Wakanda, soif he uses Peter's name as a reference when he goes to an interview with Tony Stark. Peter agrees and Charlie thanks him, saying that he has always been a friend. But when Peter remembers high school he knows that he was anything but a friend to Charlie. Stark gives Charlie a check, rounded off to the nearest hundred thousand, basically because Peter wrote a letter of recommendation. Peter shows up to help with the experiment but discovers Charlie is taking a dangerous shortcut, and if you do not know what is going to happen then you simply have not read most of the previous 514 issues of "The Amazing Spider-Man." Peter walks away from the experiment and once again we have a new supervillain for Spider-Man created by an explosion tampering with science. Peter tried to help, but no good deed goes unpunished in his world and Charlie still wants Peter's help, or else he is going to kill him and everyone around him. Stracynski maintains the present and past threads of the story line throughout the four parts of "Skin Deep," and while I am not sure what I think about going back and rewriting that part of Peter Parker's past, it certainly makes sense to be reminded of the geek that was left behind when the radioactive spider bit him. This is not a gr