Warning! Spoilers ahead for Amazing Spider-Man #56.
Peter Parker's most dangerous villain has made a dramatic reappearance in the latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man. The infamous gang leader and supervillain Mister Negative has made a long-awaited return and appears to be in dire need of assistance. Written by Nick Spencer and drawn by Mark Bagley, this most recent issue features various Spider-Man villains rehashing old drama while making nefarious plans for the future and includes an unexpected entrance from Mister Negative towards the end of the comic.
As we fondly remember, Mister Negative beat Spider-Man to a pulp while also developing a whole slew of gnarly biological weapons intended to destroy the web-slinger. Needless to say, this guy is dangerous. As both a supervillain and a gang leader, Martin Li certainly has the powers to dominate Peter's world. After Li was captured by the Maggia group, they drugged him with a dangerous synthetic substance that transformed him into Mister Negative, the powerful villain we now see today. Afterwards, Li escaped and moved to Chinatown where he assumed his role as Chinatown kingpin with the help of his henchmen the Inner Demons. Since then, Mister Negative has teamed up with various villains in an attempt to bring down Spider-Man.
Amazing Spider-Man #56 is packed dense with major villains from Spider-Man's past, most notably appearances from the Osborn family. But Martin Li does return in this issue when he appears in front of Aunt May to ask for help. In the comic Mister Negative is shown crawling towards Aunt May, apparently afraid for his life and begging for help. This is a stark contrast from the image of power and evil that we've come to associate with Mister Negative. While this issue is mostly dedicated to hashing out dirty family Osborn drama, there are plenty of other gems, such as the group of super villains scheming on how to finally defeat Spider-Man. This also seems to be Spencer's way of introducing Mister Negative back into Peter Parker's world since Marvel recently announced that Mister Negative would be featured in upcoming Amazing Spider-Man #59, where he takes on Spider-Man.
In the past, Spencer has alluded to some pretty big surprises in Amazing Spider-man #56, and with the reappearance of Mister Negative, Spencer was spot-on. This is the first issue since the Last Remains ended as well as one of the newer issues since the the controversial story One More Day was retconned by Marvel, but Spencer is setting up some great storylines and conflicts for future stories. Adding in a surprise return of Martin Li is a great twist readers were not expecting and especially having him return and in this state, we can't help but wonder who (or what) Mister Negative is so afraid of.
This also is a great reintroduction to Li since Marvel revealed that Mister Negative would be coming back into the spotlight with Amazing Spider-man #59, which hits stores in February 2021. Marvel has also hinted that Spider-Man won't be Mister Negative's sole target, making us wonder even more who Mister Negative is so afraid of. Either way, the return of Mister Negative will undoubtedly bring some major surprises in future issues.