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By Tom DeFalco, Pat Oliffe, Ron Frenz, Al Williamson, Bill Sienkiewicz (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-1441-6
Marvel has had precious few critical, not to say financial, successes since the dark days of the company’s brush with bankruptcy in the 1990’s. That hasn’t affected their long tradition of rapid reprinting. Case in point is this pocket paperback collection of the adventures of Peter Parker’s daughter.
Not that it’s the Parker we all know. In that aforementioned critical time Marvel tried everything to garner sales. One scheme was a pocket universe of titles featuring the offspring of mainstream characters such as The Avengers and Spider-Man. May “Mayday†Parker is the child of Peter and Mary Jane Parker whose super powers develop whilst she’s still a High-Schooler, giving writer DeFalco a chance to rehash the teen angst shtick of those hallowed – and successful – Lee/Ditko days.
What with disapproving parental units to dodge, vengeful enemies to tackle, lots of guest stars and the hell that has always been school days to wade through it feels like a pretty cynical attempt to recapture the glory days.
Worst of all is that it just doesn’t work. These are not memorable classics. They’re merely average fodder for comic book junkies and thus just like the proverbial Chinese takeaway. It’s fine going down, but ultimately fail to fully satisfy and you just end up craving something else.
Of course the comic series is the only survivor of that sidebar universe and I’m reviewing the first six issues as a graphic novel, so what do I know?
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