Category: Spider-Man

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Marvel Adventures Spider-Man volume 2: Spectacular


By Paul Tobin, Roberto Di Salvo, Jacopo Camagni, Ronan Cliquet, Amilton Santos & Terry Pallot (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4560-8

Since its earliest days Marvel has always courted the youngest comicbook audiences. Whether through animated movie or TV tie-ins such as Terrytoons Comics, Mighty Mouse, Super Rabbit Comics, Duckula, assorted Hanna-Barbera and Disney licenses and a myriad of others, or original creations such as Tessie the Typist, Millie the Model, Homer the Happy Ghost, Li’l Kids or even Calvin, the House of Ideas has always understood the necessity of cultivating the next generation of readers.

These days however, accessible child-friendly titles are on the wane and with Marvel’s proprietary characters all over screens large and small, the company usually prefers to create adulterated versions of its own pantheon, making that eventual hoped-for transition to more mature comics as painless as possible.

In 2003 the company created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and combined it with the remnants of its failed manga-based Tsunami imprint, which was also intended for a junior demographic. The experiment was tweaked in 2005, becoming Marvel Adventures with the core titles transformed into Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man and the reconstituted classics replaced by all-original yarns. Additional titles included Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes, The Avengers and Hulk. These iterations ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man which carried on the established continuities.

This digest-sized collection collects issues #5-8 of that second (2010) iteration and picks up where Spider-Man: Amazing left off. Paul Tobin continues scripting whilst 16-year old Peter Parker rounds out his first year as a reluctant – if driven – superhero: the mysterious Spider-Man.

Even after all the time he has prowled the streets and skyscrapers of New York, fighting crime and injustice, he’s still just a kid learning the ropes and pretty much in over his head all the time…

Illustrated by Roberto Di Salvo, the drama begins with the hero battered and close to death following his savage battle with manic assassin Bullseye. Meanwhile top gang enforcer Flip is still masterfully doing his illegal job, which he hates, especially all the lying to his wife – when big boss Berto Torino calls him in for a special mission.

Somewhere Spider-Man is holed-up and helpless. If Flip can find and finish the pestiferous punk there’s a $2 million pay-off up for grabs…

Across town Peter’s girlfriend Sophia Sanduval is frantic with worry. As a mutant who can communicate with animals and a part-time operative of the Blonde Phantom Detective Agency, “Chat” has got a lot of unusual resources at her disposal, but not even Wolverine and the X-Men can help her lost and wounded boy wonder…

Happily her bestial buddies make more progress. A horde of animals locate the unconscious wall-crawler and loyally cluster around his unconscious, recuperating form in a protective cordon…

Alerted by her birds, Chat rushes across town to his side, but the brutally efficient Flip is also closing in…

By the time she reaches Peter, the Mafioso is dealing with the severely battered wall-crawler – but her animal shelterers have already performed a redemptive miracle…

In school next day the bandage-bedecked Peter Parker is properly teased and quizzed by his class-mates, especially ex-girlfriend Gwen Stacy and her controversial new beau Carter Torino (her father is a New York cop who turns a blind eye to Parker’s vigilante sideline and the boy is the unwilling heir-apparent to the city’s paramount criminal empire).

Taking it all in stride, Peter also gets a stern talking-to from Chat and Police Captain George Stacy, both urging the guilt-fuelled hero to take it easy for a while. There’s little chance of that however, when a class trip to a museum is interrupted by murderous maniac Dr. Octopus…

When the still-sub-par Spider-Man leaps painfully into the fray, the furious Chat is forced to call in a favour and reinforcements by asking morally ambivalent psionic mutant Emma Frost AKA Silencer to take a telepathic hand in the affair…

An artistic fill-in by Jacopo Camagni, Ronan Cliquet & Amilton Santos sees a hilarious training session with Wolverine and ghostly X-Man Kitty Pryde turn into a bizarre comedy of errors when the Torinos try to buy off Spider-Man, whilst protestors (pro and anti) at a mutant rights rally are attacked by gun-toting gangsters afraid of losing their jobs to super-powered thugs-for-hire…

The flirty and fearsome Silencer rears her seductive head again in the final tale (art by Di Salvo & Terry Pallot), when Chat gets all snarky after refusing to introduce the increasingly bugged Peter to her enigmatic and never-seen older sister.

Burning with curiosity, Peter has trouble keeping within his boundaries, even after Chat helps him disastrously try out a new and “less-unlucky” heroic identity, but sparks fly when Silencer asks for their aid in taking out deadly mutant fire-starter Cinder and subsequently repays Chat by messing with Spider-Man’s obsessive mind…

These Spidey super stories are extremely enjoyable yarns, but parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action” and would perhaps better suit older kids…

Fast-paced and impressive, bright and breezy with lots of light-hearted action and loads of sly laughs, this book really sees the alternative web-spinner hitting his wall-crawling stride with the violence toned down and “cartooned-up” whilst the stories take great pains to keep the growing youth-oriented soap opera sub-plots pot-boiling on but as clear as possible.

Never the success the company hoped, the Marvel Adventures project was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to Disney XD television shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories are still an intriguing and perhaps more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born sometimes two generations or more away from those far-distant 1960s originating events.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Adventures Spider-Man volume 1: Amazing


By Paul Tobin, Matteo Lolli, Scott Koblish & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4118-1

Since its earliest days the company we know as Marvel has always courted the youngest comicbook audiences. Whether animated tie-ins such as Terrytoons Comics, Mighty Mouse, Super Rabbit Comics, Duckula, assorted Hanna-Barbera and Disney licenses and a myriad of others, or original creations such as Tessie the Typist, Millie the Model, Homer the Happy Ghost, Li’l Kids or even Calvin, the House of Ideas has always understood the necessity of cultivating the next generation of readers.

These days however, general kid’s interest titles are on the wane and with Marvel’s proprietary characters all over screens large and small, the company usually prefers to create child-friendly versions of its own pantheon, making that eventual hoped-for transition to more mature comics as painless as possible.

In 2003 the company created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and mixed in with the remnants of the manga-based Tsunami imprint, all intended for a younger readership. The experiment was tweaked in 2005 becoming Marvel Adventures with the core titles transformed into Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man and the reconstituted classics replaced by all new stories. Additional series included Marvel Adventures series Super Heroes, The Avengers and Hulk. These iterations ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new – and continuity-continuing – volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

This digest-sized collection collects the first four stories from the second (2010) volume and actually starts in the middle of the action – although writer Paul Tobin and artists Matteo Lolli and Scott Koblish (as well as inkers Christian Dalla Vecchia, Terry Pallot Koblish & Andrew Hennessy) take great pains to keep the stories as clear as possible.

Sixteen year old Peter Parker has been the mysterious Spider-Man for little more than six months. In that time he has constantly prowled the streets and skyscrapers ofNew York, driven to fight injustice. However as a kid just learning the ropes he’s pretty much in over his head all the time…

The opening tale finds him on a crusade against the all-pervasive Torino crime-family, and attempting to expose their bought-and-paid-for Judge Clive Baraby, whilst ex-girlfriend and wannabe journalist Gwen dogs his webbed heels and her father Police Captain George Stacy – who knows the boy’s secret and allows him to continue his vigilante antics – picks up all the well-thumped thugs the incensed wall-crawler leaves in his wake.

Even though Spidey can’t touch the corrupt Baraby, his campaign of attrition has the Torinos on the ropes and the Mafioso have engaged the services of super-assassin Bullseye to kill the Web-spinner. However, the Man who Never Misses is infuriatingly slow to act and soon there’s on open contract on the kid crusader…

Peter’s civilian life is pretty complicated too. Since he and Gwen split, the lad has taken up with schoolmate Sophia Sanduval – an extremely talented lass nicknamed Chat – who knows Peter’s secret, can communicate with animals and has a part-time job with the Blonde Phantom Detective Agency…

She also pays attention in class and suggests how what they learned in history can be used to trap the untouchable Baraby…

The second story opens with a brutal dog-napping and leads inexorably to a clash with merciless mercenary Midnight when the villain invades Peter’s school during a martial arts exhibition by Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Along the way Chat introduces Pete to new buddy Flapper – a very wise owl indeed – and new kid Carter Torino enrols at Parker’s school. How does the troubled new boy know the constantly watching Bullseye…?

Before the subplots get too intense however,Midnightand his ninjas attack Shang-Chi and Spider-Man joins the fracas, subsequently learning a few things from the combat expert – including who to return that stolen dog to…

Whilst close-mouthed gang-prince Carter gets closer to Gwen, Wolverine guest-stars in the third untitled tale when Chat asks her bug-boy beau to help hunt down the wild-haired mutant for a client who wants Logan to model their hair gel. Typically, whenever the Clawed Canadian appears trouble isn’t far behind, and when a gang ofTorino goons jumps Wolverine, Spidey is forced to join in the carnage. And that’s when Bullseye makes his move…

As conflicted Carter Torino confronts his criminal family, this volume concludes with a savage showdown between Bullseye and the sorely overmatched Spider-Man and also sees the death of one of the supporting cast…

Never the success the company hoped, the Marvel Adventures project was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to those Disney XD television shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories are still an intriguing and more culturally accessible means of introducing the character and concepts to kids born sometimes two generations or more away from the originating events.

Fast-paced and impressive, these Spidey tales are extremely enjoyable yarns but parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action” and would perhaps better suit older kids…
© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ultimate Spider-Man: Venom


By Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, Art Thibert & Rodney Ramos (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2873-1

After Marvel’s financial – and indeed creative – problems in the later 1990s, the company came back swinging. A key new concept was the remodelling and modernising of their core characters for the new youth culture. The ‘Ultimate‘ imprint abandoned the monumental continuity which had always been Marvel’s greatest asset, and the company’s major characters were given a separate universe to play in, with varying degrees of radical makeover to appeal to a contemporary 21st century audience.

Peter Parker was once again a nerdy high-school geek, brilliant but bullied by his physical superiors, and there was a fresh and fashionable, more modern and scientifically feasible rationale for the spider bite which imparted impossible arachnoid abilities.

Uncle Ben still died because of his lack of responsibility. The Daily Bugle was still there as was the outrageous J. Jonah Jameson. But now in a more cynical, litigious world, well-used to cover-ups and conspiracy theories, arch-foe Norman Osborn – a corrupt, ruthless billionaire businessman – was behind everything.

Any gesture towards the faux-realism of traditional superhero fare was surrendered to a tried-and-tested soap-opera melodrama that inevitably links all characters together in invisible threads of karmic coincidence and familial consanguinity, but, to be honest, it seldom hurt the narrative. After all as long as internal logic isn’t contravened, subplots don’t have to make sense to be entertaining.

By reworking key moments of Lee & Ditko’s Spider-Man – and their myriad successors – writer Brian Michael Bendis and illustrator Mark Bagley succinctly captured the core values of the original and certainly re-cast in it terms that newer readers readily assimilated. The Ultimate Peter Parker spoke to modern teen readers in the same way the 1960s incarnation spoke to me and my peers…

Collecting issues #33-39 of Ultimate Spider-Man from 2003, this premiere hardcover edition introduces an alternative vision for the web-spinner’s most memorable foe of recent vintage, and upped the angst-quotient by revealing untold connections with Peter’s long-dead parents.

The convoluted, clotted web of coincidence and continuity which had eventually bogged down the original Spider-Man was just beginning to creep into these tales, but perhaps that’s unavoidable if you’re concocting contemporary super-heroics.

What you need to know: Parker is the perennial hard-luck loser kid, a brilliant geek just trying to get by in a world where daily education is infinitely more scary than monsters and villains. His alter ego’s already shaky reputation has been destroyed by a burglar, who impersonated Spider-Man, went on a very public crime-spree and murdered Police Captain George Stacy.

Whilst Peter was dealing with the deadly doppelganger his widowed Aunt May was inviting Stacy’s orphaned daughter Gwen to move into the Parker household. In the aftermath Pete’s girlfriend and confidante Mary Jane Watson dumped him, unable to deal with the constant stress of having an underage superhero and perpetually potential corpse for a lover…

Shell-shocked and emotionally gutted by his bad break-up, Peter broods and mopes around the house until he finds an old box of junk which contains notes and video tapes of his 5-year old self and his parents; dead for a decade in a plane crash.

The idyllic scenes show a picnic in the park, attended by geneticists Richard and Mary Parker, their research partners the Brocks, Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Although he had forgotten, Eddie Brock Jr., despite being an older kid, was young Pete’s best friend for years – almost a brother…

Eddie’s folks had also died in the crash and the boy had been forced to leave the city and live with his grandparents.

All fired up, Peter tracks down Eddie and, discovering he’s now a student at Empire State University, resolves to find his old buddy and show him the tapes. So eager is the Arachnid kid that he doesn’t even glance at the notes and files in the box: enigmatic records pertaining to an incredible, radical cancer-cure code-named the Venom Project…

Under the tutelage of Dr. Curt Connors (whom Spidey once battled when the scientist temporarily mutated into a sentient Lizard), Eddie has grown into the coolest guy imaginable: a science student carrying on their father’s work and a player with lots of great-sounding advice about girls…

At the end of a great day on Campus, Eddie takes Peter to the labs and shows his bro-besotted pal “the work” – a shared inheritance from their departed fathers which will change the world forever…

The miracle-cure is a gloopy black liquid based on Ray Parker’s DNA: designed to coat a cancer sufferer’s entire body in a living bio-suit that would boost the victim’s system and repair organic malfunctions, and as Eddie shows it off he also discloses how corporate skulduggery scuttled the bold project even before the groundbreaking technologists died in that mysterious crash…

The suspicious and embittered Brock has spent years reconstructing the project using notes and samples kept by his grandfather. Now the student is close to total, vindicating success…

Back in High School Pete wants to confront Mary Jane, but Gwen advises against it. However when college-guy Eddie shows up in flashy sports car she joins the distracted Parker in another jaunt to ESU…

Fuming for hours at the imagined cause of his parents’ death and how well Gwen is getting on with Eddie, Parker breaks into the university labs to “obtain” his own test samples of the Venom prototype and is horrified when the goo attacks and utterly envelops his body…

That night, a new Spider-Man rampages through New York, clad in deepest black. Stronger, faster, tougher, far more reckless and wild and spectacularly crushing crimes big and small. After brutally foiling a celebrity kidnapping and easily trashing super-villain the Shocker, the dark Spider tackles a petty thief who reminds him of Uncle Ben’s killer and, lost in an emotional flashback, mutates into a fanged horror which tries to eat the gun-toting thug…

Petrified and aghast, Peter comes to his senses in time and tries to escape but the suit won’t let him go until the panicked lad blunders into high tension power cables and crashes to earth in the cemetery where his parents are buried…

Eddie is far from the cool guy he seems. After trying to take advantage of Gwen the frustrated frat boy sees TV footage of the Black Spider-Man and puts the pieces together. Rushing to the lab he finds Peter with the Venom sample and demands to know everything. Peter’s desperate warnings seem to hit home and he allows Parker to destroy the potentially homicidal sludge. Returning home he finds the still-shaking Gwen who tells him what Eddie did and slowly realises that his childhood friend might not be the paragon he imagined…

Brock meanwhile has retrieved another sample in his ongoing series of Venom experiments and activated it with his own body…

Plagued by nightmares, Peter seeks out Mary Jane who again rejects him and his dangerous lifestyle, whilst at ESU Eddie’s rash act has already cost the life of the cleaning woman who tried to help the mewling ebony mess on a lab floor.

Next day at Midtown High, Peter’s Spider-Sense alerts him to incredible peril and he realises that the suit has copied his memories and passed them on. Eddie has become a ravening, shape-shifting carnivorous version of Spider-Man, fuelled by a now unsuppressed psychotic paranoia and hatred…

With Richard Parker’s video-taped fears and misgivings on the Venom Project and life in general echoing in his head, Peter confronts the exultant, mutated Eddie and is soundly thrashed. The big black beast is going wild: slaughtering cops and civilians, whilst only really craving Peter. The savage suit is madly trying to reunite with Peter’s memories and Parker DNA…

In the pointless battle that follows, the monstrous avatar is vaporised by lightning and Peter flees. Dodging cops who want to arrest him for his various impostors’ crimes, the totally traumatised kid runs straight into the formidable Nick Fury.

The Director of covert security agency S.H.I.E.L.D. is the government’s go-to guy: responsible for superhuman affairs and crises. Moreover he had previously threatened to draft Spider-Man once he turned eighteen…

Despondent and dejected, the boy surrenders and begs to be cured of the curse of Arachnid powers, but instead receives an unexpected and life-changing pep-talk… Bewildered Peter again breaks into the ESU lab and meets Dr. Connors, wearily examining the vaults from which all the remaining Venom samples have been removed…

This version of the Wondrous Wall-crawler is very close to the movie iteration – surely a welcome benefit for all converts from celluloid to paper adventuring – and this book also includes added value features ‘Venom Arc Outline’ and 8 pages of beautiful Bagley pencils for the assorted comics and collection covers.

Moody and scary, but far more-concerned with angst-ridden melodrama than Fights ‘n’ Tights action, this thriller ends on a pensive, low-key and unsatisfactorily inconclusive note, deferring the eventual, inevitable showdown with the Venom-Brock amalgam to another day and leaving tragic Peter Parker even more conflicted and confused than before…

And that’s probably the point. Frenetic and compelling, the geeky charisma of the misunderstood alienated outsider fuels and permeates this readable pot-boiler of turbulent teen-tribulation and fashionable school-daze. Light yet addictive, this glossy super-soap brings great comics entertainment to the post-literate generation.
© 2003, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Spider-Girl: Who Killed Gwen Reilly?


By Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4319-2

During a truly scary sales downturn in comicbook sales that afflicted the mid-1990s, American publishers tried all manner of stunts and ideas to retain their rapidly-diminishing readerships. Marvel especially attempted ever-wilder schemes to bolster sales and the one with the most lasting effect, if not success, was to create a pocket universe of interlocking titles featuring the offspring of mainstream characters such as The Avengers and Spider-Man.

Kicking off with a throwaway tale in What If…? volume 2, #105 (February 1998 and clumsily asking ‘What If Mary Jane had never lost the baby, and Spider-Man had a Spider-Girl?’) the notion launched a batch of younger, ostensibly contemporary characters battling modern menaces in the old-fashioned way.

That introductory yarn was eventually re-released as Spider-Girl #0 and is reprinted at the end of this collection of recent episodes which primarily gathers the Alternate Arachnoid Avenger’s short stories from Amazing Spider-Man Family #1-8 and back-up strips from Web of Spider-Man (2009) #1-4.

May “Mayday” Parker is the daughter of Peter Parker and wife Mary Jane, and she developed arachnoid superpowers whilst in High School, giving writer/creator Tom DeFalco a chance to rehash the teen-angst shtick of the primal, all-hallowed – and supremely successful – Stan Lee/Steve Ditko days of the company’s infancy.

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 frequently felt like a pretty cynical attempt to recapture the glory days, but it was extremely entertaining, worked well and struck a chord with the Faithful.

Spider-Girl became Marvel’s longest running female-starring solo-title, outliving by years every other book in the “MC2” Universe.

Although she is much less a nerd than her father ever was – I suspect modern kids aren’t so ready to own their alienation issues, and besides, reading comic books is enough geekiness for anyone to admit to – Mayday still endured the traditional torments of teen life, but after many months her concerned guardians grudgingly accepted her need to help humanity as a bona fide super-hero and so, whilst perpetually dealing with classroom politics, hesitant romantic overtures, crushes and strained relations with the rest of the second-generation Marvel Offspring (such as Darkdevil, Stinger, The Buzz, New Avengers and the Fantastic Five), Spider-Girl gradually became a fixture of the alternate future Marvel Universe.

Eventually Mayday’s popularity waned and her first volume ended with issue #100 in 2005, only to return a year later for a 30-issue run as The Amazing Spider-Girl before transferring to support strip status in the anthological Amazing Spider-Man Family (#5-8) and simultaneously as a part of Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited webcomic experiment in 2009 as Spectacular Spider-Girl.

Thereafter Mayday sprang into the back of the latest incarnation of Web of Spider-Man, out into a 4-issue miniseries (Spectacular Spider-Girl again) and the finale one-shot Spider-Girl: The End.

I think I got all that right, but…

This quirky collection opens with the pertinent parts of Amazing Spider-Man Family #5-8, by DeFalco, Frenz & Sal Buscema, and asks ‘Who is Gwen Reilly?’ A very brief recap of those 130 intervening issues reminds us of May’s origins and how she is currently acting as big sister to her own clone who had been grown in secret by the maniacal secret society The Order of the Goblin. Subsequently she gained the metamorphic powers – and weaknesses – of the sinister alien Symbiote which had created Venom and Carnage…

The clone – who of course claims to be the original May – is wildly unstable and prone to viciously excessive violence, as seen when the girls encounter a robbery in the street, part of an escalating gang war between New Yorkcrime kingpin Black Tarantula and potential cyborg usurper Silverback…

Peter and Mary Jane Parker, barely coping with their new son’s physical problems, are more concerned that there are two teenaged May’s in the house but whilst the clone solves that problem with her shape-shifting abilities, she is far more reluctant to surrender her claim to the actual identity of the “real” daughter of Spider-Man…

That all changes at school next morning when she rolls up as sexy, flamboyant wild-child “cousin” April Parker and begins to steal all May’s friends. The senior Parker goes ballistic that night at home but is cut short when another impossible girl turns up.

Gwen Reilly claims to be the long-lost daughter of Peter’s brother Ben but is clearly unaware that the identity was just a fictitious persona used by a Spider-Man clone in the years before the Wall-crawler was maimed in battle against the Green Goblin and retired from costumed crusading…

When the stranger leaves, May and April follow her but are separated by another gang crime. When May finally catches up she finds her doppelganger standing over the brutalised corpse of the mystery girl…

‘Who Killed Gwen Reilly? ratchets up the tension as May calls her dad – now a forensic scientist working in the NYPD crime lab – to deal with the mystery. Most troubling is April’s callous disregard for the stranger’s death: is it possible her emotionally stunted double could actually have committed the murder, despite all her protestations of innocence?

Certainly the female facsimile is no stranger to mischief, using her shape-shifting power to covertly cosy-up to the boy May shyly adores, but with a slaying to solve, Spider-Girl pushes it all onto a back-burner and seeks assistance from demonic do-gooder Darkdevil, before being ambushed by one of her father’s oldest and most savage foes…

As a result of her hopeless battle against Tombstone, May is left for dead and dumped in the New Jersey Pine Barrens whilst April is busy saving victims of a tenement blaze in ‘Into the Fire!’ but once the crisis is over, the clone ruthlessly ends the Granite Gangster’s threat for ever and simply assumes May’s identity, even fooling Peter and Mary Jane as she luxuriates in finally becoming the only child and declaring ‘There’s a New Spider-Girl in Town!’…

The convoluted commotion continued without missing a beat in Web of Spider-Man (2009) #1-4, as two lazy thugs cut corners and dump May’s battered, broken body short of their regular disposal spot, thus allowing the supposed corpse a last, desperate chance to escape in ‘Angels and Devils’. Scared and furious, the gunsels track the wounded warrior but are attacked by a monstrous winged beast which can only be the mythical Jersey Devil…

Struggling back to relative civilisation May sneaks into her home, utterly unaware that “Spider-Girl” has been ambushed by the deadly Goblin Queen in ‘Like a Fury Scorned!’ The last heir of the twisted Osborn legacy was responsible for creating the Mayday clone and the Gwen Reilly conspiracy but is in a desperate war with her sire’s Order of the Goblin  personality cult. Claiming April as her spiritual sister, Fury has captured the spider-clone with the heartfelt intention of making her an ally.

May, meanwhile, has recovered and deduced how April has attempted to replace her. Heading to school and eager to reclaim her life, the bruised battler stumbles straight into another catastrophe as Goblin Queen attacks, attempting to kill René DeSantos, an influential member of the Order whose unfortunate and unaware daughter Simone is a classmate of the real Ms Parker…

Barely surviving the shattering attack, May and Darkdevil unite to track down Fury in ‘Whom Gods Destroy’, backed up by erstwhile Spider-clone super-menace Kaine – now a very senior and Special Federal Agent – and raid her lair only to find the morally ambiguous and definitely untrustworthy April in full Carnage Symbiote mode as the Goblin Queen’s ally…

The saga culminates in a blockbuster brouhaha as ‘They First Make Mad!’ brings the house down and sets events in motion for the final chapter in Mayday Parker’s fantastic life…

But that’s not included here, even though there’s still plenty of web-spinning wonderment on show.

First up is a terrifically enjoyable run of vignettes from Amazing Spider-Man Family #1-4, set in the same futureverse, but in the early years when May was still a baby. Mr. and Mrs. Spider-Man by DeFalco, Frenz & Sal Buscema opened with the still-active and cash-strapped Wall-Crawler battling the lethal Lizard whilst Mary Jane discussed the pressure of ‘Family Ties!’ with the mutated biochemist – and potential employer’s – distraught and desperate wife and child…

After a horrific drive-by shooting ‘Those Who Never Return!’ explored the understandable worries of the wife of a practising superhero confronted by a situation where only her hubby could make things right, the absolutely brilliant ‘Common Ground’ (illustrated by Todd Nauck) found Pete and MJ in a bustling, frustrating hospital Emergency Room, frantically waiting to see a doctor after baby May catches her first cold.

It’s not the place you want to see short-tempered super-villain the Rhino trying to cut the line because his beloved ancient auntie is really sick…

The domestic delights finish up with ‘Career Paths’ as a very convincing and sympathetic thief takes the young Marrieds hostage for the very best of reasons and for a very galling ride, after which this tome concludes with that aforementioned What If?/Spider-Girl #0 yarn.

‘Legacy… in Black and White’, illustrated by Frenz & Bill Sienkiewicz, relates how ordinary lass May Parker suddenly found herself possessed of incredible abilities just as the last Green Goblin inexplicably attacked her fuddy-duddy crime lab daddy. When her mother revealed the long-kept secret of his former life, the horrified girl only had one real choice to make…

Even though the stories are capable and well produced and accompanied by a superb cover gallery by Frenz, Paulo Siqueira, Joe Suitor, Nuno Plati, Pasqual Ferry & Jelen Djurdjevic to enchant the eyes, this is a truly odd book to read: starting in the middle, proceeding without conclusion to the penultimate, skipping back to a prologue and ending at the beginning.

Even after all the Spider-Girl issues I’ve read from the feature’s inception I found myself regularly stopping to check elsewhere before being able to continue with this collection, so I’ve never been more serious when I say don’t read this unless you’re well versed in the arcane arachnid arcane and lore or need a headache to get out of some even more onerous task…

Even so: if some editor would kindly re-order and re-release this tome I’d happily give the Weirdly Winsome Webbed Wonder another go…
© 1998, 2009 & 2010 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Spider-Man: The Osborn Identity


By Brian Reed & Philippe Briones with Patrick Olliffe, Chad Hardin, Wayne Faucher, Stephen Segovia, Hector Olazaba, Joe Caramagna & Todd Nauck (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-7851-4687-2

When the Spider-Man continuity was drastically dialled-back and controversially revised for the ‘Brand New Day’ publishing event, a refreshed, now single-and-never-been-married Peter Parker was parachuted into a new life, so if this is your first Web-spinning yarn in a while – or you’ve drawn your cues from the movies – be prepared for a little confusion.

That being said, in any continuity the Wall-Crawler’s greatest and most implacable foe will always be Norman Osborn, whether in his guise as the grotesque Green Goblin or as an insidious billionaire inventor/industrialist turned politician.

The psychotic Osborn has dogged Spider-Man/Peter Parker for years even though his abused son Harry was the maligned hero’s greatest friend and the stress and strain has, over time, turned the Osborn heir into a drug addict, a costumed carbon copy of his old man and latterly, a certifiable basket case.

Callously oblivious, Norman, through various machinations became America’s Security Czar: the “top-cop” in sole charge of the beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to the USA’s costumed community.

Under his draconian tenure the Superhuman Registration Act led to the Civil War, Captain America was arrested, murdered and resurrected and numerous horrific assaults on mankind occurred: including the Secret Invasion and the oppressive Dark Reign as Osborn drove the World’s Mightiest Heroes underground and formed his own team of deadly Dark Avengers.

Not content with commanding all the covert and military resources of the USA, Osborn personally led the team, wearing his own formidable suit of Iron Man armour and calling himself the Iron Patriot, even while conspiring with a coalition of major super-villains to divvy up the world between them.

He finally overreached himself and led an unsanctioned assault on Asgard (see Siege: the Cabal) and when the fugitive Avengers reunited to stop him, Osborn’s fall from grace and subsequent incarceration led to a new Heroic Age.

During that period of ascendancy however, Osborn had again attempted to dominate, subjugate and manipulate his disgustingly disappointing heir Harry by dosing him with a mind-and-body bending blend of Goblin potions and Super-Soldier serum and forcing him to don a genetically triggered cybernetic super-suit, so that his unwilling boy could join the Dark Avengers as the crushingly conflicted American Son…

Thanks to Spider-Man however, Harry finally overcame his deadly daddy’s diabolical influence and violently turned on his sire. In the aftermath the shocked and traumatised junior Osborn retired to a life of anonymity and therapy…

This slight but engaging sequel – containing the 4-part mini-series Amazing Spider-Man Presents: American Son and supplemental material from Age of Heroes #2 – opens with a prologue tale from that latter anthology as ‘Heroic Rage’ by Brian Reed, Chad Hardin & Hector Olazaba, finds scoop-starved reporter Norah Winters on the scene when the American Son spectacularly slaughters a rampaging monster. She jumps to the same conclusion as the late-arriving Spider-Man that the certifiably unstable Harry Osborn is back inside the high-tech armour…

The saga proper – by Reed and artists Philippe Briones, Hardin, Patrick Olliffe, Wayne Faucher & Stephen Segovia – commences with ‘A Patriot Act’ as the recovering Harry, now running a coffee shop on the campus of Empire State University, is increasingly harassed by news-teams and paparazzi as American Son continues to appear in steadily escalating and high profile emergencies and in clashes with street thugs.

As the troubled vendor’s flatmate Mary Jane Watson asks Peter Parker to have a word with his former friend, both Norah and the FBI separately confront Harry, unwilling to believe that somebody else can be using the full-body weapons-system specifically geared to Osborn genes…

Harry is already at breaking point when Spider-Man also challenges him, but explodes in violent rage when the web-spinner also refuses to believe in his innocence…

Returning to the Coffee Bean, Harry serves one last customer who awkwardly introduces himself as Gabriel Stacy before abruptly claiming to Norman Osborn’s other child, pulling a gun and shooting the astounded barista…

In ‘The Other Son’ the enigmatic armoured object of media-frenzy then smashes through the wall and frantically rushes Harry to medical aid, categorically proving that the suit is being used by somebody else and leading to a swift change of priorities for the FBI, if not Norah.

Despite a credible threat, the merely wounded and incensed Harry checks himself out of hospital and teams up with the penitent yet determinedly suspicious Winters to track down the impossible truth.

First stop is a terrifying prison visit with Osborn Senior which culminates in the enraged madman claiming Gabriel is his true son…

With all she needs and Harry for corroboration, Norah goes straight to her editor with the story of a lifetime, but Stacy’s secret is far more crazy and convoluted than any of them could possibly suspect…

‘Side Effects’ further ramps up the psychological tension as good old police work determines how, if not why, American Son saved Harry from Gabriel’s murderous assault, but not before the other Osborn child kidnaps Norah and takes her to one of the Green Goblin’s old hideouts, leading to a spectacular and cataclysmic three (or is it four?) way showdown between Harry, Spider-Man and the terrifyingly twisted possessor of the sinister super-suit in ‘American Slayed’…

With the shocking suspense ended and order temporarily restored, there’s even room for a charming human interest yarn from Joe Caramagna & Todd Nauck as cash-strapped Harry battles a corporate incursion that threatens to undercut and close the Coffee Bean.

Luckily old friends, the outré tastes of ESU students, a handy drop-in by Spider-Man and a video-blogging super-villain eventually prove more than a match for the big-business blandishments of ‘Bargain Donuts!’ and Harry happily lives to brew another day…

Despite feeling a little rushed in places, this is a solid, engaging old-fashioned Fights ‘n’ Tights drama refreshingly focusing on the rich supporting cast and perfectly capturing the familial feel that made Spider-Man sagas such a compelling experience.
© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Stan Lee Presents the Amazing Spider-Man volume 2


By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, with Jack Kirby (Marvel/Pocket Books)
ISBN: 978-0-67181-444-1

Perhaps I have a tendency to over-think things regarding the world of graphic narrative, but it seems to me that the medium, as much as the message, radically affects the way we interpret our loves and fascinations. Take this pint-sized full-colour treat from 1978.

It’s easy to assume that a quickly resized, repackaged paperback book collection of the early comics extravaganzas was just another Marvel cash-cow in their perennial “flood the marketplace” sales strategy – and maybe it was – but as someone who bought these stories in most of the available formats over the years I have to admit that this compact version has a distinct charm and attraction all its own…

During the Marvel Renaissance of the early 1960’s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby followed the same path which had worked so tellingly for DC Comics, but with less obviously successful results.

This is another brilliant glimpse at how our industry’s gradual inclusion into mainstream literature began and is one more breathtaking paperback package for action fans and nostalgia lovers, offering yet another chance to enjoy some of the best and most influential comics stories of all time.

After a few abortive attempts in the 1960s to storm the shelves of bookstores and libraries, from the mid-1970s Marvel made a concerted and comprehensive effort to get their wares into more socially acceptable formats. As the decade closed, purpose-built graphic collections and a string of new prose adventures tailored to feed into their all-encompassing continuity began oh, so slowly to appear.

Whereas the merits of the latter are a matter for a different review, the company’s careful reformatting of classic comics adventures were generally excellent; a superb and recurring effort to generate back-history primers and a perfect – if perilous – alternative venue to introduce fresh readers to their unique worlds.

The dream project was never better represented than in this classy little crime-busting collection. Marvel was frequently described as “the House that Jack Built” and King Kirby’s contributions are undeniable and inescapable in the creation of a new kind of comicbook story-telling, but there was another unique visionary toiling at Atlas-Comics-as-was: one whose creativity and even philosophy seemed diametrically opposed to the bludgeoning power, vast imaginative scope and clean, broad lines of Kirby’s ever-expanding search for the external and infinite.

Steve Ditko was quiet and unassuming, voluntarily diffident to the point of invisibility, though his work was both subtle and striking.

Innovative, meticulously polished, and often displaying genuine warmth and affection, Ditko’s art and storytelling always managed to capture minute human detail as he ever explored the man within. He found heroism, humour and ultimate evil; all contained within the frail but noble confines of humanity’s scope and consciousness. His drawing could be oddly disquieting… and, when he wanted, certainly scary.

Drawing extremely well-received monster and mystery tales for Stan Lee, Ditko had been given his own title. Amazing Adventures/Amazing Adult Fantasy featured a subtler brand of yarn than Rampaging Aliens and Furry Underpants Monsters which, though individually entertaining, had been slowly losing traction in the world of comics ever since National/DC had successfully reintroduced costumed heroes.

Lee & Kirby had responded with Fantastic Four and the ahead-of-its-time Incredible Hulk but there was no indication of the renaissance to come when the already cancelled Amazing Fantasy #15 cover-featured a brand new and somewhat eerie adventure character.

Of course, by now you’re all aware of how outcast, geeky school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy and determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in dire need…

After a shaky start The Amazing Spider-Man quickly became a popular sensation with kids of all ages, rivalling the creative powerhouse that was Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four and soon the quirky, charming action-packed comics soap-opera would become the model for an entire generation of younger heroes elbowing aside the staid, (relatively) old costumed-crimebusters of previous publications.

This second resized, repackaged Fights ‘n’ Tights bonanza (reprising Amazing Spider-Man #7-13 from 1963-1964) opens, after the mandatory Stan Lee Prologue, with an encore appearance of the Wall-crawler’s first super-powered foe, as a murderous septuagenarian flying bandit at first defeated his juvenile nemesis before falling to the Web-spinner’s boundless bravery and ingenuity in a spectacular duel above the city in ‘The Return of the Vulture’.

Fun and youthful hi-jinks were a signature feature of the series, as was Parker’s budding romance with “older woman” Betty Brant, a secretary at the Daily Bugle where Peter Parker worked part-time.

Such “Salad days” exuberance was the underlying drive in #8′s lead tale ‘The Living Brain!’ when an ambulatory robot calculator threatened to expose Spider-Man’s secret identity before running amok at beleaguered Midtown High, just as Parker was finally beating the stuffings out of school bully and personal gadfly Flash Thompson.

This riotous romp was accompanied by ‘Spiderman Tackles the Torch!’ (a short and sweet vignette drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Ditko) wherein a boisterous wall-crawler gate-crashed a beach party thrown by the flaming hero’s girlfriend… with explosive consequences.

Amazing Spider-Man #9 was a qualitative step-up in dramatic terms as Peter’s aged Aunt May was revealed to be chronically ill – adding to the lad’s financial woes – and the action was supplied by ‘The Man Called Electro!’ a super-criminal with grand aspirations.

Spider-Man was always a loner, never far from the dark, grimy streets filled with small-time thugs and criminals and with this tale, wherein he also quells a prison riot single handed, Ditko’s preference for tales of gangersterism began to show through; a predilection confirmed in #10′s ‘The Enforcers!’, a classy mystery where a masked mastermind known as the Big Man used a position of trust at the Bugle to organize all the New York mobs into one unbeatable army against decency.

Longer plot-strands were also introduced as Betty mysteriously vanished (her fate to be revealed in the next issue and here the next chapter), but most fans remember this one for the spectacularly climactic seven-page fight scene in an underworld chop-shop that has still never been topped for action-choreography.

The taint of tragedy again touched Parker with a magical two-part adventure ‘Turning Point’ and ‘Unmasked by Dr. Octopus!’ which saw the return of the lethally deranged and deformed scientist – complete with formidable mentally-controlled metal tentacles – and the disclosure of a long-hidden secret which had haunted poor Betty Brant for years.

The dark, doom-filled tale of extortion and excoriating tension stretched from Philadelphia to the Bronx Zoo and cannily tempered the trenchant melodrama with stunning fight scenes in unusual and exotic locations, before culminating in a truly staggering super-powered duel as only the masterful Ditko could orchestrate it.

This tension-drenched tiny tome concludes with the introduction of a new super-threat and ‘The Menace of Mysterio!’ as a seemingly eldritch bounty-hunter hired by Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson to capture Spider-Man eventually revealed his own dark agenda.

Of course the menace was only ended after another mind-boggling battle, this time through the various exotic sets and props of a TV studio…

These mini-masterpieces of drama, action and suspense immaculately demonstrated the indomitable nature of this perfect American hero, and I suppose in the final reckoning how you come to the material is largely irrelevant; just as long as you do…

These immortal epics are available in numerous formats.
© 1978 Marvel Comics Group. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Spider-Man


By Stan Lee, Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, J. Michael Straczynski, Dan Slott, Steve Ditko, Gil Kane, John Romita, John Romita Jr., Todd McFarlane, Joe Quesada & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-510-9

With Summer Movie Blockbuster season hard upon us and a new iteration of The Amazing Spider-Man swinging our way, Marvel has again sagaciously released a bunch of tie-in books and trade paperback collections to maximise exposure and cater to those movie fans wanting to follow up the cinematic exposure with a comics experience.

Produced under the Marvel Platinum/Definitive Editions umbrella, this treasury of tales gathers a few of the most impressive and obvious landmarks from the world-weary Wall-Crawler’s extensive canon, specifically Amazing Fantasy #15, Amazing Spider-Man #121-122, 300, 500, 545, 600, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21, Sensational Spider-Man volume 2 #41, which offer a fair representation of what is a quite frankly an over-abundance of riches to pick from…

After the now-mandatory introduction from Stan Lee, it all begins as it must with the sublime origin tale ‘Spider-Man!’ by Lee & Steve Ditko from Amazing Fantasy #15 (cover-dated September 1962), describing in 11 captivating pages the parable of Peter Parker, a smart but alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider on a High School science trip.

Discovering he had developed arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius – he did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do when given such a gift – he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor celebrity – and a criminally self-important one.

To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian and uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazy with a need for vengeance, Peter hunted the assailant who had made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, only to find that it was the felon he had neglected to stop.

His social irresponsibility had led to the death of the man who raised him and the boy swore to always use his powers to help others…

It wasn’t a new story, but the setting was one familiar to every kid reading it and the artwork was downright spooky. This wasn’t the gleaming high-tech world of moon-rockets, giant monsters and flying cars – this stuff could happen to anybody…

The story appeared in the same month as Tales to Astonish #35 – the first to feature the Astonishing Ant-Man in costumed capers, but it was the last issue of Amazing and Lee had printed the Spider-Man tale against the advice of his boss and publisher Martin Goodman, who knew kids didn’t want to read about other kids, especially nerdy loner ones with creepy insect powers…

However that tragic last-ditch tale had struck a chord with the reading public and when sales figures came in for that cancelled final issue Lee – and Goodman – knew they had something special. By Christmas a new comicbook superstar was ready to launch in his own title, with Ditko eager to show what he could do with his first returning character since the demise of Captain Atom (see Action Heroes Archive volume 1).

The bi-monthly Amazing Spider-Man #1 had a March 1963 cover-date and the company has never looked back since…

Swiftly rising to the top of the company’s hierarchy, Spider-Man defined being a teenager for the young readers of the 1960s and 1970s, tackling incredible hardships, astonishing foes and the most pedestrian of frustrations. Slowly however he grew up, went to college, got a girlfriend and found true love with policeman’s daughter Gwen Stacy…

From Amazing Spider-Man #121-122 (June-July 1973) comes a two-part tale which stunned the readership as Parker failed to save his intended from the insane rage of Norman Osborn, the first Green Goblin, in a shattering tragedy entitled ‘The Night Gwen Stacy Died’ which led inexorably to ‘The Goblin’s Last Stand!’ (both by Gerry Conway, Gil Kane, John Romita senior & Tony Mortellaro)…

Life moved on and Peter found a more mature love with old friend Mary Jane Watson. She shared the secret of his identity and after years of treading water they married in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (1987).

‘The Wedding’, by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, Paul Ryan & Vince Colletta, is actually a rather bland affair with nominal villain Electro only a minor note in a tale which dwells overlong on the happy couple’s doubts and pre-wedding jitters, but it is undoubtedly a landmark as it set the seal on the Web-spinner’s maturation and offered a genuine symbol and sense of progress.

During the Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars of 1984-1985, Spider-Man had picked up a super-scientific new black and white costume which turned out to be a hungry alien parasite that slowly began to permanently bond to its unwitting wearer.

After being discovered and removed by Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, the “Symbiote” ultimately escaped and, like a crazed and jilted lover, tried to re-establish its relationship with the horrified hero; seemingly destroying itself in the attempt.

During a stellar run of scripts by David Michelinie, the beast was revived with a new host and became one of the most acclaimed Marvel villains of all time, helped in no small part by the escalating popularity of rising-star artist Todd McFarlane…

From Amazing Spider-Man #300 (May 1988) comes ‘Venom’ by Michelinie & McFarlane, wherein a shadowy, bestial figure stalking Peter and Mary Jane Watson-Parker is revealed as a monstrous shape-shifting horror, intent on terrorising the new bride and destroying her husband.

Venom is a hulking, distorted carbon copy of the Wall-crawler: a murderous psychopath constituted of disgraced reporter Eddie Brock (who obsessively hates Parker the photo-journalist) permanently bonded with the bitter, rejected parasite whose animalistic devotion was spurned by an ungrateful host who even tried to kill it…

The story is a stunning blend of action and suspense with an unforgettable classic duel between Good and Evil which famously saw Spider-Man finally return to his original Ditko-designed costume, and kicked off a riotous run of astounding stories from Michelinie & McFarlane that led to the creation of a fourth Spider-Man title in an era where there was no such thing as overexposure…

Next, from the anniversary Amazing Spider-Man #500 (December 2003), comes ‘Happy Birthday Part Three’ scripted by J. Michael Straczynski, pencilled by John Romita and John Romita Jr. with inks from Scott Hanna, which concluded a spectacular adventure wherein a host of Earth’s heroes battled an invasion by Dark Dimensional overlord Dormammu and Spider-Man and Dr. Strange were marooned in time.

Simultaneously faced with the moment he was bitten by that radioactive spider and the future instant of his death, tempted by the chance to alter history and destiny, Peter Parker chooses to relive his tragic life all over again in order to change the moment when Dormammu conquered our world…

For a character and concept with a fifty-year pedigree which only really works as a teen outsider, radical reboots are a painful if annoying necessity, and with a history this convoluted it was absolutely necessary for a prose ‘Story so far’ page before Sensational Spider-Man volume 2 #41 and Amazing Spider-Man #545 (December 2007 & January 2008) re-present ‘One More Day’ parts 3 & 4 (by Straczynski, Joe Quesada & Danny Miki) wherein Peter and Mary Jane are taken on a metaphysical quest and meet heart-wrenching might-have-beens before ultimately losing each other and having their lives overwritten by demonic tempter Mephisto in a magnificent sacrifice to save the life of Aunt May…

When the Spider-Man continuity was drastically and controversially altered for the ‘Brand New Day’ publishing event a refreshed, now single-and-never-been-married Peter Parker was parachuted into a new life, and the final tale contained here (Amazing Spider-Man #600, September 2009) capitalises on that renewed and returned youthful vim and verve as Peter faces one of his oldest foes on his ‘Last Legs’ in a rousing romp by Dan Slott, Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson.

Set during the wedding of Aunt May to J. Jonah Jameson’s father, the spectacular yarn recounts the last gambit of Dr. Octopus, (a previous fiancé of the inexplicably enticing May Parker) who is dying from years of being smacked around by the good guys. Determined to make the City of New York remember his passing and scotch the impending nuptials if he can, the multi-limbed madman unleashes a horde of tiny octobots and takes cerebral control of every electrical device in the Five Boroughs…

Packed with guest-stars such Daredevil, Fantastic Four and the Avengers, all of Manhattan is held hostage to the madman’s final rampage until Spider-Man and the Human Torch save the day and still get to the church on time. But at the reception there’s just one more shock for Peter Parker…

Jam-packed with a gallery of covers and pin-ups from Jack Kirby & Ditko, Romita (and Son), McFarlane, J. Scott Campbell, Quesada & Miki, Mike Deodato Jr., Janson, Gabriele Dell’otto & Ron Garney, this treasury of delights also includes a meticulous and fact-filled run-down of Spider-Man’s career and ends with ‘The True Origin of the Amazing Spder-Man’ by historian Mike Conroy, proving the modern Wall-Crawler still has a broad reach and major appeal for fans old and new.

This is the perfect vehicle with which to rejoin or jump on if the Webbed Wonder crawled off your radar in recent years…

™ & © 1962, 1973, 1987, 1988, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2012 Marvel and subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A, Italy. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

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Avenging Spider-Man: My Friends Can Beat Up Your Friends


By Zeb Wells, Joe Madureira, Greg Land, Leinil Francis Yu, Jay Leisten & Gerardo Alanguilan (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-509-3

Since Spider-Man first joined the Avengers he has spent a lot of time questioning his worth and fittingness and that nervous insecurity informs this delightful compendium of brief sidebar stories starring the wall-crawler and individual members of the World’s Mightiest Heroes in team-up action.

Collecting the first five issues of team-up title The Avenging Spider-Man, which began at the end of 2011 – presumably to capitalise on the then-impending Avengers film release – this engaging and upbeat compendium is as big on laughs as mayhem, as you’d expect with award-winning Robot Chicken scripter Zeb Wells at the keyboard…

The madcap mayhem begins with a three-part collaboration illustrated by Joe Madureira and co-starring military monolith Red Hulk wherein the subterranean Moloids once ruled over by the Mole Man attack during the New York Marathon and kidnap Mayor J. Jonah Jameson.

The only heroes available are the criminally mismatched and constantly bickering web-spinner and Crimson Colossus, who follow, by the most inconvenient and embarrassing method possible, the raiders back into the very bowels of the Earth…

There they discover that an even nastier race of deep Earth dwellers, the Molans, led by a brutal barbarian named Ra’ktar, have invaded the Mole Man’s lands and now are intent on taking the surface too. The only thing stopping them so far is a ceremonial single-combat duel between the monstrous Molan and the surface world “king” Mayor Jameson…

Understandably Red Hulk steps in as JJJ’s champion, with the Wall-crawler revelling in his own inadequacies and insecurities again, but when Ra’ktar kills the Scarlet Steamroller (don’t worry kids, it’s only a flesh wound: a really, really deep, incredibly debilitating flesh wound) Spider-Man has to suck it in and step up, once more defeating impossible odds and saving the day in his own inimitable, embarrassing and hilarious way…

Next up is a stand alone story pairing the web-spinner with the coolly capable and obnoxiously arrogant Hawkeye (limned by Greg Land & Jay Leisten) which superbly illustrates Spider-Man’s warmth, humanity and abiding empathy as the fractious allies foil an attempt by the sinister Serpent Society to unleash poison gas in the heart of the city, but without doubt the undisputed prize here is a magical buddy-bonding yarn featuring Captain America which charismatically concludes this compendium.

The wonderment begins when some recently rediscovered pre-WWII comics strips by ambitious and aspiring kid-cartoonist Steve Rogers leads to a mutual acknowledgement of both Cap and Spidey’s inner nerd… and just in case you’ve no soul, there’s also plenty of spectacular costumed conflict as the Avengers track down and polish off the remaining scaly scallywags of the Serpent Society in a cracking yarn illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu & Gerardo Alanguilan…

By turns outrageous, poignant, sentimental, suspenseful and always intoxicatingly action-packed, this is a welcome return to the good old fun-stuffed thriller frolics Spider-Man was born for…

™ & © 2012 Marvel and subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A, Italy. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

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Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Scorpion


By Brian Michael Bendis & Sara Pichelli (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-515-4

When the Ultimate Comics Spider-Man died, a new hero in his image arose…

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint began in 2000 with a post-modern take on major characters and concepts to bring them into line with the tastes of a 21st century readership – a wholly different market from those baby-boomers and their descendents content to stick with the precepts sprung from founding talents Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee… or simply those unable or unwilling to deal with the five decades (seven if you include the Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of continuity baggage which saturated the originals.

Eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which excised dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals in a devastating tsunami which inundated Manhattan, courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

In the aftermath Peter Parker and his fellow meta-human survivors struggled to restore order to a dangerous new world.

Spider-Man finally gained a measure of acceptance and was hailed a hero when he valiantly and very publicly met his end during a catastrophic super-villain showdown…

This collection (collecting Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #6-10) follows child prodigy Miles Morales as the freshly empowered 13 year old learns to cope with his astounding new physical abilities, discovers the painful cost of living a daily life of lies and how an inescapable sense of responsibility is the worst of all possible threats…

Now a day resident at the prestigious and life-changing Brooklyn Visions Academy Boarding School, Miles spends only weekends at home and is coming to terms with some unpleasant truths. Foremost is that he has secrets to keep from his parents, but also poisoning the air is the fact that his father used to be a street-thug and now passionately hates costumed heroes – like Spider-Man.

Almost as bad is the discovery that Miles’ Uncle Aaron is a major thief and bad-guy known in the game as the Prowler…

Ever since a living piece of Aaron’s loot bit Miles and transformed him into a super-strong and fast kid who can walk up walls, turn invisible and deliver a devastating venom charge through his hands, the Prowler has been laying low, and the action opens here as he resurfaces in Mexico, narrowly escaping a deal-gone-sour with local super-powered gang-lord the Scorpion.

Meanwhile the replacement Spider-Man has been making a name for himself in New York, and news of a junior Arachnid Avenger is soon making global headlines… Classmate, confidante and fellow nerd Ganke undertakes to train Miles using candid footage of the deceased Peter Parker in action and, when continued sightings of the boy hero reach Aaron south of the border, the wily rogue instantly puts two and two together and heads back to the Big Apple.

As the troubled teen tackles street scum and even old Spidey villains such as Omega Red, triumphing more by luck than skill or judgement, Aaron murders underworld tech-guru The Tinkerer and co-opts his ingenious arsenal of criminal gadgets before confronting Miles at school: offering hints at a possible partnership…

Since Peter Parker perished his Aunt May and true love Gwen Stacy have been world travelling. They’re in Paris when the shocking news of a successor reaches them…

In New York harassed Police Captain Quaid is also coming to terms with another Wall-crawling crazy to complicate his life but is utterly unaware that major grief has hit town as the Scorpion, following the Prowler, has seen New York is wide open for a new Kingpin of Crime to step in and take over…

After a spectacular battle against The Ringer, Spider-Man and Quaid reach an accommodation of sorts, but the Prowler’s first North American clash with the Scorpion doesn’t go nearly as well and Aaron Morales once again accosts his nephew with veiled threats and a shocking offer…

Of course it all devolves into a fist-fight before calmer heads prevail and Miles really thinks over what’s on the table: one of the world’s most effective and capable villains is offering to train him in combat, strategy and survival on the streets whilst schooling him in the myriad ways the underworld works…

Only problem is that the Prowler has no intention of reforming and won’t say what he expects in return…

To Be Continued…

Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Samnee & Sara Pichelli have crafted a stirring new chapter which offers intriguing new insights into the morally ambiguous and far less black-and-white world of modern Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas, and as usual this volume also contains a gallery of alternate covers to delight and thrill.

Tense, breathtaking, action-packed, evocative and portentous suspense; full of the light-hearted, self-aware and razor sharp humour which blessed the original Lee/Ditko tales, and lovely to look at, this second collection (which does end on a cliffhanger , I’m afraid) looks set to prove that the new Spider-Man is here to stay – unless they kill him too…
A British Edition ™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. and published by Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Essential Spider-Man volume 5


By Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Gil Kane, John Romita & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1865-7

The Amazing Spider-Man was always a comic-book that matured with or perhaps just slightly ahead of its fan-base.

This fifth exceptionally economical monochrome volume of chronological web-spinning adventures sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero through another rocky period of transformation as the great second era of Amazing Arachnid artists moved inevitably to a close. Although the elder John Romita would remain closely connected to the Wall-Crawler’s adventures for a little time yet, these tales would be his last long run as lead illustrator on the series.

Stan Lee’s scripts were completely in tune with the times – as glimpsed by a lot of kid’s parents at least – and the burgeoning use of pure soap opera plots kept older readers glued to the series even if the bombastic battle sequences didn’t.

Thematically, there’s still a large percentage of old-fashioned crime and gangsterism and a dependence on mystery plots. The balance of costumed super-antagonists was finely balanced with thugs, hoods and mob-bosses, but these were not the individual gangs of the Ditko days.

Now Organised Crime and Mafia analogue The Maggia were the big criminal-cultural touchstone as comics caught up with modern movies and the headlines. Moreover during this period Lee finally defied Comics Code Authority mandates to tell a powerful tale of drug abuse which would (along with DC’s Green Lantern tales dealing with the same issue) force the industry’s censoring body to expunge the ludicrous dictat that comics could never mention narcotics under any circumstances…

This volume, reprinting Amazing Spider-Man #90-113, spans November 1970 to October 1972 and even includes some stunning art-in-progress and unfinished Gil Kane pages from issues #98 and 102 to edify and astound the readers, so be prepared to be utterly amazed…

Following directly on from ‘Doc Ock Lives!’ – which ended the previous Essential Edition on a cataclysmic cliffhanger – the action here opens with ‘And Death Shall Come!’ by Stan Lee, pencilled by Gil Kane & inked by John Romita Sr., wherein the multi-limbed menace ran riot in the city and Peter Parker’s attempts to stop him led to the death of a beloved cast member…

With the tragic demise, Spider-Man became a wanted fugitive and Jonah Jameson began backing “Law and Order” election hopeful Sam Bullitt in a campaign ‘To Smash the Spider!’, utterly unaware of the politician’s disreputable past, but the secret came out in #92’s ‘When Iceman Attacks’.

The ambitious demagogue convinced the youngest X-Man that Spider-Man had kidnapped Parker’s paramour Gwen Stacy but the Wondrous Wall-Crawler’s explosive battle against the mutant exposed the corrupt and explicitly racist Bullit in an all-out action extravaganza featuring some of the best action art of the decade by two of the industry’s greatest names.

Romita resumed pencilling with issue #93, which saw the return of a forgotten foe in ‘The Lady and… The Prowler!’. Hobie Brown was a super-burglar gone straight, but when he saw that the Amazing Arachnid was wanted, he too was all to ready to believe the media hype and not his old benefactor…

Amazing Spider-Man #94 (Lee, Romita & Sal Buscema) offered a new glimpse of the fabled origin of the hero as part of a dynamic dust-up with the Beetle ‘On Wings of Death!’ after which Peter headed for London to woo his estranged girlfriend Gwen, who had fled the manic violence of America.

Sadly ‘Trap for a Terrorist’ found the city under threat of destruction from radical bombers, which only Spider-Man could handle, so she returned home, never knowing Parker had come after her. Everything was forgotten in the next issue when deeply disturbed and partially amnesiac industrialist Norman Osborn remembered he was the Green Goblin and once more attacked Peter in #96’s ‘…And Now, the Goblin!’ by Lee, Kane & Romita.

Lee had long wanted to address the contemporary drugs situation in his stories but was forbidden by Comics Code strictures. When the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare approached him to tackle the issue he produced the three-part Goblin tale. When it was declined Code approval he went ahead and published it anyway…

Although the return of the madman who knew all Spider-Man’s secrets was the big fan-draw the real meat of the tale was how Osborn’s son Harry – a perfectly normal rich white kid – could be drawn into a web of addiction, abuse and toxic overdose…

Frank Giacoia began inking Kane with the second instalment ‘In the Grip of the Goblin!’ as the elder Osborn ran riot, almost killing the wall-crawler and preparing for his final deadly assault even as his son lay dying, before the saga spectacularly concluded with ‘The Goblin’s Last Gasp!’ wherein the villain’s deeply buried paternal love proved his undoing and Parker’s salvation…

Amazing Spider-Man #99 ‘A Day in the Life of…’ was an action-packed palate-cleanser with Peter and Gwen finally getting their love-life back on track, only marginally marred by a prison breakout which was easily quelled by the Arachnid Avenger, but the anniversary 100th issue ‘The Spider or the Man?’ proved to be a game-changing shocker as, determined to retire and marry, Peter attempts to destroy his powers with an untested serum.

The result was a hallucinogenic trip wherein Kane & Giacoia got to draw an all-out battle between Spidey and a host of old enemies and a waking nightmare when Peter regained consciousness and discovered he had grown four extra arms…

With #101 Roy Thomas stepped in as scripter for ‘A Monster Called… Morbius!’, as the eight-limbed Parker desperately sought a way to reverse his condition and stumbled across a murderous costumed horror who drank human blood. To make matters worse old foe The Lizard turned up, determined to kill them both…

Amongst the many things banned by the Comics Code in 1954 were horror staples vampires and werewolves, but the changing comics tastes and rising costs of the early 1970s were seeing Superhero titles dropping like flies in snowstorm. With interest in suspense and the supernatural growing, all companies were pushing to re-establish scary comics again and the covert introduction of a “Living Vampire” here led to another challenge to the CCA, the eventually revision of the horror section of the Code and the resurgent rise of supernatural heroes and titles.

For one month Marvel also experimented with double-sized comicbooks (DC’s switch to 52-page issues lasted almost a year: August 1971-June 1972 cover-dates) and Amazing Spider-Man #102 featured an immense, three-chapter blockbuster beginning with ‘Vampire at Large!’ as octo-webspinner and anthropoid reptile joined forces to hunt the bloodsucker after discovering a factor in the vampire’s saliva which could cure both part-time monsters’ respective conditions.

‘The Way it Began’ diverged from the tale to present the tragic secret origin of Nobel Prize winning biologist Michael Morbius and how be turned himself into a haunted night horror before ‘The Curse and the Cure!’ brought the tale to a blistering conclusion and restored the status quo.

Designed as another extra-long epic, ‘Walk the Savage Land!’ began in the now conventional sized #103 but was sliced in half and finished as #104 ‘The Beauty and the Brute’ in #104. When the Daily Bugle suffered a financial crisis, Jameson took Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy on a monster hunt to the Lost World under the Antarctic, encountering not only dinosaurs and cavemen but also noble savage Ka-Zar, perfidious villain Kraven the Hunter and even terrifying alien baby Gog in a fabulous pastiche and homage to Willis O’Brien’s King Kong from Thomas, Kane & Giacoia.

Capitalising on an era rife with social unrest and political protest, Stan Lee returned in #105 with ‘The Spider Slayer!’ as the New York City police put spy cameras on every rooftop and discredited technologist Spencer Smythe resurfaced with an even more formidable anti-Spider-Man robot for Jamison to set against the Wall-crawler. The story also featured the release of Harry Osborn from drug rehab and old Parker gadfly Flash Thompson came back from Vietnam, but the big shock was discovering the once beneficent Smythe had gone bonkers…

Responsible for the Police spy-eyes too, Smythe had photographed Spidey without his mask and in ‘Squash! Goes the Spider!’ (triumphantly pencilled by the returning Romita) the Professor sold out old employer Jameson, allied with criminal gangs and attempted to plunder the city. When the Amazing Arachnid tried to stop the banditry he found himself facing the ultimate Spider-Slayer before valiantly battling his way to victory in ‘Spidey Smashes Thru!’

The secret of Flash Thompson began to unravel in issue #108’s ‘Vengeance from Vietnam!’ (with Romita inking his own pencils) as the troubled war hero revealed an American war atrocity which had left a peaceful in-country village devastated, a benign mystic comatose and set a vengeful cult upon the saddened soldier’s guilt-ridden heels, which even all Spider-Man’s best efforts could not deflect or deter.

The campaign of terror was only concluded in #109 when ‘Enter: Dr. Strange!’ saw the Master of the Mystic Arts divine the truth and set things aright, after which #110’s ‘The Birth of… the Gibbon!’ found the world-weary wall-crawler battling shunned and lonely outcast Martin Blank, whose anthropoid frame and lack of friends had made his life a living hell…

The Gibbon was back a month later when Kraven brainwashed the hapless outcast ‘To Stalk a Spider!’ in a tale which saw the beginning of young Gerry Conway’s tenure on the title, whilst #112 saw another periodic crisis of faith for Peter Parker when ‘Spidey Cops Out!’ found the hero ready to chuck it all in until another nightmarish old adversary resurfaced as part of a burgeoning gang war…

We end as we began with #113 and ‘They Call the Doctor… Octopus!’ (Conway & Romita with art assistance from Tony Mortellaro and Jim Starlin) as the city is plunged into chaos when the multi-limbed madman squares off against the mysterious gang-boss Hammerhead with a rededicated but fearfully overmatched Spider-Man caught in the middle…

For the cataclysmic outcome you’ll need to see volume 6…

Despite that major qualification this is still a fantastic book about an increasingly relevant teen icon and symbol. Spider-Man at this time became a crucial part of many youngsters’ lives and did so by living a life as close to theirs as social mores and the Comics Code would allow.

Blending cultural veracity with stunning art and making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and sense of powerlessness that most of the readership experienced daily resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, delivered in addictive soap-opera instalments, but none of that would be relevant if the stories weren’t so compellingly entertaining. This intoxicating transitional book is Stan Lee’s Spider-Man at his very best and also shows the way in which the hero began to finally outgrow his (co)creator.
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