{"id":21938,"date":"2020-04-10T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T08:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=21938"},"modified":"2020-04-08T14:22:05","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T14:22:05","slug":"avenging-spider-man-volume-1-my-friends-can-beat-up-your-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2020\/04\/10\/avenging-spider-man-volume-1-my-friends-can-beat-up-your-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Avenging Spider-Man volume 1: My Friends Can Beat Up Your Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"
\nBy Zeb Wells<\/strong>, Joe Madureira<\/strong>, Greg Land<\/strong>, Leinil Francis Yu<\/strong> & various (Marvel)
\nISBN: 978-0-7851-5779-3 (TPB)<\/p>\n

Have you got a little time for some readily available, joyously escapist nonsense? Yes? Try this\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/em><\/p>\n

Since Spider-Man<\/strong> first – and after many, many tries – joined the Avengers<\/strong> he has spent a lot of time questioning his worthiness. That nervous insecurity informs this delightful compendium of brief sidebar stories starring the wallcrawler and individual members of the World’s Mightiest Heroes in team-up action.<\/p>\n

Collecting in paperback or digital form, the first five issues of team-up title The Avenging Spider-Man<\/strong>, (January-May 2012) – presumably to capitalise on the then-impending first Avengers film release – this engaging and upbeat compendium is as big on laughs as mayhem, as you’d hope and expect with award-winning Robot Chicken<\/strong> scripter Zeb Wells at the keyboard\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The madcap mayhem begins with a 3-part collaboration illustrated by Joe Madureira and colourist Ferran Daniel, co-starring military monolith Red Hulk<\/em> wherein the subterranean Moloids<\/em> once ruled over by the Mole Man<\/em> attack during the New York Marathon and kidnap Mayor J. Jonah Jameson<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The only heroes available are the criminally mismatched and constantly bickering webspinner and Crimson Colossus, who follow, by the most inconvenient and embarrassing methods possible, the raiders back into the very bowels of the Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

There they discover that an even nastier race of deep Earth dwellers – the Molans<\/em>, led by a brutal barbarian named Ra’ktar<\/em> – have invaded the Mole Man’s domain and now are determined on taking the surface regions too. The only thing stopping them so far is a ceremonial single-combat duel between the monstrous Molan and the surface world \u00e2\u20ac\u0153king\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. In lieu of one of those, it will have to be Hizzoner Mayor Jameson\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Understandably, Red Hulk steps in as JJJ’s champion, with the wallcrawler revelling in his own inadequacies and insecurities again. However, 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 overcoming impossible odds and saving the day in his own inimitable, embarrassing and hilarious way\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

What follows is a stand-alone, done-in-one story pairing Spidey with the coolly capable and obnoxiously arrogant Hawkeye<\/strong><\/em> (limned by Greg Land & Jay Leisten with hues from Wil Quintana) which superbly illustrates Spider-Man’s warmth, humanity and abiding empathy as the fractious frenemies foil an attempt by the sinister Serpent Society<\/em> to unleash poison gas in the heart of the city\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Without doubt, the undisputed prize here is a magical buddy-bonding yarn featuring Captain America<\/strong><\/em> which charismatically concludes this compendium.<\/p>\n

The wonderment begins when recently rediscovered pre-WWII comics strips by ambitious and aspiring kid-cartoonist Steve Rogers <\/em>lead to a mutual acknowledgement of both Cap and Spidey’s inner nerd\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 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 & Sunny Gho\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

By turns outrageous, poignant, sentimental, suspenseful and always intoxicatingly action-packed, this is a welcome portion of the grand old, fun-stuffed thriller frolics Spider-Man was made for\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Zeb Wells, Joe Madureira, Greg Land, Leinil Francis Yu & various (Marvel) ISBN: 978-0-7851-5779-3 (TPB) Have you got a little time for some readily available, joyously escapist nonsense? Yes? Try this\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Since Spider-Man first – and after many, many tries – joined the Avengers he has spent a lot of time questioning his worthiness. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Avenging Spider-Man volume 1: My Friends Can Beat Up Your Friends”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[74,98,125,79,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-captain-america","category-hulk","category-humour","category-marvel-superheroes","category-spider-man"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-5HQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}