The first bit of the comic, when the capable princess meets up with the doofus king, is the best Spider King has ever been. There’s a rhythm to the interactions; you want to spend time with these characters. They’re distinct for a moment.
Then the princess goes on her way to assassinate the bad guy while the doofus king plans on a frontal assault or something. Doesn’t matter. It’s a bad idea, whatever it is, because he’s a doofus.
The art also feels very small this issue. Panels are smaller, D’Armini is cramped. There’s also a lot of stylistic night time action scenes and it looks very much like it’d be better in black and white. Adrian Bloch’s night time colors overwhelm the art.
Spider King #3 starts as the best issue of the series. It ends as more of the same, maybe worse. Vann can’t write evil spider king dialogue as it turns out. The Spider King is just a Bond villain, blathering on and on. And the strange design work on the infected soldiers–they’re bloated and without distinguishing features–is kind of gross but mostly kind of uninteresting.
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