Category: Spider-Man comics
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I think I’m going to start giving these issues “Friends” episodes titles (they fit, though they do get a little long). This one could be called “The One Where Gwen Moves in With the Parkers, Then Peter Tries to Talk Logically to Mary Jane and She Dumps Him.” She doesn’t just dump him over Gwen,…
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Big issue. Well, not really. Well… sort of. It’s one of those times Bendis lets the pacing get away from him and he ends up spending too little time on something important because he’s got to have the payoff scene. Captain Stacy dies this issue, the Wasp guest stars and… wait, no. Those two events…
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How many references can Bendis fit into one comic? And well. I’m not suggesting they aren’t good references. Let’s see… “Batman: Year One,” Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Bullit. Lots of Bagley big eyes on Mary this issue. They look like they’re going to take over her head. Bendis resolves last issue’s hard cliffhanger, but…
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I’m usually pretty reserved in any Bagley praise—Bagley hands are one of the more frightening things in comics—but he does give Jonah a great expression here. There’s no dialogue and he and Bendis take most of a page to do it and they make this great moment where the reader can tell what Jonah’s thinking…
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Okay, so the Rhino is a Spider-Man villain. I thought he was, but couldn’t remember for sure. Bendis turns the issue into something of a joke. He introduces Ultimate Rhino, all right, but it’s got very little to do with Spider-Man. In fact, Peter’s inability to escape his daily life to fight Rhino is the…
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Lot of Ditko homage on the last pages, even with the filmic–especially for the eighties–pacing of Peter suiting up in the red and blue. It’s sort of a weak finish to a great issue. Most of the issue–except some ill-advised attention on Hobgoblin (providing the action)–is Mary Jane telling Peter all about her life. DeFalco…
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Well, I’ve finally found something Bill Mantlo can write–little old ladies. This issue is mostly about Aunt May and her mysterious behavior. Turns out her pre-Ben Parker boyfriend is back and sending her love letters and causing these very distracting walks down memory lane. Of course, New York’s in different shape than it used to…
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Oh, those young toughs, how dare they break up a date between Peter Parker and… Jack Monroe (Nomad). Seriously, they’re on a date. They meet in an alley, beat up some threatening toughs, then head to see Rio Bravo together. All while Nomad is supposed to be delivering art to Steve Rogers. Unfortunately, it’s a…
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I knew I liked these eighties Spider-Man issues. It just took DeFalco a while to bring it around (though it could all be the nostalgia talking). What’s important about this issue isn’t the beginning, which cops out of the previous cliffhanger and then strangely sends Black Cat off to Neverland instead of resolving a new…
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What a cliffhanger! Mary Jane reveals to Peter she knows he’s Spider-Man! All with some weak Ron Frenz faces. I actually liked most of Frenz’s work this issue, when he was doing the action stuff–the fight between Puma and Spider-Man had some nice moves and it worked. But when Peter gets back to Mary Jane…
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Why have a Native American superhero when you can have a Native American supervillain! The politics of Puma (this issue is his first appearance) are fantastic–successful Native Americans use their special abilities to become assassins for hire. It’s great. You’d never see this kind of thing today. Maybe Jason Aaron can do a Puma MAX…
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I guess the Bob Layton inks–on the cover–make all the difference. If only Esposito made LaRocque look a tenth as good as those Layton inks do on the cover…. Anyway, that opening is misleading. This response is a positive one. The issue is a great day in the life story. Peter Parker is in Cleveland…
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I guess this issue is better than the last one. Milgrom’s directly continuing it, which will probably wreck havoc in the monthly Spider-Man continuity over in Amazing, and he keeps his recap of the previous issue brief. The writing is still bad–in the case of Cloak and Dagger and the Black Cat, very, very bad–and…
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What would I do without Al Milgrom? I’d never have been able to understand this issue, like when Cloak and Dagger talk to each other about their origin. Or when Peter thinks all about the problems he’s been having with the Black Cat and then explains their last adventure together. But Milgrom is dealing with…
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What a lame issue. I mean, I wasn’t expecting much when I saw Cary Burkett’s name on it, but it’s a lot worse than I thought. Pretty sure Peter gives away his identity–or at least risks giving it away–at the end of the issue too. There’s a lot bad about it–Burkett’s expository dialogue is terrible,…
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Milgrom sure does like some naked Peter Parker. He’s got Petey traipsing around his apartment in a too short robe, even answering the door for his landlady in it, then tossing it at the fourth wall to get into his costume. The art this issue is rather bad, which is always a surprise. Spider-Man was…
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Did Louise Simonson get paid by the word? Ten pages into this issue and I was already ready for a nap. It’s the most boring comic book I can remember reading–Spidey and Marrina (from Alpha Flight) get kidnapped by an alien collecting lifeforms, including some Superman might want in his zoo, and Alpha Flight shows…
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It’s a perfectly decent done-in-one. The issue opens with the Black Fox (I thought he was the Black Cat’s father, but maybe not) and he introduces the issue’s main story, the Red Ghost wanting to rob a bunch of stores so he can afford to build his death ray (or whatever it’s called). There’s some…
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Michelinie being a competent writer aside, I really loathe nonsensical inter dimensional stories. Spidey and Starfox have to go into another dimension to figure out why Captain Marvel is all messed up. So the two mismatched heroes (we know they’re mismatched because of Spidey’s constant thought balloons on the subject) meet these two warring tribes,…
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Michelinie writes a good issue here. Ten pages in and he’s had two action sequences, one for Spidey, one for Captain Marvel; it feels like you’re spending the day with the characters. Not in some fun sense, rather as though Michelinie is approximating real time in summary. It’s impressive pacing and it makes up for…
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Milgrom spends the majority of the issue on Spidey and the Black Cat fighting a new villain, the Answer, who’s one of Kingpin’s henchmen. It all ties into the Black Cat getting her powers from Kingpin and… and… and I’m bored already. The first half of the issue isn’t terrible. I mean, the art’s weak.…
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Here’s my issue… yes, Spider-Man has lots of human problems–his aunt’s pissed at him, he’s got girlfriend trouble, he’s got job trouble. He’s apparently the only superhero in New York when there’s a superpowered terrorist blowing up toy stores. The list goes on and on. But let’s look at these problems. Aunt May’s pissed he…
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Where to start… I’m tempted to start with Rick Leonardi, who comes up with these great layered panels (or maybe Bill Anderson inked them to make them layered), but simply cannot keep any consistency when drawing people. Maybe he does all right when he’s got football helmets on them–it’s a football corruption story, luckily Peter…
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It takes them a while–almost the entire issue–but Milgrom and Mooney eventually get a couple good panels in here. When I say good panels, I mean good close-ups. I wasn’t really paying attention to the art (it’s marvelously mediocre) as there’s so much else to get the reader’s attention. Like Peter Parker thinking crappy thoughts…
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People used to read this comic on purpose? Like, they’d go to the store and buy it and want to read it? Maybe this issue isn’t the norm, but something tells me Milgrom’s writing isn’t going to be much better when he’s writing Spider-Man than when he’s writing the Black Cat. I mean, the issue…
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Wow, Priest can write. I’ve liked his stuff, been impressed what he could do with Marvel superheroes, but this issue is just fantastic. Maybe because he… he writes thought balloons like they’re internal monologue and not declarative statements, not opportunities for expository shortcuts. He also should write Batman, because he borrows Batman and Jim Gordon’s…
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Tom DeFalco really likes expository dialogue and thought balloons, not to mention narration. Peter Parker cannot shut up he’s talking to himself so much, then there’s the Black Cat thinking about recent events to catch the reader up. Strangely, the issue opens on this amusing exchange between Jonah and Robbie about the best way to…
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What a nice finish. I’m not sure if Spider-Man and Dr. Strange have any real comics history between them–besides being New York heroes who traditionally weren’t members of the Avengers–but McCarthy makes it seem like they ought to. Even with the discrepancies in the colloquialisms–one panel Spidey’s using seventies slang, then sixties in the next…
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Well, the first issue was certainly no fluke. Here, set entirely in some magic dimension, McCarthy lets loose with both the art and the storytelling… almost immediately finding the humanity in it all. He sets Spider-Man on a quest to kill a fly. Kind of a human fly (its soul is human). The story itself…
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Maybe I don’t give Marvel enough credit. I mean, really… Spider-Man: Fever is a wacky book. It’s a good comic–but there are some pacing issues and maybe McCarthy could use a co-writer, but it’s also a really wacky comic. McCarthy’s art is a little mixed media, but it’s mostly sixties influenced figures over some very…
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