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 (or vice versa), it’s a very nice finish.

When I say nice, I don’t just mean well-executed. For all the sinister magic and the soul-devouring, the story’s upbeat and friendly.

The series finishes well for Spidey and Dr. Strange, but McCarthy also introduces a solid supporting cast (who help the two). The setting is hard to define–it’s sort of like the insect realm, but it’s also magical–so a spinoff might be difficult.

It’s so nice to see Marvel publishing an interesting comic.

Too bad it didn’t sell.

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 might even be set in the Ditko period McCarthy is homaging, given the lack of further complications (girlfriends, marriage) in Peter’s life. But it’s stunningly modern in its storytelling; McCarthy could be an example of why psychedelic should never be used as a pejorative.

The way he wraps it all in at the end–the idea Spider-Man only exists because of these magical, evil spider demons… it’s really nest. Maybe because it’s just a story and not some attempt to retcon the character.

And the Dr. Strange stuff is great. Funny and good.

McCarthy does well.

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 intricate psychedelic, hyper-real stuff (the realm of the spider-demons is psychedelic, Manhattan is hyper-real–the inverse might have been more interesting, but who’s complaining). It’s a joy to look at, definitely, but McCarthy gets some great stuff going in the writing.

There’s a funny little reference to The Fly, but then there’s also Spider-Man assuming someone’s a concerned citizen who’s not. Then McCarthy leaves the scene with the citizen becoming concerned… at the Vulture’s expense.

McCarthy intentionally goes overboard–look at Dr. Strange’s expository dialogue–but it works.