blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Eh. So Gwen Stacy is Carnage. Yippee. And Aunt May is pretty nasty. Bendis doesn’t redeem her much, even if she has been through a lot apparently. She hasn’t been lying to Peter his whole life, just the last few years. It’s an interesting thing, making Aunt May unlikable. Has anyone else tried that gimmick […]
MoreI’m not sure Bendis actually does good writing this issue but he sure does go out on a high point. He establishes Aunt May as a super villain. She’s been lying to Peter his whole life. She’s a bad guy. Wow. Bendis will never stick with it. It’s too much. There’s some good stuff with […]
MoreBendis should have done more with the Fantastic Four this issue. They’re really funny. The stuff with Peter calling himself “baby” in his internal monologue? Makes me hope he’s a clone not the regular character but I think it’s more just Bendis laziness. There’s another big fight scene this issue; Peter fights some black costumed […]
MoreOkay, great, John Dell has help from John Sibal and together they don’t ink Bagley well. I couldn’t even tell the guy in the Scorpion outfit was a Peter Parker clone. He just looked way too bland. Otherwise, the issue’s okay. Bendis is doing his rushing thing to get rid of Kitty Pryde, just like […]
MoreFirst off my apologizes to Jimmy Palmiotti… his inks weren’t screwing up Bagley’s pencils last issue. This issue makes it clear John Dell–who is solo, so no confusion–really shouldn’t be inking Bagley or Ultimate Spider-Man. He ruins the tone at times. The issue concludes the Morbius adventure, but it’s pretty slight. Ben Urich is in […]
MoreI’m sure Bendis and Jimmy Palmiotti are buddies but come on… no one could think Palmiotti is a good inker for Bagley. I thought Dell was weak, but Palmiotti is something else. You have these pleasant Bagley high school panels and Palmiotti makes them dreary. And the hands… don’t get me started on the hands. […]
MoreSo the whole story with the island and the X-Men and Ultimate Deadpool is just to set up a payoff of Aunt May having a boyfriend and spending the night with him? This issue’s got some good moments. Bendis doesn’t use the TV narrative device too much (of course, when he does, it’s awful). He […]
MoreDid Ditko start the thing where Spidey squints and his eyes change size? They overdo it today (and have since the late eighties) but there’s a little of it here and it works. He works rather well as a guest star. Bendis has a lot of fun writing Peter play off other superheroes. And by […]
MoreBendis writes first person exposition rounded rectangles–there’s just no good description for them like word balloons–for Kitty Pryde. She’s Peter’s girlfriend, after all, and she guest stars in about half the issue. Probably more. Oh, wait, Bendis never wrote those rectangles for Mary Jane. It’s a good issue and all, though the front is a […]
MoreDell’s back on inks. There aren’t as many close ups so it doesn’t get too bad, but it’s not great. The faces are too sharp. It’s mostly an action issue, with cuts to Nick Fury and Tony Stark talking in exposition to explain the comic to the reader. Ultimate Vulture is a waste of time, […]
MoreI think John Dell took over inking. It has his name on the cover but not the interior credits, but the art looks totally different. There’s a long scene with May ranting about how much she hates Spider-Man (weak scene for her) and she looks totally different. As for the rest of the story, the […]
MoreIt’s weird how Slott let Gage handle the script on this arc. It’s got some of the biggest changes to Superior since it started–a new page in Otto’s relationship with Jonah, a secret base (and lab) for Spider-Man–one would’ve thought Slott would want to be more hands on with it all. The issue’s pretty good, […]
MoreGage (and the plotting Slott) put Otto in an interesting place. Given the standard superhero trope of having to save one person or another, Otto apparently goes from the villain himself instead of bothering to save anyone. Apparently, as it’s the hard cliffhanger. Otherwise, some of the issue goes to Jameson, who decides to hunt […]
MoreGiuseppe Camuncoli and John Dell make Otto look so positively condescending it’s wonderful. He only has a couple scenes outside his Spider-Man adventures, one with Anna and then one with his boss. I didn’t pay attention to the credits so I didn’t realize it was Christos Gage scripting from a Slott script; a lot more […]
MoreI guess I didn’t realize it before, but “Brand New Day” Peter Parker is supposed to be unbelievably good looking. Otto lucked out in the bod department, apparently. This issue features a really nice scene where Otto has dinner with his “tutor,” a very charming woman who happens to be a little person. Ghost Peter […]
MoreWell, I’ll eat my rotten onions right off–I miss Stegman. Giuseppe Camuncoli takes over on pencils (John Dell on inks) and it’s not a good move. There are lots of regular people scenes this issue and Camuncoli draws them like it’s an absurdist comedy. He also draws Spider-Man in Batman postures, which works out, but, […]
MoreI don’t even think Peter shows up in this issue. Mary and Gwen get a good scene together, something Bendis’s two month fast forward makes problematic. It’s hard to believe they haven’t seen each other in that amount of time… not with Peter giving Gwen a message for Mary Jane. But anyway, it’s a good […]
MoreDell might be back, but there’s a certain laziness to the art this issue. To doesn’t care about perspective during a chase scene–or body proportions–and apparently Dell doesn’t care enough to fix them. But the art is generally better, if not at the series’s peak. Unfortunately, Levitz’s writing doesn’t improve any this issue. Once again, […]
MoreSo Levitz ended the previous issue with an ominous cliffhanger, then this issue just has Helena kicking ass. She doesn’t even face a tough adversary. She just kicks butt over and butt. It’s almost like Levitz thinks he can get away with dumb female characterization for Helena by making her unstoppable. There’s another cat reference […]
MoreHelena likes cats. Get it? Because she might be Catwoman’s daughter. Got to keep the reader guessing, because it adds texture to such a thoughtful series. Levitz also introduces the bad guys–evil Muslim oil barons who sell dissidents daughters into slavery. I was a little surprised there aren’t any good Muslims to offset the bad […]
MoreSo the comic is about Helena–still no last name, still no personality, I’ll bet Huntress was definitely either a pre-New 52 book or before they decided to do Earth 2–breaking up a human trafficking ring. And the cover tagline instructs the reader to objectify Huntress. DC is such a classy joint. The issue is more […]
MoreI’m utterly confused. Is this Earth 2? Is the Huntress Batman and Catwoman’s daughter again? If so, why’s she going after the mob in Italy? The mob vigilante Huntress was a post-Crisis thing, right? Like most of Paul Levitz’s modern work, he never establishes why anyone should be reading Huntress. Levitz wrote some great pre-Crisis […]
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