The Good
If there's a central theme uniting Spider-Man’s most famous tales it is, surely, that of the hard-luck story. Even now, fifty years and massive character changes later, Spidey is, at his heart, that same teenager trying to show up on time for a date while foiling a villainous octogenarian in a flight harness. The fact that it has been over five decades of these stories and Dan Slott STILL manages to find ways to make THIS one seem like the biggest, most desperate struggle yet is a testament to his skill as a writer as well as his creativity. The “safe zone” of the Captain Universe Spider-Man has come crashing down at the hands of the gargantuan Inheritor patriarch Solus, scattering the Spider-Totems and giving the series a massive injection of hopelessness. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide...well except MAYBE for one final destination. Slott manages to keep all his ducks in a row (no Spider the Duck...I JUST realized there’s no Spider-Duck and that weirdly bums me out), though of course some of the totems receive a bit more to do than others. He also does a great job of throwing in a few legitimately funny and fun moments that help break up the sense of total, imminent demise, which is a nice touch and a good acknowledgement to the true tone of Spider-Man. Many of the lines converge in this issue, and while the battle is a brief one, the final image hints that this series isn’t done dishing out surprises.
Giuseppe Camuncoli handles the pencils and things take a turn for the sharper, more jagged and jaw-clenching poses. Not just from the characters, but the visuals themselves evoke more angry tension than Olivier Coipel’s smoother, more fluid look. It suits the shift in tone as things have become more ragged in short order and Cam Smith’s inks are a testament to that as well. Smith gives the characters a real sense of weight and speed, sending them crashing through the panels and across the pages while Justin Ponsor’s colors remain dark and ominous without ever becoming overly grim or forgetting how to illuminate and brighten when they’re called to.
The Bad
This issue crosses the line that previous ones had walked right up to: the tie-ins are more directly referenced and, more importantly, more necessary to fully understand what’s happening this issue than ever. There are many problems with this, but one of the biggest is that a fairly substantial event near issue’s end apparently gets committed in an issue of SPIDER-WOMAN that has yet to come out, and it follows from an extremely important development, one that directly ties into the plot of the main book, from the previous issue. Seeing characters flit in and out of the Spider-Verse core title on recruiting drives is one thing, but having critical events happen that directly impact the events here happen in a whole other book, particularly one that isn't yet available, feels like a bridge too far.
The Verdict
Perhaps the problems of the tie-ins has been more pronounced in the past and it simply hasn't been as noticeable because this is the first a tie-in hasn't been available readily, but in either case this is a strong issue in what has, so far, been an enormously satisfying event. The visual changes match the tonal ones and make the whole series feel like it’s entering a new act, and if what we see at the end is any indicator, it’s definitely going to be the final one. At every turn, whenever some reveal or event feels like it could either be one of the best or one of the worst things, Slott manages the former every time.