cm_cameron's Spider-Man: The Arachnis Project #6 - Battle Royal! review

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    Read On To See How This Series Killed Me A Little Inside

    THE BASICS

    Venom's thrown in to the mix as the Life Foundation's secret base is set to explode. Now the clock is ticking, and Spider-Man's opportunity to save his friends is rapidly closing.
     

    MY COMPLIMENTS TO THE CHEF

    • Ugh! Just... No...

    FEEL THE STING OF MY DISCONTENT!

    •  Are you tired of listening to me complain about how full of cliche's this comic is, yet? I hope not, because I'm about to complain some more. As if to put the cherry on top of this cliche-sundae, Spider-Man concludes the comic with a feel good message about all the things he's learned on top of a grassy knoll by a tree on a sunny afternoon. There's no topping that. It's the king of overused story conclusions and  it's used to the full here. To be fair, this was written in '94, almost 20 years ago, so these things probably weren't nearly as cliche then as they are now. But I'm pretty sure most of these techniques were heading into "overused" territory in the late 80's, so I'm not cutting it much slack.
     
    • So much for Venom. Why is he even here? His motivation is briefly mentioned at the end of issue 4, but it's pretty simplistic and rather uninteresting. The series has been building up his appearance since the first issue, but it's pretty anticlimactic here. He's just kind of there, and probably only because the Jury is too. But then you have the problem of the Jury really only being in the story because Venom is going to be. It's just a lazy, messy, and vicious circle.
     
    • Examples of lazy writing to fuel the plot are all over the place. Ramshot, er... I think it was Ramshot, at least. To be honest, I can't really distinguish him from all the other muscle heads in this story. Anyway, Macho Guy #1 has a moral dilemma. He's upset about the way the Jury is being handled and what his father stands for, but this all comes out of nowhere. There's no indication of this at any point earlier in the series. It just happens as a means to add more pointless drama to the story.
     

    I'M JUST SAYING

    You know, I've spent so much time criticizing the story of this series that I haven't really commented on the art at all.
     
    It's ok, I guess. 
     
    So, yeah...

    WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE

    This series in no way, shape, or form needed or deserved to be 6 issues long. There's nowhere near enough material here for that. It's full of filler, unnecessary scenes, and bad writing all around. Chances are, no one's really in danger of picking up this series and reading it now, but, just in case, you've been warned. 
     
    Still, at least it's better than the Clone Saga.
     
    Overall series rating: 1.0/5.0

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