The Good
I’ve always had a soft spot for extra-dimensional stories. When done right, they can show characters you know and love in different ways with completely different stakes and continuity, ensuring that the idea that everything will work itself out by the end is off the table. Spider-Verse has been a terrific opportunity for just that, but with an overall narrative leading to the same place, it keeps the stakes high. This book gives us a look at two Spider-Men (well one Man and one Ham) recruiting Ben Reilly from a universe in which Peter Parker was depowered and Reilly exists as the city’s defender. Christos Gage has no time to lose, quickly establishing the universe Reilly lives in as a more upbeat, friendly one with a Spider to match, but even the usually gregarious Peter Porker has his doubts about Reilly’s usefulness against the Flock of Vultures. That’s right: in addition to more spiders than you can shake a stick at (a truly terrifying premise on its face), we’re now getting different versions of everyone’s favorite octogenarian avian baddie. There are a lot of concepts to toss around and characters to meet, but this story is overall one of fun and about establishing these characters, which it does fantastically and with an incredible economy of space. The next story’s a little different and the less I reveal about it the better, but suffice it to say: it’s written by Roger Stern, it features the six-armed wallcrawler and Spider-Man Noir and is surprisingly touching in its conclusion. Spider-Verse can be a pretty grim event, all told, so seeing happy endings to some of these stories is a breath of fresh air and Stern writing one of the most scientifically minded Parkers teaming with one of the least is also a delightful juxtaposition.
Pencils for the first story are supplied by Dave Williams and they are something of a mixed bag. The more mellow, character driven-moments are solid with lots of little details and a cartoonish, over-the-top style befitting the characters featured. The inks, by Dexter Vines, are likewise solid and thick, ensuring that, though things are delightfully bright and shining there’s also a sense of gravitas and weight to the actions. Chris Sotomayor’s colors are, as previously mentioned, incredibly bright and bombastic, giving the whole thing a tone of light whimsy that the Vultures clash with in thematically appropriate ways. The second set of creators are Bob McLeod on linework and Andrew Crossley on colors and it’s the perfect follow-up to the first story: darker, more dreary and tinged with horror, but ultimately with a sense of hope at the end. It perfectly suits its dark and weirdly frightening protagonists.
The Bad
In both cases, the art looks great when the characters are still or conversing, but the action is stiff and feels overly posed. The first story in particular is full to the brim of splash pages that lack a sense of force or dynamism and the bulky characters don’t suit their acrobatic moves. The level of detail also varies wildly as some panels look great and others almost wind up looking like storyboards with color more than actual panels.
The Verdict
If you’re already invested in Spider-Verse, this one’s a no-brainer. It presents more of the spiders that we’ve already met and even introduces us to one or two more. This series is beginning to feel like a real love-letter to Spider-Fans, and this series looks to be the fan-service-est of them all. If you’re on the fence about the series, or the main characters, this won’t do anything to change your mind, but if all you want is more, this delivers.
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