No matter where you look, Spider-Slayers. Everywhere.
Creative Staff:
Story: Peter David
Art: Will Sliney
What They Say:
Scorpion vs. Spider-Man 2099 vs. Spider Slayers seasoned with a bit of social unrest! Miguel O’Hara continues the fight for his grandfather’s soul in a literal war zone.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Spider-Man 2099 has moved along pretty well in its first couple of issues, and while I liked aspects of what we got in the previous issue, it had me a bit worried with what it was doing in going to Transsabal. The corporate side of the book is an area where I think it can find a really good place to work with, something that can separate it from other books in an engaging way what with Miguel being from the future and trying to get his grandfather to do the right things with the company in its earliest of days. Going to this war torn country and having him on the wrong side of things, or even on the not caring side of things, is an easy place to go to though and I had hoped for a bit more nuance with it. We got a few shades from the opposition groups that were labeled terrorists and that had a little bit for Miguel to work with after Tiberius got kidnapped.
With this issue, things are a lot more cut and dried when you get down to it. The material involving the deal is kept to the final few pages and we do see a bit of humanity out of Tiberius before it gets to his view of how the deal is going to go down. It’s one of those rough and unfortunate situations where until something really affects you personally, you have no empathy towards what others may be going through. Tiberius’ focus on just making money without realizing the true cost is something we saw a lot of before, but for him to really learn the lesson it has to involve people dying in front of him. People actually trying to save him at that. While it’s good to see Tiberius change his mind, it does not speak well of him in that it took events going like this for him to do so. It reinforces the perception of him in a negative light.
The majority of the book is all about the action, which I actually didn’t mind since the series has been relatively light on with for the most part. While Miguel is trying to save Tiberius, he gets caught up in dealing with the Scorpion, who was the lead man in bringing and setting up the Spider-Slayers for the sale. And he has a long time grudge against “Spider-Man,” which he tries to cash in on throughout the book since he’s all upgraded himself and has a good little effective army on his side. The back and forth of the action is good as Will Sliney keeps it laid out well with smooth progressions and good use of space, but it’s also done with the simplicity of just faceless brown buildings all around. It lacks a certain character to make it feel like a place, something you get more in the New York segments. Scorpion has never been a favorite of mine, but I like how it plays out and how Miguel has to figure out how to deal with the combination of him and the Spider-Slayers.
In Summary:
Spider-Man 2099 continues to be the thing I find most important about it – it’s fun. There’s plenty of opportunity for things to get more serious and involved as it goes on, but right now it’s a good bit of fun watching Miguel deal with living in the early 21st century, trying to get his grandfather on the right path and having to cope with some of Spider-Man’s opponents mistaking him for their actual hated opponent and going after him. There’s an ease about it that I like, though I’m looking forward to getting back to New York City and exploring events there more with his work and home life a bit. The next issue is an Edge of Spider-Verse installment though, so things aren’t going to go quite to plan just yet, but this mini-event is only impacting one installment and could add a nice wrinkle and twist to things.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: October 1st, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
