An old friend returns.
Creative Staff:
Story: Peter David
Art: Will Sliney
What They Say:
Weird science with Spider-people! Spider-Man of the year 2099 and Lady Spider of the steampunk 1800’s team up to daringly dissect Daemos of the Inheritors!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As the Spider-Verse story goes on, this issue does what it should do by actually carrying forward with events from the previous installment, rather than throwing us elsewhere in the overall event storyline. Things happen across multiple books with what’s going on, but I definitely felt more in-tune to events here since it picked up from before. And there was a lot going on before as Miguel made his way back to 2099 with Daemos chasing him and the others, with only Lady Spider and him surviving to this point. Capturing Daemos was a bit of luck overall, but it’s the kind of luck that’s needed for Miguel to try and figure out exactly what’s going on with the Inheritors. Like a superhero and a scientist, he wants to solve their hunger problem and having someone to examine and work with definitely helps.
Miguel does some good stuff here in setting things with Stone, for the moment at least, to get what he wants while Daemos is in holding and unable to break free. There’s definitely some bad blood between Miguel and Stone considering Stone sent him to 2014 to get him out of the way, but Miguel has so many bigger fish to fry that he’s willing to do what’s necessary. And even Stone realizes this works to his advantage for the moment and it makes sense. The really fun part for me is that while Miguel gets to work in investigating the body that he has from a previous incident, he also sets Lady Spider to figuring out things with all the technology that they had in hopes of her figuring out how to use the dimensional hopper that he had. There’s wheels within wheels going on here, but Miguel’s quick thinking and sharp banter at times keeps it all moving fast with the right kind of tension to it.
With that tension, we also get things changing as Miguel hopes for something that will do some damage, but has to deal with the death/clone trick that Daemos has, which gets him a get out of jail free card when he’s had enough of it all. Sending in the clone right away does feel forced, but I suspect it’s just part of what the Inheritors are all about. What makes the arrival of the clone an absolute treat is that Miguel calls in an old friend in the Punisher from 2099, which was definitely one of the fun books of the day way back when. His going up against Daemos is definitely solid stuff and it was just great to see the character and costume again before it all shifted to Miguel and Lady Spider hopping off to another dimension, only to see themselves going from one hot frying pan to another.
In Summary:
I’ll admit it, Punisher 2099 being here was just a great thing to see, though I halfway thought we might get someone like Doom. But my memories of the old 2099 books and where they ended are certainly hazy. This installment keeps things moving and manages to make me like Lady Spider even more (and no, don’t change your name, oh wonderful steampunk incarnation) and it also has Miguel back in his home environment where you really do get a sense that he feels much more at home. It’s a fast moving book that works some 2099 material well while also advancing the Spider-Verse stuff in an engaging way. I’m still not thrilled that the main book had to deal with it, but this installment helps sway me a bit with what it did.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: January 7th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
