A Secret Wars story!
Creative Staff:
Story: Dan Slott
Art: Adam Kubert, John Dell
Colors: Justin Ponsor
Letterer:VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
The last Spider-Man story! Not even The Amazing Spider-Man is safe from Secret Wars! In this new Marvel Universe, Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson and their daughter have to scrape by to make ends meet, but they have each other. Face front, True Believers. This is the one you’ve been asking for.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Though the Secret Wars event was a bit ago I find myself still making my way through some of the miniseries that ran alongside it. That’s thanks to sales through ComiXology where I didn’t mind spending a buck an issue for what’s basically a non-continuity story. Which are often my favorite since it keeps me from feeling committed to anything. I hadn’t read any Spider-Man for quite some time regularly since the 90’s, though I enjoyed the mind-swapped run that we had for a while that I binged on, but getting into this story was pretty easy as it kind of launches from events I’m familiar with, just a bit further down the line as Slott gives us Peter Parker as the married guy I knew with a little girl named Annie as their baby. And with Adam Kubert illustrating it, well, it’s a good looking book to say the least.
With this taking place within its own little Battleworld domain, we get what’s essentially the world as Peter Parker knew it as Spider-man, family and all, but it doesn’t take long for things to take a twist in order to give us something different. While Peter is balancing family life and costumed life well, it’s becoming more problematic as Annie gets older and MJ is beginning to nudge for more help with things. The problem for him is that his costumed side has grown busier due to a number of other familiar faces disappearing, such as Moon Knight, Iron Fist, The Punisher and more. That has him heading to the Avengers to find out more only to discover that a slew of people are now dead or missing, including the X-Men and many others. Everything is pointing toward the Empire Unlimited group where we get our “Big Bad” for this story as the man behind it has taken their powers, and is about to take many others, in order to become the Regent and install his own rule over this section of Battleworld.
It’s a solid background buildup but the book focuses elsewhere for a lot of it, pushing this to the subplot that will have more impact later. What we get as a focus is a breakout at Rykers that has everyone freed, something that sets Peter in a panic since Venom is there and he’s got some intense desires to kill off Peter and his family. That makes for a pretty good fight throughout the back half of the book, something that Kubert makes hugely dynamic while not resorting to big splash pages, MJ does a pretty good job of things here in protecting Annie while trying to get away and coming up with a plan to help Peter against him, making it a family affair in all the right was without overplaying it. But it comes to an interesting close that definitely leaves me wanting more as Peter realizes that this is the end of the line for his costumed days with what the Regent has done and how he has to protect his family.
In Summary:
I grew up reading Spider-man books, fondly remembering Web of and Spectacular a lot and being hugely into Amazing when the original Secret Wars got underway as that was the first book of that series that I bought. So reconnecting with it, albeit a bit late, with this miniseries side story is definitely fun to get a look at a Parker family that I’m familiar with but has had a lot of changes over the years. It’s a rushed issue in what it’s trying to do and it feels like there’s a disconnect from other Secret Wars books but part of that may just be my memory as I really didn’t care for the event overall and just had fun with some of the alternate stories that were told. This one is set up with the right pieces that should be fun and I’m holding out hope that the couple of bucks I spent on it is worthwhile.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: June 3rd, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
