“Beware… Terror Inc.!”
Creative Staff:
Story: Steve Orlando
Art: Chris Campana, Jonas Trindade
Colors: Jim Campbell
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit
What They Say:
BEWARE – TOMORROW’S TERROR INCORPORTED! TERROR returns to his horrific roots! SPIDER-MAN must go up against THE NEW TERROR INC. – body parts will fly! Can SPIDER-MAN get TERROR to finally change his ways?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I’ve long enjoyed the realm of 2099 even though I’ve not read much in forever. I still have incredibly fond memories of when the first book came out in the 90s and I’ll try to sample it when I can. This new five-issue series comes from writer Steve Orlando who has had a number of fun books for Marvel recently that keep me interested while at times wishing for just a bit more depth. For this book, he’s teamed up with artist Chris Campana and Jonas Trindade inking, which is my latest experience with their work. It helps that while some of these are established characters they’re not hugely defined in the way that the mainline ones are so it’s able to establish itself as its own thing well enough. The layouts are solid, Jim Campbell’s color design works well, and I enjoyed some of the blending that goes on with different story moments, and the characters look good while capturing this particular kind of terror.
The premise for this one is a character I don’t think I’ve read before known as the Terror. Basically one of those immortal types from prehistory that has survived thanks to the body horror elements of it, the Terror has set up shop in the city by running what’s basically billed as a kill room to draw in the worst elements. One of those is a Gene Guard guy known as Wynn that is looking for an easy kill thrill and has now found himself hunted and trapped by the Terror. That’s been happening for a bit but the problem for the Terror is that Miguel was following Wynn as a lead toward more of the Gene Guard. And that has him trying to find out what’s going on in this Body Shop place where the Terror basically pushed back on Miguel by essentially saying they’re on the same side, just different approaches.
Naturally, that’s not how Miguel thinks or views any of this and he just calls out the Terror for being a coward by not getting into the streets and doing the thing personally. To be fair to the Terror, he’s been doing this a long time and you can get into a rut like this while he’s also picked up some interesting elements along the way, such as a particular heart that lets him use Stormbreaker for example. It’s a pretty good fight sequence overall with some creative choices in how it unfolds because of their abilities, but it also leans into some amusing squeamish moments for Migeul because of the way the body horror aspect works. Yanking out an eyeball without realizing it definitely gives Migeul a squicky feeling.
In Summary:
The penultimate installment of this series is one that’s the most interesting to me because I don’t recognize this character at all, though I wouldn’t be surprised if I had read about them before. The Terror has an interesting gimmick being run here to deal with his own history and doing what he believes to be for the greater good. It’s got some good action sequences and while it reimagines a very familiar scene, it doesn’t have anywhere near the impact for a lot of reasons, even if it does look cool. But that’s a given here as it’s a moment playing echo to the past instead of forging its own path. I’m curious to see if the Terror shows up again considering how it sets things up here but it’s a weird and decent one-off piece overall.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: January 24th, 2024
MSRP: $4.99
