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itsmatthew's review
4.0
A decent, if inconsistent, first joint venture of Marvel Comics and Archie Comics. I'm a fan of the comic digest format (especially Japan's tankÅbon) and I'm never going to complain about getting 220-something pages of comics for 7 bucks.
That said, the range of stories was a bit scattered. The first half of the book consisted of older Spidey comics, and bore the strengths and weaknesses of that era (hilarious banter thrashing against the constraints of the times, but so. many. monologues.).
The last half of the book was more recent, but child-focused fare. There were some decent stories in this section (the stories from Marvel Adventures imprint manage to be family-friendly but not hollow), but the final few stories were clearly pulled from the latest Spider-Man cartoon series, and seemed pretty far from the heart of the characters.
The last story, bizarrely, featured a G-rated version of Deadpool, which seems like an inherently flawed thing to attempt. Thinking generously, it could be seen as a brilliant piece of commentary on the problems of treating antiheroes as heroes - but, truthfully, it was probably more an attempt to build brand loyalty to a morally problematic character at the earliest age possible.
That said, I'm excited for issue #2 (which will shift from Spider-Man to the Avengers), and even more excited to think about where they could go afterward (fingers crossed for a Black Panther digest closer to that film's February release).
That said, the range of stories was a bit scattered. The first half of the book consisted of older Spidey comics, and bore the strengths and weaknesses of that era (hilarious banter thrashing against the constraints of the times, but so. many. monologues.).
The last half of the book was more recent, but child-focused fare. There were some decent stories in this section (the stories from Marvel Adventures imprint manage to be family-friendly but not hollow), but the final few stories were clearly pulled from the latest Spider-Man cartoon series, and seemed pretty far from the heart of the characters.
The last story, bizarrely, featured a G-rated version of Deadpool, which seems like an inherently flawed thing to attempt. Thinking generously, it could be seen as a brilliant piece of commentary on the problems of treating antiheroes as heroes - but, truthfully, it was probably more an attempt to build brand loyalty to a morally problematic character at the earliest age possible.
That said, I'm excited for issue #2 (which will shift from Spider-Man to the Avengers), and even more excited to think about where they could go afterward (fingers crossed for a Black Panther digest closer to that film's February release).
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