Spider-Verse Team Up #1 Review

Keeping this short for the time, this is my review of Spider-Verse Team-Up #1.

The comic opens on Earth-94 where an optimistic Ben Reilly runs into Vultures from alternate dimensions and has to be bailed out by Old Man Spider and Spider-Ham. It’s clear he’s one of the naïve spiders because the time spent with him talking ends up with them getting hit with paralysis darts despite the fact they should have Spider-Sense and he alone managed to overpower it via sheer optimistic willpower. I call asspull but whatever. As they drag him to the safe haven for spiders both Spider-Ham and Old Man Spider can see that he has no clue what he’s in for, but considering how the other Bens have fared and how they’re being hunted he may as well die among friends.

In the second part we get Spider-Man Noir and Six-Armed Spider. Noir is…. Well, negative through and through, as he refers to the fact that the Aunt May and Uncle Ben being alive only because they are sticking with him by his bedside being the only good that Peter Parker has been done, but is willing to leave him behind since he’s helpless despite being a totem. Six-Armed Spider decides to go check on his blood work since he has an idea.

Eventually Peter morphs into a Man-Spider so Noir drags him onto the roof while Six-Arms gives him a cure he made before Noir goes for the mercy kill approach. He explains that he originally made it for himself but it didn’t work and gave him six arms, but since that Peter was younger his cells could revert back and cure him. That Peter loses his spider abilities but he has a family and a normal life that they could never have, which Noir calls a win in his books.

Okay review time.

I found the stories kind of bland, but the characterizations stuck out. We see Old Man Spider and Noir are both jaded from their experiences and are willing to make tougher calls than their partners, but both Spider-Ham and Six-Armed Spider are more…. optimistic before resorting to more permanent solutions.

I give it a 3 out of 5.