Amazing Spider-Man # 6 (2014) Review
So, will the world learn of Spider-Man’s secret identity in issue #6 of the new series? Read my review and find out.
Picking up where the comic ended, JJJ once again tries to expose Peter’s identity to the world instead of doing something to stop it, with everyone in a panic that its’ about to happen….except JJJ stood in the dead center of the shot. Contrived, maybe, but no one was fooled into thinking otherwise. Even though Black Cat gets the mask off, Silk manages to wrap his head before they can get a decent shot and splits with him.
Black Cat then goes to a villain bar to get muscle, but no one really sees her as much since she’s working with Electro, who killed basically half of their numbers when he tried to bust into the prison. Meanwhile Silk and Anna are getting Peter onto his feet as Electo asks Sajani if the device can really cure him when Black Cat arrives. Later on they’re getting ready to prep the device when Black Cat and Electro sneak in while Peter and Silk keep making out in the backseat when she senses something wrong because her spider-sense is better and then suit up, while Anna gets a promotion.
Anna goes to shut the project down and clear the area when Black Cat and Electro get to the machine and she uses it to amp up his power as the web-slinging duo arrive. Black Cat decides to turn Electro into a bomb and its killing him, meaning if he’s really Spider-Man and not Otto, he’d save Electro. Yeah, needless to say he gets right into it and she condemns them both to death before Silk saves them.
In the aftermath Electro is depowered, Silk goes to work for the news company in order to search for her family, Black Cat is back into good graces with the villains and is intent on copying Catwoman on being a new Kingpin (real subtle Marvel), and Sajani arrives to see Anna getting along with Peter. As the comic ends we see that Sajani actually told Black Cat willingly how to destroy the device because it was a bad business model, which doesn’t paint her in a very good light. Then again, she joined up with Otto’s graces…
Okay, review time.
Well, this first arc has been… interesting. The flaws are they’ve basically killed all the character development Black Cat had and they are pushing Silk like an overeager drug-dealer outside a rehabilitation center with a banner stating the first one’s free. I mean come on, we get she’s new and awesome. I even approve of the whole web-shaping abilities and how she can change them, but being faster and better Spider-Sense?
Bull.
Anyway, still loved the rest of it so…4 out of 5.
August 2014 PPGD Update 1
Read the rest of the comics at Snafu-Comics
New Warriors #3 Review
The third issue of New Warriors is out now, and my review comes with it as a packaged deal, so read on.
It opens with the High Evolutionary spouting out the history of the Celestials and how their meddling led to the birth of just about every single super-powered being on the planet Earth to Nova, the young and inexperienced newcomer, when his men arrive with Scarlet Spider, Water Snake, and Hummingbird. He has samples collected from them and then orders them imprisoned. Why he didn’t have them killed instead is unknown to me, but it will bite him in the ass.
Back in New York City, our new inhuman gets the same treatment as mutants have for the last few decades. The cops blame him for the train incident and shoot at his ass. Luckily they have Justice to get them out of their and he, being a mutant, understands what he’s going through while Sun Girl says he should embrace what he’s become. Justice tells her politely that she has no idea what he’s going through because she can take off her gear and be human while they can’t. Her counter point is to shoot at Mark.
Scarlet Spider wakes to find himself imprisoned and being called Spider-Man by Nova, which is sort of a berserk button to him. Hummingbird presses Nova’s button by calling his name over and over in the same way that she annoyed the X-Men when Scarlet Spider teamed up with Wolverine. And here’s the thing, while the Scarlet Spider doesn’t have his Spider-Sense anymore, he’s stronger than his original, has spikes, organic webs, a monster form, and he can talk to spiders, which is exactly how he gets out of his prison like a badass.
We cut back to Justice, Speedball, Mark, and Sun Girl, who is inside a telekinetic bubble. I want to agree that Speedball is right that she’s unhinged for shooting at Mark to demonstrate his powers. There were a dozen ways that could have gone wrong, but she’s so bent on being a hero that she thinks it’s a sign they need to handle this threat. She goads Justice into trying, but instead he insists they find Nova.
Speaking of Nova, he and the other three are now freed and armored up, but they run across a bunch of evolutionaries and they get zerg-rushed. They put up a good fight so that Nova can get away, but he goes back to help them and the issue ends with him being mobbed too.
Okay, Review Time!
This issue fleshed out our characters further as the plot moves on.
Mark didn’t ask to be an Inhuman. Like the new Ms. Marvel, he got hit with the Terrigen Mist and changed, but he can’t hide what he is. In a mutant sense, he’s like a Morlock and she’s an X-Men.
Speaking of Mutant, Justice can understand how he’s feeling and tries to relate so he can cope, while Sun Girl feels he should embrace it. We can see he’s worldly and more calculated in his actions while Sun Girl is still new at the hero thing and optimistic. That’ll change if she sticks around, but in the meantime Speedball is playing peace-keeper.
As for the other three, Scarlet Spider repeatedly states he’s not Spider-Man, but it’s obvious he still has an inferiority complex about it. Aracely maintains her chatty nature, but contrasts Nova by being supportive of her guardian, while the other kid wants Spider-Man. Water Snake makes it clear that she’s a warrior and was intent on going down fighting. Nova, being an amateur, does have a good heart but he did make a mistake in staying since the high evolutionary needs his helmet and him sticking around to try and save three people doomed so many other.
Overall, the issue gets a 5 out of 5.
Magneto #2 Review
It’s that time again. I’m back with my review of the most mature and violent X-Men comic in production right now, Magneto #2. Read on folk!
We begin with SHIELD interviewing some of those caught in the crossfire of Magneto’s last fight. You don’t invade a police station without someone being injured and there’s no getting over the fact that taking down the kid turned into a dime-store Omega Sentinel had shaken some people to their very core. However, we learn that he has some fans that rock ‘Magneto was right’ shirts harder than Quentin Quire and I must say I am slightly as disturbed as the SHIELD agents who ponder what unholy terror he would be if his powers ever got fixed.
Meanwhile, Magneto arrives at a shanty-town made of tents and people who fell down through the cracks of society called Down Acres. He finds their plight familiar because in the 1940’s he was in a similar situation when he and two others started smuggling food to survive and feed their families. He and another made it, but they could only listen in as the other didn’t and was held at gunpoint.
Magneto meets with the person in charge of Down Acre, a seemingly nice man named Samuel who welcomes him in and offers to feed and shelter him as long as he pulls his weight. Once in private though, Magneto gets to the point by asking about the men who took Colton, the poor young man who was turned into that killing machine last issue. Men come in the night and offer them work, but when the people wised up that they never returned the men started taking them—starting with the ones who fought back.
It was an all too familiar thing for Magneto as he recalls that fateful night, when his friend that got caught was given a choice out of desperation. He tells the name of the other friend, not Magneto, in exchange for being allowed to take his food back to his family. He is promptly shot in the head while the other friend flees, leaving Magneto to learn that desperation and hunger could make men break. He thinks back to that day, that his name wasn’t the one that was uttered, and wonders if it was necessary for him to do as he does to determine the course of history.
With that in mind, Magneto promptly kills the men coming with rusty nails. No banter, no declaration, just an ambush that graphically kills them all with the exception of one since he can’t afford the luxury that is mercy. To the final one he gives a similar ultimatum to the man who killed his friend, information so that he could walk away alive. The man talked in desperation to survive, and Magneto guns him down now that he knew where to strike.
Okay, review time.
This was a powerful issue. Rather than relying on action, we look at some of the hardships in the past and present, how desperate times makes men into monsters. Magneto has never shied away from being a monster, so long as it was for a cause that would ensure his people don’t go through the same shit he went through.
This issue gets a 5 out of 5.
Twilit Dreams Circle 