Amazing Spider-Man #15 (Spider-Verse) Review
The epilogue of Spider-Verse can be found in Amazing Spider-Man #15! How does it end? Read my review and recap!
The story starts with the various spiders going to their home dimensions, the most notable being Mayday. She returns to find out that both her mother and boyfriend didn’t die because her father held out long enough, meaning that she hasn’t lost everything. Even better, he left his outfit behind for her so that she’s now the new Spider-Woman rather that Spider-Girl.
Back at the Master Weaver’s domain, Otto starts cutting away at the Web of Destiny and threatens to unravel all of creation like a madman, though he claims he’s freeing them from destiny. Spider-Gwen and Miguel leave for their own time and dimensions, while the remaining 616-spiders take him down, but not before Otto has a failsafe in place so that even after his memories get scrambled once he goes back to the past and he returns the body to Peter, he’ll be back.
With that out of the way, someone has to replace the Master Weaver. Karn removes the Master Weaver’s helmet to reveal it is an older version of him, meaning that this was destiny. He sets out to repair the web, but can’t send Spider-UK back to his dimension because the incursions ended up destroying it. So he and Anya stay behind to do some good, while Peter goes back feeling like he can be a successful company owner and Kaine ends up hatching from the corpse of his Other form as the comic ends.
Okay, review time.
There isn’t much to say other than it’s a great send off for Spider-Verse. We see everyone home to where they belong, except a few living spiders and the rest who were dead, and the Inheritors are dealt with. Otto and Kaine have set the grounds for their return, and Mayday got her happy ending. It was easily the best crossover I’ve read and I can safely say it was a great story and great read.
5 out of 5 for both the issue, and the crossover. X-Men could learn a thing or two from this.
Amazing Spider-Man #13 (Spider-Verse Part 5) Review
Amazing Spider-Man #13 (Spider-Verse Part 5) review!
Things are reaching the climax in Spider-Verse and they start with the Inheritors announcing their failure to their father. If you read Scarlet Spiders #3 you know they cannot clone themselves into spare bodies, and Silk has discovered the one world they can’t travel in. What this means is that for the first time they have the advantage, but Solus has no fear since he has the Scion and by tonight there won’t be any left once they complete a ritual.
Back with the group of Spiders, Peter is shocked at seeing that his Uncle Ben was a Spider-Man. But he corrects them by explaining he gave up being Spider-Man, which even Otto finds to make no sense with him being the man who teaches nearly every Peter that with great power comes great responsibility. Ben explains that his version of the Green Goblin killed Peter and Aunt May and it broke him.
Otto calls him out on being a coward, which led to his world being ruined. Ben explains that his version of Otto held the world hostage with nuclear weapons and thus he ruined the entire dimension when it went off early. Our Otto takes that more than a bit hard, but Peter decides to give the clue that Spider-Woman sent back only for none of them to be able to read it, meaning they lost an important players for nothing according to Otto.
Silk takes this hard since she was the one who lost her device and left Spider-Woman stranded and excuses herself to go rescue her. Spider-Gwen follows her, thinking they can go in and out without anyone noticing. Of course, the Spider-Woman tie-in says otherwise.
Meanwhile, the India Spider-Man is still coming to terms with how he feels like one in a million considering all the similar Spider-Men. Spider-UK assures him that each one of them is unique in their own way, much like the members of his Captain Britain Corps. This brings him some comfort right as Otto loses his patience with the scroll and has his computer scan it for any matching languages.
This act leads to Peter pointing out the resemblance to Anna Maria Marconi, which tells Otto that Peter is from the future. This means that he loses in the end, which doesn’t bode well. Before he can make out anything, Anya explains she can read it because of her power and that it’s a prophecy that says that the spiders will end the Inheritors existence in a thousand years, so the only way to stop it is to perform a ritual with the blood of the Other, the Scion, and the Bride.
Much to their horror, both Silk and Kaine are on Loom World. Silk’s rescue attempt ended up getting their device busted again, which makes for like the third time she’s screwed up in this event. Kaine went there for revenge since the attempt to stop the Inheritor clones succeeded at the cost of Ben Reilly’s life. With both of them on Loom world, the Inheritors can smell them and go off to hunt them.
Anya puts together a team to go and get an advantage they can use from the second scroll, while Kaine hulked out on the Other to go kill some of the bastards. Jessica is stuck on Jennix’s world, but Miles ‘ team will go pick her up, and Miguel is working on something in the old Safe Zone and will be there in five or so minutes, so that leaves the rest to deal with the final battle… except for Ben, who doesn’t have it in him.
Kaine, in the meanwhile kills Solus in a single panel like some mook, despite him supposedly being hopped up on Uni-Force. This drives Morlun to the point of rage and he tears one of Kaine’s limbs off and stabs him through the head with it. Whether or not this kills him is unknown, but either way he’s down for the count. Silk and the other two Spider-Women come under fire by the twins and the beast tamer, who brought a bunch of Green Goblins with her.
With rest of them, Peter tries to get Ben to come. But it’s ultimately Otto who gets him back onto his feet, stating he never gave up no matter how great his mistakes, and an easy victory is never rewarding. Peter and I can’t believe it, especially when you consider this is a villain talking, but it does the job and gets him into action.
Now they’re all heading to the final battle as the comic ends.
Okay, review time….
I loved this issue with a burning passion. Nothing was wrong with it. Even Otto got some decent lines and character development. I honestly wish they’d bring him back once this is over.
Anyway, 5 out of 5.
Scarlet Spiders #3 (Tie-In Final Issue) Review
A hero dies in Scarlet Spiders #3 (Tie-In Final Issue)! Read my recap and review below!
The comic begins with an overview of Ben Reilly’s life, which pretty much tells you all you need to know about who’s going to bite the bullet. Kaine is the Other and Jessica is part of the only Ultimate Universe series still active, so she’s not going to die in an event that doesn’t tie in there. Anyway, he’s a Spider-Man, so he’s suffered every pain imaginable, but he earnestly believes what is right and just will prevail. That being said, things look grim as, despite him and Kaine wailing on the bastard, Jennix doesn’t go down easy.
Eventually Kaine decides to break out the stingers and start tearing into the Inheritor since, unlike Ben, he realizes this is a fight of extinction and he refuses to be slaughtered like some animal. Jennix instantly awakes from a clone and then gets shot by a turret that Jessica hacked. Ben wants her to shut it down for two reasons: If they regain control of it then they’re all screwed, and they don’t kill.
Jessica and even Jennix point out the futility of upholding that rule in this circumstance of this, but he instead states that it’s also pointless to keep killing him over and over since they need to trap him. Jessica happens to be at the receiver that sends the signal to wake the clones, but she runs into the Human Torch as an obstacle to doing that… and then she knocks him out in like three seconds flat to go and help the boys.
Ben thinks back, while nursing a concussion, about how he had always done right in the past and it was Peter who lost everything in his world while even getting the acceptance Peter didn’t. But things aren’t looking so hot here, and Jennix makes it clear he has thousands of these facilities, so it was all pointless. But, being a science expert himself, Ben realizes that the signal comes from this facility and tells Jennix he’s going to destroy it to stop them from coming back.
He succeeds, buying the other spiders time to run, but the act apparently kills him in the process with only his torn mask left behind. While Jessica tells Kaine not to let the ugliness of his death poison him, Kaine promptly gives into the Other, using it as fuel and hijacking a portal to Loom world to kill them while they can’t revive themselves.
In the end, they won but it wasn’t without sacrifices.
Okay, review time…
I loved the tie-in, but Ben Reilly dying was still hard. I mean, you could see it coming, but it still hurts because between the cynical Kaine and realistic Jessica, we see that the optimistic one was the one that bit the bullet. Other than that it was a pretty solid tie-in.
The issue and series gets a 5 out of 5.
Scarlet Spiders (Spider-Verse Tie-In) #2 Review
The Scarlet Spiders Spider-Verse Mini-Event continues in issue #2! Here’s my recap and review!
The comic picks up with the evil Johnny Storm realizing something is wrong with this scenario only to get knocked out while he’s Flamed-On. Ben has to abandon the Iron Man suit because Kaine points out that the suit probably has fail-safes on it and Jennix would be able to pull him in and peel him out of it like a sardine. Their cover is blown, which Jessica doesn’t like since her plan ultimately hinged on her being the decoy rather than them, so they have to wing it.
Ben and Kaine get into where they keep the clones. It turns out Jennix has about a thousand clones divided into levels for him and his siblings. When one dies their consciousness is transferred into the body and then released. Kaine votes on destroying the entire building, but Ben doesn’t want to since it means everyone else would go with it, so that means they’ll have to try a little harder than that.
Meanwhile, Jennix isn’t paying much attention to the fight since he has other things to handle. He tells Dr. Warren to simply keep monitoring the situation and if they make it to the special projects then he’ll run interference. It shows he’s both cocky and delegates his workload like a proper mad scientist should.
The spiders split up with Jessica playing the spymaster until she can get somewhere to interfere with the counter-measures, Kaine goes to deal with the main power cells, and Ben stays behind to try to do something in the clone room. Kaine… he wrecks the hell out of the security detail, with the caption mentioning that while he doesn’t have much of a life outside of violence, he’s making the most out of it. Then he finds something so shocking he has to go get Ben and the technician.
It turns out that special project is that Jennix has been cloning Spiders and these are the failures. Given what Kaine has gone through, it triggers a rage moment and that alerts Jennix that they are there. So Jennix makes good on his promise and goes to deal with them personally after showing them some footage of his experiments and how the clones don’t contain any of the essence that they have. As the comic ends Jennix makes it clear he’s going to turn them into an experiment once he’s done kicking them around.
Okay, review time….
I loved it for a tie-in. It got straight to the point and we have everyone in the roles they’re meant to play. 5 out of 5.
Scarlet Spiders #1 of 3 Review
Scarlet Spiders is out now and contains two of my favorite Spider people, so naturally I’m going to review it! How does the first issue go? Read my review and find out!
The comic opens up and follows the thoughts of Jessica Drew, the Spider-Woman (Black Widow now) from the Ultimates Universe, as she, Ben Reilly, and Kaine venture to the world where the clones came from. The city is beautiful, in contrast to a villain like you would expect from Doom. But they can’t exactly go out looking like they do, even if they are cloaked from the Inheritors.
Kaine fetches some smocks for them and they discuss the invisibility suit before they run out and meet a bunch of clones. The disguises don’t last three pages before they suit up again and get into a tussle with the security forces after the fighting spills out. Ben fights with grace and banter, Kaine goes with rage but restraint, and Jessica is the trained fighter of the group.
The fighting ends when Iron Man shows up, and Ben forgets they are on a villain controlled world. So he gets blasted into unconsciousness for two hours while they stripped Tony Stark of his armor. It turns out this Tony is a insufferably smug kiss-up which makes even the Superior Iron Man looks good, and that’s saying something, so they take his armor and use it to infiltrate the Baxter Building.
There Jessica breaks free and acts as a distraction while the other two go on ahead, but they get stopped as the comic ends by alternate universe Johnny Storm.
Okay, review.
In this issue we get more introspective into the different cloned spiders. Kaine beats the hell out of anyone in his way and lacks Peter’s smarts, but he’s been trying to be a hero to live up to his rep and has to temper his strength, which is greater than the others by a fair margin. Black Widow as the most training and strategic mind, while Ben still has Peter’s intelligence and witty nature.
All and all it’s not a bad start and I like the artwork. We’ll call it a 5 out of 5.
New Warriors #9 Review
The New Warriors have retrieved Haechi from the Inhumans, but what happens next? Read my review of New Warriors #9 and find out.
The comic starts with a flashback of some guy in a bear mascot suit named Choke getting hit by a meteorite from space. The chances are one in a few million, but given I’ve seen Chronicle and this is the marvel universe, bad things are coming. It then goes to the present where Scarlet Spider decks Justice for bringing them back to Houston because a lot of crap went down there. Justice wants to know if he’s really planning on quitting when Hummingbird wants to stay and he thinks she’s better off with them rather than him. You can see he’s still going through some self-esteem issues, but that gets shelved when that mascot from before pops up while the size of a skyscraper and calls him out.
With the others, they try and console Hummingbird about Scarlet Spider leaving but she’s sure he’ll be back. Instead she tells them they should be worry about Haechi since everyone he loves think he’s a monster and his own people tried to kill him. Again, she’s about as subtle as a brick in abusing the empath-powers, but they all agree that a Rave in Prague is the perfect distraction.
I should mention that the Midwest only has one team of superheroes compared to… all of them being on the east coast, so Choke could pretty much run wild for ages until he grew bored and left for Mexico. He apparently sees himself as a rival to Scarlet Spider, and well… he’s insane. I’m not even going to say evil, but insane. Anyway, he thinks that Scarlet Spider is a villain and there isn’t enough room for two of them, so Scarlet Spider leaves and the bear mascot decides that Justice will be an adequate replacement for the time being.
Scarlet Spider’s departure is halted when someone shoots at him, only for him to find its Lieutenant Layton from the Scarlet Spider series. He did it to grab his attention and apologizes for the last time they met, which was responsible for him leaving if you include the shape-shifter and crazy one-night stand (seriously, go read the Scarlet Spider series) but states that he’s a hero. Scarlet Spider leaves, saying he’s wrong, but Layton is certain he’ll help.
With the others the bouncer won’t let them in since Nova is a kid. They promptly have Hummingbird brain-blast him. Inside the Rave, Hummingbird notes that Sun Girl and Haechi have some chemistry and they should enjoy it while they can. When asked what that means, she does the whole oracle thing and states she’s going to die soon without realizing it. Foreshadowing ho!
Justice gets knocked around a bit before Scarlet Spider jumps in and they talk. He still has a lot of baggage because he feels he failed being a hero in Houston and he doesn’t want Hummingbird to stay with him and suffer since he’s a bad person who’s done bad things. Justice relates, telling him that if he wants to make amends for past mistakes that’s what the New Warriors do now.
They then proceed to kick the mascot’s furry ass and Scarlet Spider guts him only to see that inside of the bear was a twig of a student. Turns out the suit was enhanced by the meteorite while he drives it like a robot, not that it matters once Justice tears it to shreds. They then have a bonding moment as the comic ends, with Justice assuring him that he belongs with them.
Okay review time.
I honestly expected this to be filler…. And it was, kind of. But I came for Scarlet Spider in the first place and despite the ridiculousness of the giant bear I must acknowledge this was a good read. The art was great, and there was foreshadowing…. Damn shame that Marvel plans on nuking it in three-issues… bastards.
5 out of 5.
New Warriors #8 Review
The warriors are out to rescue one of their own in New Warriors #8.
The comic opens with a flashback for Haechi, who recalls the moment the terrigen mists spread across the world while Lash is giving him the “join me” speech. When the three-eyed one tells him his puppets have detected the New Warriors have arrived, he says to kill them. Said puppets are possessed people. There’s a lot of friction while they fight, while Silhouette spies on the Inhumans who brought them there.
When Haechi actually considers the offer, Sun Girl tells him better of it and then gets held hostage and told to choose. The New Warriors continues to cut through their ranks with Hummingbird shutting down the mind-control and Speedball dropping the goofy act when Scarlet Spider tells him to get serious. And Silhouette ends of up getting caught.
Haechi recalls getting chased by six men who wanted to kill him because he was Inhuman, so basically the mutant treatment, and was saved by one older man with a gun, which allowed him to keep his faith in humanity. He saved Sun Girl as the other New Warriors arrive and Humming bird cripples the mind-controller when he got a look at her through his brain, chain-boy got his ass-kicked by Speedball, and while Lash was telling Justice that his race squandered their chance, Haechi was about to make him into a chew toy until Hollow arrived.
Despite this, Lash kills Hollow because he’s a coward and tells Mark they will be back for him. As the comic ends, Nova arrives at their base to learn he was too late to help.
Okay review time…
Well, it was a decent, action-heavy story, where we learned how Mark came about his Inhuman powers and what he went through. Unlike the new Ms. Marvel, he had it rough from the get-go. I’m still hoping that he gets some closure with his family, but I’m more eager for Scarlet Spider’s return to Houston.
5 out of 5.
Twilit Dreams Circle 