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 #12 (Final Issue) Review
New Warriors final issue! How will the team come back from the jaws of defeat! Read on and find out!
Okay, so the issue starts with the device going off and Justice rushing towards where they were, thinking how his team were the only ones ready but they weren’t enough to handle the threat. He’s talking to someone else, by the way.
Anyway, the teams seemed screwed until Justice mans the hell up and gives us the best line in the series with “It’s time for you to face Justice”. Round two goes off much better with Justice revealing the Celestials were not coming to the planet and he went ahead and confirmed it, meaning they’ve been trying to commit genocide for nothing. This puts Zuras’ lying ass in a tight spot, to which he promptly blames the High Evolutionary and escapes judgement with a stern warning.
So the day is saved and as the comic ends we see Justice was talking to Old Steve with plans to expand.
Okay, review time.
To cover the issue, I have to say that I was disappointed with how it ended. I understand the good guys had no chance in hell against the Eternals in a fair fight, but I at least expected Zuras to get what was coming to him. Instead he used the High Evolutionary as a patsy and only stopped because he couldn’t take both the New Warriors and the rest of his team, who have morals apparently.
It’s bittersweet as hell. 3 out of 5.
As for the series, you can tell it got cut short because we never explored Water Snake’s history or development besides some evil thing haunting her. Or that deal Waffles made. It feels cut short, not even rushed, and that they dragged the Inhuman thing out for as long as possible didn’t help. I’m forced to give the series, which I liked, a 3 out of 5.
It was a fun ride and the art was good, but it could have been better.
Amazing Spider-Man #10 Review (Spiderverse)
Amazing Spider-Man #10 Review (Spiderverse)
Okay, we continue from where we last left off, with Miles Morales being attacked by the crazy lady until Otto shows up with backup and tells them to Spider-Up or die. They follow him, with Miles under the assumption that Otto is Peter since he was wearing the same outfit as the last time he saw him during that colossal failure Cataclysm, but Verna destroys his mother’s grave stone, making it personal for Miles. Him and Mayday have much to discuss.
Meanwhile, at the Safe Zone, British Spider-Man tells him that he’s basically the only one who fought an Inheritor and won. He’s Harry Potter. Silk, on the other hand, is fishing around to see if any of the others give her the warm and tingly feeling like her Peter does, only getting a reaction from Kaine. Anyway, they’ve found where Otto’s group are and jump to them with Silk tagging along after being warned to stay behind. That won’t end well.
They meet up with Peter, Kaine, and Spider-Woman recognizing Otto, while Miguel recognizes that they’re in his timeline. Otto tells them they’ve ruined everything by showing up because the cloaking device he had built couldn’t hide them with both Kaine and Silk there because they give off huge signals. He’s right as Daemos arrives right then looking to go on a feeding frenzy.
They jump him and make him work for it, but Cyborg Spider-Man gets killed. Silk blames herself once they finally take him down, to which Old Man Spider agrees. Otto sees the loss as acceptable since because Kaine did a huge amount of damage and with a stasis charge in his arms he managed to stop the body disintegrating and they can perform science on it. Old Man Spider tells them that he knows what’s going on, but naturally he gets his neck snapped by Daemos as he arrives with his siblings.
Otto is more than a little pissed at losing his kill, but Ben, Kaine, and Jessica realize they can clone themselves to come back as many times as they want and set out to deal with that, Meanwhile Old Man Spider, who is Ezekiel of a different dimension where Morlun killed Peter, reveals that The Scion, The Bride, and The Other are the only spiders that matter and must be protected. My personal thought is Kaine, Miles, and Silk are the three most important totems.
Silk uses this opportunity to take Peter’s teleport device and lure the twins away, with Spider-Woman and Noir following and to be continued in Spider-Woman #1. I’m not covering that, but I’ve read it and to sum it up, Silk’s hero tendencies get Noir taken out of the fight and Spider-Woman’s jaded nature drives her to run away on her own out of guilt again. Miguel and a few others take the corpse to analyze it, with Daemos chasing after them.
With a moment’s reprieve Peter, Otto, and the other survivors return to the Safe Zone and Otto’s decided he’s taking charge with his claws out as the comic ends.
Okay, review time.
Now, this 5 out of 5 right off the bat since everything was great, but reasonably speaking if Otto somehow manages to take out the Peter with the power of a god, asspull.
New Warriors #11 Review
The Children of the Celestials have arrived in the aftermath of the heroes victory. Will the New Warriors survive? Read my review and find out.
The comic opens with Justice being dragged off by thespeedster of the group and refusing to listen as he says they’re trying to save the world. Meanwhile the others are just standing around as Scarlet Spider gets his ass beat like a drum. High Evolutionary tells them to kill him and be done with it, but Speedball runs interference and gets knocked around so hard he starts thinking their deaths are for the better.
Of course, once that moment passes they start doing better than they really have any right to. And then they get right back to where they were before until Nova pulls a win out of his ass. Then he gets beaten down and the team gets strung up to the murder machine before Hummingbird, who went into Zuras’ mind, claims he’s lying while Water Snake ganks the High Evolutionary before getting laser-beamed. As the comic ends Speedball thinks he wants to kill the man but can’t and there’s no hope, but Justice has dug himself out of his snowy grave.
Okay review time.
So mostly this was a curb-stomp issue. Not that much of a surprise really, other than learning that this whole thing was likely a ploy on Zuras behalf and how cynical Speedball really was. No wonder Hummingbird liked him. 4 out of 5.
New Warriors #10 Review
Okay, things are hurrying along in both my life and the story, so let’s hop right into my review of New Warriors #10.
The comic begins with the High Evolutionary and the other guy extracting DNA from a deviant they captured inside of the Arctic Circle, before they get into a bitching match when the New Warriors track them down with their own tech and begin their final battle with the two who tried to kill them to end all off-shoots of humanity. High Evolutionary takes Sun Girl because she did screw him over while the rest clean up the mooks, but Haechi backs her up. The fight actually goes well until Hummingbird peeks into his brain to see exactly he’s afraid of.
His fears are that the Celestials will kill the human race, seeing them as a failed experiment, which they’ve already tried and failed to do in Uncanny Avengers before. I’m not seeing the problem here, but either way the vision basically gives High Evolutionary a second wind and he downs half the team before throwing Scarlet Spider into a device to lock him out of the fight, proclaiming he wants to save the human race and he’s going to use their team to power his gene bomb. Justice decides it’s time to call in back-up and brings the Cat and Dog duo armed with guns.
But not just any guns, these were made by High Evolutionary to de-evolve things, made to fight the Evolutionaries. Combined with Hummingbird’s emotion manipulation, it basically turns the two on one another while they mop up the rest and it seems like the New Warriors are going to win. Then the cat takes a blow for the dog that turns him into ashes, thus pissing everyone off or leaving them in shock. The lead evolutionary wisely decides to try and kill Hummingbird while her back is turned and she’s grieving, but Scarlet Spider shoots him and puts an end to that.
So it appears the day is saved, right up until the children of the Celestials who popped up in the cliffhanger of a previous chapter, the Eternal Children, show up and tell them they’ve come to save humanity from them. Round 2 next issue.
Okay, review time.
This issue basically picks up where it should have after that fiasco with the Avengers. From what I know the series has like two issues left, so they have to wrap things up, meaning that they’re going to skip over all that crap with Namora from the look of it. Still, it was a solid issue and they didn’t drag it out.
4 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.
New Warriors #7 Review
The Inhuman arc continues in New Warriors #7, and here’s my review!
When we last stopped a trio of Inhumans broke into Haechi’s home, planning to kill his family and friends and take him to join them. You have to understand, from a rational point of view, that’s stupid as hell. But they don’t strike me as smart. Either way Haechi straight up eats the explosion before it could kill anyone, turning into a mini-dragon in the process, allowing Sun Girl and Justice to deal with the fire starter and fume guy.
His family takes his transformation…. poorly. Not as bad as you would expect, but given he turned into a dragon you could understand it a little bit. Maybe if they took a moment to calm down and talk about this things would get better. But there’s no time for that as Sun Girl and Haechi get caught up in the teleportation of the third Inhuman, Night, leaving Justice alone.
Back on Mount Wundagore, the New Warriors have claimed the base as their own and are searching for the High Evolutionary by tracking celestial energy signatures like those found in his allies. Speedball annoys Water Snake by referring to her as though she were the friend he knew. They find three signatures from obviously evil-looking guys, but have to put it on the back-burner so they can go help Justice. The same goes for Scarlet Spider and Aracely, who are with the cat-human searching for the evil that she sensed earlier, but it’s not like she’s experienced in it even though the cat can sense it.
In Jakarta, Sun Girl wakes up to find Haechi out cold and herself surrounded by the Inhumans. Leaving aside the fact that they could have killed her while she was asleep instead of waiting for her to wake up, Hollow, gives a recap on when the Terrigen Mists were unleashed and basically thinks the world belongs to them and not humans. Basically he’s evil Magneto, or any racial extremist, so he’s not really original. Sun Girl jumps into the fire that blocks her from her equipment and takes a few shots to free Haechi, who dragons-up and gets ready to throw down.
At the New Warrior’s base, they try tracking Inhuman signatures down to find Haechi, but there’s so many and the number is only growing. Scarlet Spider tells Aracely not to get attached because they aren’t staying since they’re not heroes, but give it time. Justice, on the other hand, has called in a darkforce teleporter to track them down through the darkforce energy that Night used.
As the comic ends Haechi and Sun Girl run across the leader of the Inhumans, Lash, while someone manipulates the darkforce to drop the rest of the New Warriors into enemy territory and surrounds them.
Okay, review time…
I liked this issue. We’re seeing more of the fallout from Inhumanity, the art is amazing, and there’s the fact that Scarlet Spider never fails to amuse me with his cynicism. This issue gets a 5 out of 5.
New Warriors #6 Comic Review
The comic opens with Water Snake leaving behind a page of what appears to be one of her hallucinations, only this page starts belching black smoke. It turns out to be a book of sins, written by an evil known as the Darkhold, and that page forms a small man from the smoke. You can tell this will be ominous filler at best and the real meat won’t be until later on.
Anyway, a mountain popping up in the middle of the city bay draws the attention of the Avengers, who were already on high alert from an energy burst over central Europe from the High Evolutionary’s Old Base. All this did was basically save them a trip as the mountain is in a half-phased state where they are there, but not there using techno-babble. At the same time we see the Inhumans are getting the blasted verbally by some construction workers in a tone reserved for Mutants while three of them plan on tracking down Mark Sim to take them to their master.
Back with Justice, he and Speedball are talking to Iron Man and Captain America about the situation while Thor is basically keeping the rest there until he receives order from the other two. Hummingbird pesters him to let her try and lift his hammer, Sun Girl wants to leave but he won’t let her, while Water Snake is seeing the munchkin and is the only one who can, so naturally when he does something to Thor to freak her out she hits him, starting the next brawl.
Justice and Speedball are in a different battle of sorts, where they have to defend their names as New Warriors. Iron Man says their brand is tarnished while Captain America says the two of them are more than welcomed at the Avengers tower, but the team should be folded into the Avengers. Justice denies it by saying they simply don’t trust the because, despite everything they did before and after Stamford, they don’t trust them, which makes Speedball ready to lay on the hurt judging from his hand behind his back.
It makes sense seeing as most people directly blame the New Warriors and Speedball personally for that, so hearing all that would naturally piss him off. Justice, however, tells them that while it would always be a part of the Warriors’ past, just like Civil War is theirs, they were there while the Avengers weren’t and he’d gladly be a Warrior rather than an Avenger and quits right there.
Can I take a moment to say, FUCK YEAH JUSTICE! I’m tired of everyone being folded into the Avengers. Congratulations, you’re my new favorite next to Scarlet Spider.
Anyway, back with Thor manhandling them so hard that it could be seen at the Avengers Tower, Scarlet Spider tells Hummingbird to deal with Water Snake, whose acting like she’s on a bad acid trip. Hummingbird notes that there’s bad stuff in her head and then does something so that the others can see the evil munchkin bugging her. It tries to possess Thor, but Aracely goes demigod of fire on it and turns it to ashes. By the time Justice and the others get there, Thor and the others are partying.
Later, in Brooklyn, Mark the Inhuman returns home to tell them about what he’s become, but the other Inhumans are there to bring him into their faction. They do this by blowing up his home as the comic ends.
Okay, Review Time…
This issue is mostly the aftermath of the last arc and the start of the new one. Quite frankly, I liked it a lot since it showed how much Justice values his team’s name. Anyone who stands up to Captain America and Iron Man on solid ground has earned that much respect from me. While the whole evil dwarf thing seemed contrived, I call it interesting filler and give the issue a 5 out of 5.
New Warriors #5 Review
Late and last but still here, it’s my review of New Warriors #5.
The comic opens up in the aftermath of the battle, with two figures musing on it from the shadows while playing chess and stating that the when the Celestials come everyone will die, but this mysterious figure can stop them as it is older than the space gods once freed from its prison and the New Warriors will be the instruments to do so..
The New Warriors, in the mean time, are cleaning up the mountain they were brought to when they faced off against the Lord High Evolutionary while trying to get home. At least half the team are anyway, Justice, Namora, and Scarlet Spider. Justice presses both Scarlet Spider and Namoria’s buttons by comparing them to their counterpart (Kaine) and insisting that Namora is their ally Namorita, Him being bossy isn’t doing wonders for team unity, especially not when Namora is hallucinating some horror movie stuff involving hanging corpses of the team.
Sungirl, Speedball, and Hummingbird go down into the village to check on the people there, and Hummingbird uses her powers to pick up a new language and that these mountains are apparently haunted. So much weird stuff happens that they don’t even bother getting freaked out anymore. Speedball decides that it’s time for a lunch break then.
We then switch back and forth between Justice and Speedball’s recruiting attempts. Justice is having a harder time because not only are they dealing with an anthropomorphic cat person trying to claw them to death, but Scarlet Spider and Namora just aren’t interested. Speedball pretty much acts hyped up in getting the lowdown on his three, right up until Hummingbird starts asking improper questions like does Speedball still cuts himself from his time as Penitence. It turns out from her point of view he looks like he does back then, because of his self-loathing and her powers, making it awkward as hell.
Eventually the fighting ends when they corner the cat person and, before Scarlet Spider can get to stabbing it, a dog person begs them to spare them. Turns out they were New Men, created by Lord High Evolutionary until he decided to kill them all and the two of them escaped. The cat, Felinatus, is kind of a dick, but Cannus manages to convince Scarlet Spider not to kill him by the time the rest of the team arrives.
They’re all ready to leave and the dog person knows how to work the teleporter, but they end up transporting the entire mountain to New York as the comic ends, so you can guess the Avengers might have some questions about that next time.
Okay, review time.
Just dealing with the fallout of last issue, we get some tidbits about what the future holds and the secrets of the other characters. Speedball is still broody and dark despite his act, something Aracely finds attractive. Namora has some kind of dark magic related past involving sacrifice, and Kaine is…well, Kaine.
An okay issue at 3 out of 5, would have been 4 if the art didn’t suck.
New Warriors #4 Review
The final issue in the opening arc of New Warriors has arrived and with it the team is all together. Let’s do this review!
The comic opens months ago when the last surviving Evolutionary and the Lord High Evolutionary are compelled to Ethiopia by a being that tells them that their blasphemy in trying to artificially evolve humans and defend mutant-kind by wiping out humanity isn’t doing the trick. Whoever this mystery person is tells them to start working together so that when the Celestials come humanity will turn into something great.
In the present the Evolutionary has had enough after Nova came back to get himself caught, idiot, and tells his partner in crime that they won’t stop until they’ve destroyed everything. He ultimately agrees and tells him to do it quickly since their sins aren’t of their own making. Sanctimonious douche-bag thinks he’s above good and evil as long as humans survive, but at least he’s less of a douche-bag that the sub-human in a blue suit..,
Anyway, that’s when the rest of the New Warriors arrive and they gloss over how with the use of a nameless magician using a magic spell. Lazy, lazy, writing….and why the hell isn’t the Inhuman wearing a shirt? That outfit is horrible.
Anyway, Justice opens with diplomacy but when Nova tells him that he’s going to kill mostly everybody the fight gets rolling. The Evolutionary, still sore about the X-Men turning on them after M-Day, goes straight for the only Mutant of the group, but Justice handles him and tells Sun Girl to free the rest. She hesitates when she thinks Kaine is Spider-Man, Otto really disappointed her, but her aim somehow manages to not hit them and Aracely is giddy to be fighting alongside actual heroes because that means she gets to be one too.
The fight breaks out with Namora giving Aracely some tips, Nova and Speedball double-teaming some mooks while Kaine tells Justice they need to split, and Sun Girl is hiding behind Mark…who turns into some kind of Sabertooth Dragon Beast after absorbing enough energy and starts chomping down on more mooks.
The High Evolutionary decides to cut his losses and activate a machine that he fed the samples of their DNA into. Turns out it’s designed to kill anyone with powers or inhuman-DNA and cripples most of the team (and would have killed them outright if he had Nova’s helmet) meaning only Sun Girl is left unharmed. The High Evolutionary makes it clear he’s not enjoying this, but for humanity to survive the coming of the Celestials the rest need to die.
She tells him to screw himself, blast through him to get to the machine and destroy it. He’s mad, for once, but cuts his losses again as he and the Evolutionary Leader leave. So it counts as a victory and Justice says the New Warriors will stop them if they start again, to which every single one of them says no except Aracely.
The comic ends with the High Evolutionary feeling this was only a setback, but because they are the samples this was meant to be and they would eventually succeed by killing the New Warriors. The second Evolutionary War had begun.
Okay, Review time….
No complaints overall. It wrapped up the opening arc beautifully. There was some good moments and funny moments, and despite my harsh tone I really did like it.
5 out of 5.
Amazing Spider-Man (2014) #1 Review
After taking his body back from Doc-Ock Peter Parker now has to pick up the pieces of his life in the aftermath of the Superior Spider-Man. Read on about my review of the first issue in the relaunch of the Amazing Spider-Man!
The comic opens to a flash-back of that faithful day when he was bitten by a radioactive spider. Only this time it reveals that before it died it managed to bite someone else. Meaning that all this time there was someone else with Spider-Man’s powers but not active in the series…so we’re just going to pretend they didn’t copy this idea off Miles Morales for Silk, huh?
In the present we have the animal-themed cosplayers stealing jeweled eggs. One of the bystanders who just moved here wonders if it’s an event when he nearly gets pushed over and his baby almost crushed. Luckily he gets a web-line to pull him upright as Peter is on the case, chasing them down while naked with the exception of his mask and webbing-underwear, much to chagrin of everyone (with the exception of one woman who takes a photo for later). How did he end up in this state?
It started four hours ago when he held a press conference announcing that he’ll no longer work for Spider-Man (technically speaking it isn’t a lie since he’ll be making it for himself) and Peter is over his head with all this. He just learned he’s the owner of a company, his aunt doesn’t need some cane to walk again (which he states he’ll owe Doc Ock for), and he’s just unfortunate enough that Anna Maria found the wedding ring and note asking her to marry him. Yeah, this won’t end well.
Technically speaking he’s probably going to run the company into the ground since Otto was a genius in cybernetics and he gets confused looking at their big rollout project. Considering that he has more people who depend on him now, and these poor bastards are terrified of him at that, this a different set of responsibilities to go with his robot butler and doctor degree. He quickly decides to get back to something familiar, namely patrolling New York where he’s hated and feared by many.
It’s here he runs into the rabbit woman and her new flunky, Skein, who can control fabrics and threads. Before she could turn them into some kind of deadly weapon or whatever she was going to say he knocks her out since he’s got a secret identity to protect. Unfortunately he ends up nude and has to cover his privates in webbing in public, meaning this gets put on twitter and everyone sees it.
The Avengers figure he’s back to normal since only this could happen to him, Johnny Storm laughs his ass off, and Mary Jane is probably glad she broke up with him now. The humiliation continues after he rounds up his last bad guy and gets told off by an old lady about public indecency.
He makes his way back home to find Anna Maria there. And guess what, she knows he’s Spider-Man because Otto was getting busy with her while in his body. And the main comic ends there on a damn cliff-hanger.
Following it are a series of short stories involving the Black Cat, Electro. Kaine, and Miguel O’Hara. It shows how they’re going to be involved in the story and what they’ve been up to since Otto’s gone.
Electro was tired of being a joke and decided to try and free the inmates from prison to gain some respect. He lost control and killed a good portion of them before blacking out, due to what he believes is the modifications Otto made to control him in the Superior Spider-Man Team-Up series. Cue revenge planning.
Likewise Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, was arrested and beaten by Otto. She lost everything because of him and is constantly verbal harassed by an inmate who clearly intends to do her harm. Apparently the lady didn’t also know that her powers involved luck and pissing her off makes you unlucky. She learned this as Electro’s attack fried the power dampeners and then her, while Felicia escapes unharmed and is going to fuck Peter over pretty bad next issue.
Meanwhile Miguel O’Hara, Spider-Man 2099 is making himself home and doing the hero-thing when he comes across a young woman about to get capped. He makes short work of the assailants, but learns that the population of the Marvel universe in this decade is ungrateful as she berates him. Gee, you think she wanted to die (foreshadowing, anyone?) but that’ll have to be picked up in his on ongoing series in two months.
We then go down to Huston Texas, where Peter is searching for his clone brother Kaine. The woman he interviewed describes that he transformed into a spider-monster, which Peter notes is because of The Other. If you read then you know he got killed off by some Werewolves and came back because he made a deal with it….seriously, go read the Scarlet Spider series.
Doctor Meland approaches Peter and pegs him immediately as Kaine’s brother and tells Peter how Kaine was in pain and anger about never stacking up to him and tells him to ask around about him. Peter learned Kaine came down there to get away from the life of a spider, only to fight crime. He wanted the power but none of the responsibility, but he took it on anyway. He had friends, a city that counted on him, and was as much a hero as Peter was. It ends with a shot of Kaine fighting alongside all the other New Warriors against the evolutionaries which hasn’t happened yet in their series.
Then there’s some alternate reality thing that I lost interest in, and thus will gloss over, and the comic ends.
Okay, review time.
Since I really only started reviewing and reading spider-man when Otto took over I find that this relaunch is right up my alley for the most part. It’s picking up right where superior left off, but that also means if someone skipped the series they are going to be confused about what transpired. Peter is realistically screwed over and has so many responsibilities now because he doesn’t have Otto’s level of genius in that particular field and the enemies Otto made.
People seem to notice he’s not the same as he was for the last few months, but it should still be addressed by him telling the Avengers Otto was wearing him as a meat suit for a few months and then asks why it took them that long to put two and two together. I mean, really? Months? As much as I loved the series it shouldn’t have gotten that far if the Idiot Ball wasn’t being passed around.
For the most part my main concern is Anna. The man she loved is gone, and I am fond of her. How is he going to explain all of this without coming off as an asshole (technically he was the victim, but he has a shoddy record when it comes to explanations)? And since she knows his secret identity, will the writers go the route of Carlie and MJ and have her leave the stage or will they pull a Gwen Stacy to make Black Cat unredeemable?
On another note, I can’t wait until Spider-Verse comes into play. Miles Morales in 616, all is right with the world unless Marvel somehow screws it up.
Issue gets a 5 out of 5 and is a must buy.
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.
New Warriors #2 Review
The second entry into the newest incarnation of the New Warriors series is out and I’m here with my review of the comic issue. So let’s start shall we?
The issue picks up with an Inhuman riding a train in New York that comes to a crashing halt. Naturally he had nothing to do with it, but this is the Marvel Universe so he’s automatically to blame. He flees before they can gather a lynch mob to get him, only to run across Sungirl facing off against the evolutionaries to defend the mutants that were under attack last issue.
At the same time in New Salem, Vertigo and Justice are under attack by the same force. They explain that they once defended mutants but were betrayed by them, just as Speedball and Brutacus show up. Brutacus gets taken down fairly easily and they get ready to take him in for gene-sampling when Justice takes off the kid gloves and levels the mouthy evolutionary, asking for answers to what was going on as they retreat.
In Mexico, Scarlet Spider starts a fight with Faira on the assumption that she was responsible for the slaughter. She kicks his ass quickly and is about to drown him when Humming Bird does her fear thing and calms the situation down long enough for her to explain the situation. Atlantis was in the middle of a fight with Deviant forces when the evolutionaries showed up and started slaughtering them all, so she came to the surface for heroes and he started attacking her. Scarlet Spider wants nothing to do with things, but naturally the bad guys show up at that moment deciding to get the Clone (Kaine), Demigod (Aracely), and Atlantian (Faira).
Going back to Speedball and Justice, they arrive at the Avengers Tower in New York to search their database to learn about the enemy. A general overview of the past encounter with the X-Men is given and Cyclops warns that they should be considered an extinction-level threat. An alert then goes out requesting help due to an incident in the subway and they decide to jump in.
In the subway, the evolutionaries stop their slaughter for a moment to try and reason with Sungirl by stating they only want to protect her kind (humanity) by eliminating….well, everything else. She’s a hero so she can’t let that happen, so they are left with no choice but to attack her when the Inhuman from before, Mark, shows up and eats their energy blast. Then Justice and Speedball show up, so the evolutionaries decide to retreat.
As the comic ends, we find Nova in a containment field with the High Evolutionary, who states he intends to have him help cleanse the earth of all impure beings before the Celestials return.
Okay, review time.
No complaints overall, it’s a solid issue that picks off where the previous one left off. The art is nice and crisp, while the plot is progressing nicely with no wasted panels. We have a general idea of what’s going on and we can see the future team coming together nicely, with more of their personalities fleshed out.
You can see how Sungirl is still new at the hero thing, while Justice is clearly the most experienced. Mark was basically just thrown into things, but he didn’t hesitate to help stop a kid from falling when the train stopped or helping Sungirl. Kaine is still a hot-head with a potty mouth while Faira makes it clear she’s a rather skilled combatant and Aracely is playing peace-keeper.
It gets a solid 5 out of 5 and I recommend it for purchase.
New Warriors #1 Review
I came for the Scarlet Spider and I stayed for what seemed to be the great beginnings of a new series to read. So, armed with some rudimentary knowledge of all but Kaine and his side-kick, join me as I review the first issue of the New Warriors.
The opening panel reveals a bloody trail, being left behind as a clearly sentient half-bull humanoid creature is trying to crawl its way to safety and past the fallen corpses of its brethren, all while asking why this happened. A voice tells it to try not to speak, but it asks why their kind were being killed and what was it that they did that was so wrong it warranted their deaths. The figure that was responsible for the slaughter states they did nothing wrong, but they were never meant to exist and judgment befalls even the innocent. And then it kills the innocent being while claiming for the sake of humanity’s survival…
So basically it’s following the creed of virtually every Purifier in existence.
The scene then skips to New Salem, where Speedball and Justice are continuing their road trip from leaving Avengers Academy and are engaging in combat with a group called the Salem Seven. It turns out, much like most brawls between heroes, that it all began with a misunderstanding when Speedball attacked one of their more frightening members because of how he looked. That’s profiling, something that you would think a hero would know better than to do.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, Kaine and Aracely continue their vaunt through the land south of the border after the events of the Scarlet Spider series when they come across a couple of tourist being mugged. Kaine, after being coerced into it by Aracely, dawns his outfit and doles out brutal justice by stabbing his stinger through one of the muggers’ wrist, giving the other the Mark of Kaine (use sticky power with hand on face and then pull away for maximum pain and scar), and Aracely finishes it up by inducing the other into running with her powers over emotions by giving him a fear of spiders. He then yells at the tourists he saved, telling them to get out of Mexico, keeping with his nature during his time in Houston.
Back in New York, aka Hero Central, Sun Girl takes down some punk robbing an armored truck. She then goes in search for more crime, although when she hears the name Spider-Man she feels disgusted because she was there in the Team-Up series when his mind-control over the Sinister Six failed and…well, Otto left a bad impression. She then heads over to Grand Central station when an explosion goes off since she was close by.
Back in New Salem, Speedball somehow managed to dig himself out of trouble and ends up playing games with the guy trying to kill him while Vertigo gives Justice a tour of New Salem. It turns out it’s a town of magicians and a safe haven for people born of magic. The Salem Seven were known as the Children of the Devil and have changed in an attempt to make it safe, which for some reason makes me think of Nico Minoru and the Runaways.
Justice, on the other hand, as part of the New Warriors has to deal with the stigma associated with their group being the cause of the Civil War Crossover Event and the Hero Registration that made Iron Man and Mister Fantastic Fans afraid to admit it when they kept kicking the dog. Speedball pushed a guy with explosive powers into a bus full of school children and, since the guy was juiced up on some super MGH, he killed everything nearby including elementary kids. That royal fuck-up has not been forgotten, but before either one can talk any further some flaming guys come in and say to burn them all for having tainted blood with one being a half-breed (Vertigo), and the other being a Mutant (Justice).
Back in Mexico Kaine and Aracely are catching some rays on a beach with money he stole from drug traffickers before he left Houston. Aracely wants to be doing something heroic with their powers, saying it’s their responsibility, but Kaine states he tried that in Houston and it nearly got all the people he cared for killed in what was the result of sleeping with a girl whose father he put into a coma, Kraven gutting a doctor and pissing off his cop husband, and turning into a big-ass spider monster to settle things with the climatic villain that came out of nowhere. Unfortunately his vacation comes to an end when a bunch of dead Atlantians dye the water red with their blood as one survivor, Faira Sar Namora, pops out and says she is seeking heroes…he can’t win.
Sungirl goes to check out the situation and sees that the flaming guys from New Salem are also in the subway, killing what appears to be either mutants, aliens, or inhumans. Not too clear on which one. They also appear to kill an Alien who was harassing Nova, only for the guy from the beginning who killed the bull people to shoot him in the back and claim they have plans for the Alien-Hybrid (Nova), ending the issue on a cliff-hanger.
Okay, review time.
Now my knowledge is limited to what I can gleam off wikia on the villains of the piece, but the Evolutionaries were the species that came before humans until an advance race took pity on them and gave them upgrades before assigning them to protect the species furthest along the evolutionary chain, which were mutants before. That included a plan to wipe out humanity, something that would make them the Anti-Bastions, but Cyclops killed all but one of them supposedly. I’m thinking they got reprogrammed in the wake of the Inhumanity event, but I can’t be certain until the plot unfolds.
Like I said before I came for the Scarlet Spider, but the majority of the cast seems interesting, the art is lovely, and I liked the interaction between Vertigo and Justice. The plot is akin to virtually every anti-mutant one I’ve read, but it’s too early to label it as such and the destination isn’t as important as the journey when it comes to plots. So I’m willing to give it a chance and an 5 out of 5 rating for an opening issue.
Superior Spider-man Team Up 2 & Scarlet Spider 20
Twice the Spider-Man, hold the responsibility.
This review encompasses two different comics I enjoy crossing over: Superior Spider-Man & Scarlet Spider.
For those of you who don’t know, the Scarlet Spider series follows Peter Parker’s surviving clone, Kaine. He, like Otto, was a villain who murdered and killed for profit and other reasons. When Peter stopped his original cell degradation, he stole a stealth suit from him and disappeared so that he wouldn’t be arrested by the Avengers until he ended up in Houston and robbed some human traffickers of their money.
Since then he’s fought primordial beings, a guy who can make flames snakes, and Carnage, been killed by werewolves and resurrected by the Other, given an evil side that considers just about everything other than him prey, and fought alongside Wolverine to kill a bunch of assassins by assassinating them. He was basically the predecessor to the Superior Spider-man, with his tagline being “All of the Power, None of the Responsibility” and so far he’s ridden with guilt that he shouldn’t be alive as a clone and a murderer.
In the first part of the arc, Kaine comes to find out why Peter is acting like…well, him. Seeing as he’s Peter’s clone, the spider-sense doesn’t work on Kaine and Kaine doesn’t have his spider-sense anymore. Otto, remembering the fact that he got beat down and killed by Kaine, decides to repay the favor and they fight.
Kaine is stronger that Peter and soon overpowers him, but then comes the clones. Lots of fighting and Kaine saving Otto later, Jackal comes in with his clones and they pair get captured.
Jackal was the one who made the clones and sees Kaine as a disappointment, while Kaine wants to kill him. He breaks free of the chains made specifically to hold him, kicks some ass, and frees Otto. Otto then causes an explosion to prevent his DNA from being used to create more clones, which he was a hatred for, and leaves Kaine to die. Kaine escapes, lectures him, and tells him to start acting like a hero.
To this arc I say, despite being a firm supporter of Otto, FUCK YOU, OTTO! CLONES ARE PEOPLE TOO!
Otto is a fucking hypocrite to call him out on pretending to be a hero when he’s been doing the same thing. They both have a supervillain body count and dark past that is nothing to scoff about. Considering Otto actually stole Peter Parker’s life and derailed it, this makes him arguably worse. And for him to hate clones, isn’t he cloning the Sinister Six to form his new team?
Unlike Otto, Kaine actually makes an effort to redeem himself without going for glory after rescuing a girl called Aracely, who was at the human trafficking robbery, left to die among corpses from people who were smuggled into the country inside a storage container. Also she may have a Mayan God stuck inside of her, seeing as a cartel wants her dead to unleash it.
When it comes down to it I like Kaine more because you don’t hear about wanting to leave his own legacy behind, just a guy trying to atone for his past and live up to Peter’s legacy. Kaine has suffered for being the good guy compared to Otto so far, he’s died because of it twice and gotten himself a monster inside of him because of it the second time. Otto disappointed me here.
And, Marvel help me, if I find out he’s the one who kicked started Kaine’s degradation again, I’m rooting for Peter to come back. Personal feelings aside, these issues get 5 out of 5.
Twilit Dreams Circle 