Recent Spider-Man Issues

Amazing Spider-Man #636 by Joe Kelly, Marco Checchetto and Michael Lark with a backup story by J.M. DeMatteis, Emma Rios and Max Fiumara and another backup by Stan Lee and Marcos Martin.

I was very interested in seeing how the writers would fix Spidey's death in the previous issue. I was happy that the explanation makes sense. Joe Kelly has really excelled in this series by making you think something is happening and something else happens. There is quite a bit of mysticism involved with the return from the dead of Kraven, but besides that, the story stays true to other Spidey stories where we don't get much mysticism.

This issue is not drawn by Michael Lark, despite my love for Lark's artwork, I was impressed with Checchetto as I hadn't realized it wasn't Lark for a bit. I also didn't notice a change when it changes back to Lark near the end of the issue. Great job by both of them.

I am interested with Kraven's reaction. He is very unhappy to be alive again. He has always been a bit unpredictable and now he is even more. I wonder what will happen. I am not thrilled at seeing him back, given that DeMatteis "Kraven't Last Hunt" was such a great comic, however, this story arc has been outstanding this far and I won't judge the resurrection yet.

The backup story was quite emotional. I was very saddened with Kaine's actions. It is interesting to see Kaine act heroically in the main story but act like a villain in the back up. An interesting reversal of roles. This is the best of the back ups between DeMatteis and Fiumara. Can't wait to see the ending of their mini arc.

The Spidey Sundays strip by Stan Lee and Marcos Martin was great. The page design by Martin is fantastic. I really liked it. Hard to know what will happen with the story since we only get two pages, but the art was really good. It seems like a nice memorable project.

Web of Spider-Man #10 by Fred Van Lente and Nick Dragotta with a backup by Marc Guggenhein and Sana Takeda.

The final part of the Extremist trilogy occurs in this issue. I have to say that I liked it a lot. The Extremist is an interesting new villain and I really liked how Spider-Man handled the situation. He used his intelligence and his humor to defeat the Extremist. This is a quintessential Spider-man issue. Fantastic.

The back up story was not bad. The art by Takeda is quite good. I don't really care for Jackpot, I thought she had died before so I am a bit confused. I also mostly forgot what happened in last month's issue, so I don't really understand Jackpot's urgency. However, this particular issue had an interesting ending and I liked the art, so overall I liked it. The main story was much better though.

Web of Spider-Man

Web of Spider-man #4 consists of three short stories:

Gauntlet Origins: Mysterio by Fred Van Lente and Barry Kitson.
This story was pretty good. It is set right before Mysterio becomes a criminal, showing us what inspired him and in the meantime giving us an unexpected Dr. Strange story. I liked this one quite a bit.

The Spectacular Spider-Girl in They First Make Mad by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz.
This story ends the "goblin" arc. It is not great.

Hammerhead in Western Promises by Frank Tieri and Eric Canete.
This is a really good short issue. It gives Hammerhead a bit more depth and I also like that the title is a little homage to the great movie "Eastern Promises".

Web of Spider-man #5 consists of three short stories:

Gauntlet Origins: Vulture by Fred Van Lente and Francis Portela.
Another solid story. Van Lente does a great job of making his villains be much more than their caricatures. Adrian Toomes (the vulture) really seems like a very intelligent guy in this story. Quite good and at the same time quite dark. I liked it.

The Spectacular Spider-Girl in Choosing Sides by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz.
The more I read Spider-Girl, the more I wish I was able to skip the story and read the next. For some reason, even if I don't like something, I have a tough time not reading it, if it is inside a book I care about. Something I should fix if I want to read more anthologies.

Ben Reilly in Nobody by J.M. DeMatteis and Chad Hardin.
A pretty good story. It must be tough being a clone, feeling like you are nobody. This short story explores that as well as you can in 10 pages. I want more Ben Reilly stories.

Web of Spider-man #8 by Fred Van Lente and Javier Rodriguez with a back up story called "Un Nuovo Inizio" by J.M. DeMatteis and Val Semeiks.

In this issue, Web of Spider-man changed its format. In a way losing its anthology status and just giving Van Lente a comic where he can tell Spider-man stories. This issue starts the first part of "The Extremist". The Extremist is a villain that believes that the world is black and white, either you are good or your bad. He hates gray areas and wants to eliminate them. In this issue he attacks a pundit who bashes superheroes. He believes superheroes have made the right choices and that it is wrong to humanize them and make them seem less good, in other words, he hates people putting in gray areas when they should be all white.
I liked the story a lot, looking forward to the rest of the arc.

The backup story was another Ben Reilly story. It was really good. It is nice to have a Peter Parker character which is not as balanced morally as the normal Peter Parker. Ben Reilly is very happy with a new beginning, shaping his life in nice ways, living in Rome. However, his lack of past creates troubles when he starts "dating" a daughter of a powerful man. It is interesting how Ben reacts to this. I really want to read more about Ben Reilly, I hope they put more back up stories about him in the series.

Web of Spider-man #9 by Fred Van Lente, Javier Rodriguez, Patrick Olliffe and Nick Dragotta with a back up story called "Jackpot Reflections" by Marc Guggenheim and Sana Takeda.

The main issue is the second part of "The Extremist". The issue explains a bit about the past about The Extremist. It is a really good villain. He is powerful and interestingly, his motives, while crazy, aren't specially evil. What he does is evil, but he really thinks he is doing the right thing. His motivations are not greed or power, they are quite different. This might be the best new Spider-man villain in over 10 years. Spidey had amazing villains in its early run, but it seems that most Spidey villains were created back then, whenever a new one would come, it wouldn't be a very good villain.
I have to talk about the art too, as I liked it a lot. The last third of the issue is drawn by Nick Dragotta and I thought he is excellent at drawing Spider-man. Javier Rodriguez did a great job with the last issue and with half of this issue, but I liked Dragotta more (of course, I am not sure how well he draws Peter, but he is excellent at drawing Spidey.

The back up tale was pretty good, even though it was about a character I care almost nothing about (Jackpot). I thought Jackpot had died in a Spidey Annual a couple of years ago and I don't even remember who she was. I just know that it teased us for a while making us think she was Mary Jane. Even with my indifference for the character, the cool drawings and the self contained story entertained me quite a bit. It ends in a "To be continued" and I want to know what happens (although, I prefer having a Ben Reilly story in the next issue).

Overall, I am glad I have been reading this series. The new format is excellent as now I get to read Fred Van Lente writing Spidey stories instead of just little origin stories about villains. Looking forward to more from this series.

Amazing Spider-Man

I fell behind on Spider-Man reading and I've done most of it this week, today I'll post about Amazing Spider-man and this week I'll write two other posts, one on Web of Spider-man and another one on miscellaneous Spidey titles I've read recently.

Amazing Spider-man #525 by Joe Kelly and Max Fiumara.

This issue is sad, but Kelly does some great job with Spidey's dialogue throughout, making the story a little lighter, which I think is the way to do Spider-man.

Amazing Spider-man #526 by Fred Van Lente and Michael Gaydos.

The issue is good but not great. I liked seeing Spidey in trouble by temporarily losing his powers and I was interested in seeing the lady Scorpion as a character. The art worked better than I thought it would. I remember Gaydos from his work on Alias and I thought his style served better in noir stories than in Spider-man, but as Michael Lark has shown, noir style pencillers work great on Spider-man.

Amazing Spider-man #527 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks.

This is the first part of a trilogy called "Something Can Stop the Juggernaut" that kind of serves as a sequel to the famous "Nobody can stop the Juggernaut". I was very interested in finding out who stopped the Juggernaut and I was glad that it was revealed in this issue.

Amazing Spider-man #528 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks with a backup feature by Mark Waid and Todd Nauck.

The second part of the trilogy, this raises some good questions about who is Captain Universe, since he doesn't seem to understand his role as a superhero. We have a fun fight between Spidey and Captain Universe and Juggernaut joins in to create an interesting set up.

The backup feature was great. I really like how Todd Nauck draws Spidey and the supporting characters and the story itself was a fun quintessential Spidey story. Spider-Man has a job interview. The interviewer gets stopped in traffic due to a villain popping out on the street and so he interviews Spidey on the phone. Of course this becomes problematic once Spidey has to fight the villain in front of the car of the interviewer. Fun stuff.

Amazing Spider-man #529 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks with a backup feature by Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo.

The conclusion of the "Something Can Stop the Juggernaut" story is the best of the bunch, by far. First, we learn who Captain Universe is. Second, we learn how this connects to the "Nothing can Stop the Juggernaut" story. Third, we get a nice life lesson, another great take on "With Great Power comes Great Responsibility". This is a perfect story for Spider-man. Nothing very original, something a bit bizarre by having a cosmic power in the story, but a story that tells us what Spidey is all about.

The back up was pretty cool too. It is a prologue to the next storyline by Zeb Wells, called "Shed". It looks like it will be a much darker storyline, but it looks exciting.

Amazing Spider-man #530 by Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo.

This is the first part of "Shed". We had a prologue in the previous issue and we also had a related story in a recent Web of Spider-man. The story will center on Dr. Connors.
The issue is very good. We get to see Connors having a bad life and slowly losing control to his reptilian side. We also see Spidey have some romantic problems as the Black Cat makes it very clear that she's not interested in a relationship, she just wants to have fun.

A really good issue that has me very excited about the next two parts in the story. I haven't been as excited about a Spidey story in many issues, not since Van Lente's chameleon story in the early 600s.

Various Recent Single Issues

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1 by Grant Morrison, Chris Sprouse and Karl Story.

About a year and a half ago, Batman was sent back in time by Darkseid during Final Crisis. I haven't read comics from the DC Universe since Final Crisis (except for series on the sidelines, such as Secret Six and Nemesis: The Impostors), so I don't know much of what is going on in Gotham (I do know that Dick Grayson is Batman now and Damian Wayne is Robin). I am attracted to this series because it looks like it is going to be fun and because Grant Morrison is very good at writing weird stuff, so I am curious how he will return Bruce Wayne.

The first issue has an amnesiac Bruce Wayne in caveman times. He doesn't speak, as caveman don't understand him. He gets into trouble in the middle of a fight between two tribes and he has to flee. Overall, not much happens in the comic, but the comic is great. Several questions arise during the issue setting up interesting things for following issues, but at the same time, the issue has a self contained story that doesn't depend on the past or the future to be fun.

Overall, a great read, I am looking forward to the rest of the series.

The Last Days of American Crime #2 by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini.

I might be misremembering the first issue, but the coloring here seemed very different than what I remember from the first issue. Greg Tocchini is really good at drawing action scenes and his style is distinctive. However, I am not a fan of his close ups. The faces are too blurry for me.

With respect to the story. I like it. There are a lot of cool action scenes and there is one very funny moment. It is strange that the series is supposed to be about a heist, but the story hasn't really focused on much about the heist, there are too many things going around for the heist to get center focus.

I am liking the series. It seems like the third issue will come out late as the third issue was canceled, meaning that it will probably take 4 or 5 more months before it arrives. That is a bummer, but since the issues are almost triple sized, I can forgive them.

Haunt #7 by Robert Kirkman, Greg Capullo and Todd McFarlane.

This is the last of the issues I have ordered for this series. I am not in love with the series, so this issue would have had to be fantastic for me to keep going with the series. The last issue was great, but this issue wasn't great. The very first scene was ridiculous, I just don't buy gangsters acting so recklessly over someone they could just beat up. I don't hear of too many murders in the US, so I don't think gangsters just kill whenever someone insults them a little bit.

Robert Kirkman has two great series: The Walking Dead and Invincible, so I have been giving this comic a try for a while. If I hear great reviews in the future, I might give this comic another try, but for now, I am done with this series.

Marvel Origins by Fred Van Lente and many others.

Fred Van Lente is my favorite among the writers in charge of Spider-Man right now, so when I saw his name in the solicits, I decided to give this one-shot a try. I probably misunderstood what this comic was about. If I had known it was just one page stories retelling the origins of several Marvel heroes and villains, I would not have ordered this comic. Van Lente does a good job of telling us enough about each character, but for most characters I already knew their origin and for the ones I didn't, I didn't really care (except maybe for Dr. Strange). A few of the pages are not written by Van Lente, but by Jim McCann.

For a while I couldn't understand how Marvel could charge $3.99 for this. But I guess the answer is that, you are not really buying a story but art. Each page is done by a different artist and a lot of them are fantastic. My favorite was the page for Bucky Barnes (the new Captain America). The art consists of 4 vertical panels in the upper half and one triangular panel in the bottom half. The first and third panel are light colored, while the second and fourth have a lot of red in them. The bottom half is tainted blue. Overall, it gives the effect of the American flag, as we have red, white and blue with stars (as Captain America has a star on his chest and on his shield). It looks awesome.

Overall, not an issue I would recommend.

Without trying, the issues are ordered from the one I like the most to the one I liked the least.

Recent Spider-Man Issues

Amazing Spider-Man #622 by Greg Weisman, Luke Ross, Fred Van Lente and Joe Quinones.
I love the TV cartoon "Spectacular Spider-Man" written by Greg Weisman, I was happy to find that his TV writing translated well into a great story about Flash Thompson. In the last couple of years, there have been a couple of very good Flash stories in the Spider-Man comic and I am happy to have them. We get Spidey three times a month, so I don't mind this issue not having the presence of Spidey be important. However, for those that would get bothered by this, there is a nice back up issue written by Van Lente, a writer I love when it comes to Spider-Man.
I should also point out that the art by Luke Ross was very good. Luke Ross was a great penciller for Spider-Man in the early 90s and while his style has changed, he still draws a great Spidey.

Amazing Spider-Man #623 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta with a great Michael Lark cover.
The cover for this issue is wonderful. It is my favorite Spider-Man cover. The issue itself is pretty good. I don't like how Azaceta draws Spidey, but he draws good sequences and he does a great job drawing the Vulture. This issue is the first of a two-parter.

Amazing Spider-Man #624 by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta.
This issue is the second part. We get to see how Spidey defeats the Vulture (mostly by convincing him to stop attacking him and J Jonah). The second half of the issue has Peter losing his job and his reputation after J Jonah denounces him for fraud in a picture that Peter PhotoShopped to save J Jonah's political situation. It was interesting to see an honest side to J Jonah, including how bad he felt over the aid that lost his life to protect him. However it was very sad to see Peter go down so low, over a small mistake.
I am looking forward to the next issue, however I didn't renew my subscription in time, so the next issue I will receive is supposed to be #627, I already got my comic book store to order #626, but #625 is out of print, so I'll have to find it somewhere.

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #61 by Paul Tobin and Christian Nauck.
I have been enjoying this series very much up to the last couple of issues. This issue explains why Chat has been acting so weird and in doing so makes the rpevious issues a bit better. The comic is going from being $2.99 to $3.99 and for the jump they are going to renumber, which makes this the last issue of this series. The issue was pretty good, but it wasn't what one would expect of a final issue (the numbering is also weird in that respect). The next issue, which will be labeled #1, is meant to follow the story developing here, but they did manage to make it more accessible to new readers by having Peter no longer in a relationship.
I like how this comic dealt with Emma Frost and I really like the character of Chat. I am looking forward to more issues of this comic.

Web of Spider-Man #6 by Fred Van Lente, Jefte Palo, Ron Frenz, Tom DeFalco, Zeb Wells and Xurxo Penalta.
The first story is about the origin of the Lizard. I thought the story was pretty good, not great, but not bad. The art was very good and that made it worthwhile. The Spider-Girl story was average. I want to know more about Black Tarantula, he is an interesting guy. The third story was a prelude to a Lizard story to come in Amazing Spider-Man. The issue was average. Maybe I made a mistake by coming back to buying this series after I left it for two issues (I skipped issues 4 and 5).

Web of Spider-Man #7 by Fred Van Lente, Phillipe Briones, Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, Joe Casey and Jim Mahfood.
The first story is pretty good. I have high expectations for stories written by Van Lente as he has written some of my favorite Spidey stories this year and he wrote a cool origin story for Rhino. This Kraven story wasn't great.
The Spider-Girl story is actually good, with an interesting villain called "Wild Card". Wild Card seems like a cool guy and somehow I think it is Peter Parker trying to get his daughter out of the gang war. This issue really makes me consider buying Spider-Girl #1. In fact, I think I will.
I was excited to see that the last story would be about PaperDoll. While the paparazzi arc in the #560s of Amazing Spider-Man wasn't critically acclaimed, I really liked it. I loved the art, I thought the villain was interesting, and I loved seeing the ethical issues for Peter in working as a paparazzi. With all that in mind, I was looking forward to reading this story by Joe Casey. While the story wasn't bad, the art threw me out of the story often, as the art is very strange. One thing I liked about the art was the sound effects, specially the "Twip" for when Spidey is throwing webbing.
Overall, the issue wasn't great. I won't stop buying this comic, mainly because it is changing its style from #8 forward, by no longer telling origin stories and going more for new stories.

More Reviews of Single Issues

Amazing Spider-Man #616 by Fred Van Lente and Javier Pulido.

The issue continues on the Sandman story introduced in the previous issue. The issue continues with the great artwork and great writing. I particularly liked the artwork on a two page spread where the panel snakes up as Sandman is snaking up. The panel is creative and it makes the action look much better than if the panel were just a rectangle.

The ending in the issue is sad. It made me think about the government taking children away from parents because of negligence. Movies, comics and books many times put this in a bad light, but then again, abusive parents must be held accountable somehow. It is a tough subject. I think child's services is better for society than not having it, but some situations are just sad.

A very good issue.

What If Aunt May had Died instead of Uncle Ben? by Ed Brubaker and Andrea Di Vito.

The story is told as if the narrator was a comic book store owner talking to another comic book fan. It is nice that the owner has a T-shirt with The Watcher in it, as The Watcher is usually the narrator in the What If? storylines.

The story is a fun read. It makes it clear how important Aunt May is in the Spider-Man universe. Without someone to ground him, Spider-Man would lose control and go through more experiences before becoming a good superhero.

It was a good story and I really liked the way it was handled with the two superhero fans discussing this.

Star Wars: Purge Seconds to Die by John Ostrander and Jim Hall

The comic is about a Jedi that tries to take down the Emperor after Order 666. She acts as if she wants to be Sith. The Emperor tells her that he'll take her as a student as long as she defeats Darth Vader. Therefore we get a pretty good fight scene between them.

The issue was good. It established a character I didn't know in one issue and it made me care about what would happen to her.

A solid issue.

Marvel Adventures #57 by Paul Tobin and Matteo Lolli

This issue was great. It had humor, romance, action, Peter having moral dilemmas. Essentially it had everything that a Spider-Man comic needs.

The humor came in the guise of Emma Frost as the Silencer. She became a "villain" essentially to see Spider-Man in action, as her best friend Chat is Spidey's girlfriend. In the issue we get a lot of good dialogue between Chat and Emma, between Spidey and Chat and between Peter and Chat. This is the issue where Spidey and Chat have a fight, as Chat confesses that she knows he is Spider-Man and this fight is what generated the funny line I posted about yesterday "...we're sending messages through pigeons now..."

The series is fantastic.

Web of Spider-Man #1,#2,#3 by J.M. DeMatteis, Fred Van Lente, among others.

The first issue is not very good. It has a good but not great story about Kaine written by J.M. DeMatteis. It has a story about Spider-Girl, which I don't care much about, and it has a story about Frog-Man, which was funny but not much. I felt like the first issue wasn't worth buying.

The second issue has the origin of Electro, which was a good story. It had a better Spider-Girl story (now I start to care a bit more) and it has a pretty good final story involving Jameson. This issue is almost worth the price of admission, but it is not there yet.

The third issue has the origin of Rhino, which is a great story. I have a little more respect for Rhino after reading this. Then it has a good Spider-Girl story, which made me want to get the next issue to find out the conclusion to the Spider-Girl current arc. Finally, it has another J.M. DeMatteis story. This time he writes a nice short about May and JJJ Sr.'s honeymoon. It is a moving piece and very funny too. It is nice how he manages to make it touching and funny.

The third issue is very good and that is the reason I'l; get the next couple of issues.

Haunt #1,#2,#3 by Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley, Greg Capullo and Todd McFarlane.

This title generated a lot of news as it brings back Todd McFarlane into creating a character. McFarlane created this character with Kirkman and now inks the series. The comic is about a priest Daniel Kilgore, whose brother is a secret agent, Kurt Kilgore. Kurt dies and somehow his ghost can still talk to Daniel and if he gets inside Daniel's body, they become a powerful being called Haunt. This is the set up.

The first issue is a good start. The story moves fast and we are introduced to the two main characters, Daniel and Kurt,effectively. I like the first issue.

The second issue is even better than the first. We know more about Daniel and we find out that he has a thing for Kurt's wife. It is also fun to see how Daniel reacts to his newfound powers. The interaction between Daniel and Kurt is quite fun.

The third issue reveals to us a lot more. A creepy Bolivian woman calls him Haunt, somehow she's able to sense the ghost of Kurt. We also learn more about where Kurt worked before, as Daniel is there in their jail (while they try to find out how he was able to get into the secret facility). It is a very good issue. The series keeps getting better and better.

As mentioned yesterday, the fourth issue wasn't so great. The series however has great potential.

That wraps up all the issues I have read in the last two months, so I won't be reviewing any more single issues until next Wednesday when a new batch comes in. However I'll be reviewing a lot more trade paperbacks in the coming days.

What I Read Today (Wednesday Jan. 6)

Today was a good day for me in terms of receiving comics. I got five single issues and three trade paperbacks. I haven't read the trades yet, those reviews will appear sometime this week. However I read the five issues and the reviews follow:

Murderer #1 by Robert Kirkman, Marc Silvestri and Nelson Blake II.

This one-shot is part of the Pilot Season program in Top Cow Productions. The idea is that five one-shots written by Robert Kirkman and Marc Silvestri will come out. Then readers vote on which one they like more. The winner becomes an ongoing series in Top Cow Productions (note that Top Cow is part of Image Comics).

I decided to buy Murderer because the premise looked interesting. Jason is a man who can hear people's thoughts. He has no control over it, so it doesn't feel very good. I won't spoil the particular story of this issue, but I will say that it was very well done. It made me want to read more of this series. The art was very simple and has a lot to improve. However, the writing very well done and makes for a great read.

Now, I am planning on reading the other one-shots. If any of the others is this good, it will be worth buying all four. If none of the others is as good as this one, then I'll happily vote for this one to be an ongoing, I wish it were an ongoing already.

Haunt #4 by Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley, Greg Capullo and Todd McFarlane

The first three issues of Haunt were good. Each issue getting better. The third issue made me want to continue buying the series. Today I got the fourth issue and I was looking forward to reading it. I like the issue. The art is very good, which is not surprising as Ottley is a fantastic penciller.

The story is getting more interesting as more questions arise and we get to know the main character more. However, I was bothered by several unbelievable things that happen in this issue. There is one scene were a sports car is driven through a brick wall. In fact there are two scenes where this happens. I don't think this is possible, unless you have a very special car (tank). It did create a cool scene to watch, but it took me out of the story as it was too unbelievable.

Another problem I had was with the reaction Amanda has to the extreme violence. She witnesses a monster-looking thing brutally murder several people and then hugs him. That seemed very strange to me.

I am looking forward to next issue, but I have to say I didn't like this issue that much.

God Complex #2 by Michael Avon Oeming, Dan Berman and John Broglia

Another Image Comics book. The first issue of this comic was good, but not great. The second issue again is good but not great. The first issue made it seem like Paul (Apollo) would have a difficult challenge in this issue. It did take Paul 6 pages to get rid of the monsters threatening him, however, he was never really in trouble. It seems weird for a witch to summon powers of great Gods to create such lame adversaries.

After the initial six pages, the book actually gets good. We are introduced to a new character, Jimmy Wu, who has a lot of potential. I am interested in finding more about Jimmy as he seems to be more powerful than Paul, yet way calmer. It reminds me of a Jedi. The interactions between Jimmy and Paul are great.
I have to say that while I am not loving the series as much as I thought I would, I think the series will get better.

Amazing Spider-Man #615 by Fred Van Lente and Javier Pulido

Amazing Spider-Man has been a joy to read for the last 5 months. Every issue has been great, which must be hard to do if you have to publish three times a month as the title does. They rotate writers and all of them are great, but my favorite is Fred Van Lente. Van Lente did a wonderful one-shot about The Spot in Amazing Spider-Man #589 and then he wrote a great three issue arc #603-605 about the Chameleon. Van Lente is funny and his stories are very fun to read. This issue is no exception.

The issue is very funny and a lot of it comes from the great art work. Pulido has Spider-Man wearing a scarf and socks for winter and does a very good job of having Spidey look like Spider-Man. I don't exactly picture Peter Parker and Jameson the way he draws their faces, but the expressions he draws on them work quite well.

There was one scene that had me laughing a lot, so I'll share it:
Spider-Man comes to Betty to ask for some information on some guy. After Betty talks for a while, she turns left and sees the window open while she says "Spider-Man?". This is the last panel of one page. As we turn the page we see a looming Spider-Man on her right saying "I'm over here." It was such a funny scene, making a little fun of the often used stealthy superhero. This was a scene where the writing and the art were pitch perfect, this is the sort of scene that you can only do in comic books.

Excellent issue.

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #58 by Paul Tobin and Matteo Lolli

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man is a title for all ages. It is a fantastic comic book. The art is playful, the writing is funny and exciting. It is just a really good comic book. I don't know why, but a lot of "for all ages" products are better than the specific ones. If we look at Pixar, their movies are usually much better than the average movie. That is just one particular example, but this comic happens to be excellent and for all ages.

Let's talk about this issue in particular. We are introduced to a new character, the Blond Phantom, a superhero that makes money out of saving people's lives. She wants to recruit Spider-Man. The issue moves with a conversation between Spider-Man and Blond Phantom while we get some flashbacks to Spidey's day. I like the way the story is told and I love the new character. This issue is also great in that you don't need to read any other issue to get it. It works great as just one issue.

Again, there was one scene that deserves to be mentioned:
Spider-Man gets hit in the head by a pigeon. Spider-Man then talks to the pigeons about a girl. Blond Phantom is confused to which Spider-Man says "My Girlfriend, the girl I'm dating, can talk to animals. We had a fight. We're working through it, but for now we're too mad at each other to talk, so we're sending messages through pigeons. And yes, I know it's weird". Brilliant.