Sunday, May 22, 2011

X-Men & Spider-Man TPB


What itch was this series trying to scratch? It was interesting seeing Christos Gage parallel the history of two Marvel franchises, but the whole endeavor just didn't connect for me. I liked aspects of the story: Kraven taking on the X-Men, Ben Reilly believing he's the real Spider-Man, and heck, I liked that Angel and Iceman got to pop up in so many X-lineups. But overall, Mr. Sinister's goals are always so vague that he just doesn't work well as the main villain. The Marauders, Kraven, and the Blob all work much better as antagonists for the combined heroes.

Gage has some fun ideas, like when the X-Men believe Spidey might be a mutant and they want to know if he wants to hang out with them more. Heck, the book is worth it just to see Angel, Beast, and Iceman hit on Gwen Stacey and MJ.

Mario Alberti's art is fine, but the coloring makes everything seem very subdued. Alberti's style looks a bit like Simone Bianchi's, but not as inspiring. He does a nice job giving the different eras their own looks.

I had forgotten how terrible Dazzler is as an X-Man.

Fair

1 comment:

Marc said...

I have to agree about the coloring. I wish they had used a different coloring style for each issue so as to better reflect the era they were trying to fit into. It works for the Mutant Massacre and Clone Saga issues I guess, but it made the story seem much too dark in the beginning.