Spider-Man: The Short Halloween #1

I get Amazing Spidey in trade, but I was worried that this wouldn't be collected in that book, so I grabbed it in floppy. I'm not going to risk missing Kevin Maguire artwork.

The first comic work from SNL comedians Bill Hader and Seth Meyers is a pretty JLI-feeling one-off. Much of the issue follows the normal lives of the friends of the fake Spider-Man and the secret origin of Fumes, a new super-villain. Fumes is an amusing enough creation, especially with the mundaneness of his origin. He can do things no one else can with a vacuum, and I'll admit I don't think I've ever seen that as a villain power before. The real antagonist of the story is Badger Teeth, a feral and silly villain who turns against Fumes and the other silly villains in their Fabulous Five. This issue doesn't have any real standout, awesome moments, but it is filled with nice real-world banter and friendship between not only the fake Spidey and his buds, but also their rivals in some cooler dudes dressed as Green Goblin and Doc Ock. The Fabulous Five have a few great moments (I definitely love Haymaker's power to shoot hay at people) but overall they are only average creations. This is a solid freshman effort from the two SNL writers. They have Spidey's voice down well enough and they seem to have genuine affection for super-heroes. Patton Oswalt did a bit stronger of a job with his JLA: Working Week debut, but this was perfectly enjoyable.

The real star of the one-shot is, of course, Kevin Maguire's art. The guy simply does the best faces in comics, and his comedic timing in panel-format is perfect. The sequence of Spidey falling and hitting his head on every surface was great cartoon violence. With a lot of artists we might not see the differences between a "home-made" costume and a normal one, but Maguire's detail is so fine that we can see the little things that differentiate these Halloween costumes from the "real" ones. His art elevates every story he works on, and this is no exception. I'll continue picking up everything he works on.

Fair