Amazing Spider-Man #9

So my daughters and I read most of our comics together these days and Amazing Spider-Man is on the list of favorites. (I have to skim over and block some of Pete and Silk’s dialogue, but other than that the book is very kid-friendly.)

My 10-year-old is a huge Mayday Parker fan, thanks to years of back issue bin diving. So Dan Slott's Spider-verse story was right up our alley, based on what we’d heard. She’s a smart kid; concepts like alternate realities and multiple Earths don’t scare her off. But, after reading the opening chapter of Spider-verse, I was feeling a big confused. I don’t know anything about Morlun’s family. Are they new? Where do they live? Why do they get the Earth-1 designation? These things were bothering me! So I figured I’d ask my daughter to tell me what SHE thinks Spider-verse is about.

“Spider-verse is about a ton of Spider-people coming together to team up. The spider-people think our Peter Parker is really important, but he’s just confused. One of the Spider-Men is very powerful. A family of vampire-type thingamabobs want to eat all the spider-people. One is named Morlun. One has a name that starts with a D. And their Dad looks like a sasquatch. And there is a pig Spider-Man.”

So really, what else does she need to know? I guess it really isn’t that complicated, is it? She and her sister both love Peter Porker after one appearance. They are intrigued by Gwen Stacy as Spider-Woman. They love Silk and the Scarlet Spider. (And boy, are my kiddos worried about the New Warriors.) They have fewer reservations about the complexity than I do!

I will say this; my daughter is very, very worried that Peter and MJ from the MC2 Universe are really dead. She’s going to be mighty upset to see her beloved Mayday lose both her parents. I’m hoping Slott will give us some sort of an out before the end of this storyline.

I’m also very hopeful that the Spiders are going to eliminate some of the Morlun family’s more forgettable members. They look too much alike and have too similar of goals for me to easily differentiate between them. Morlun never had the most unique look when he was alone, having “fat Morlun” “girl Morlun” and “hairy Morlun” isn’t quite enough for me.

Olivier Coipel does a great job on art, as always. My daughters thought Mayday looked “different” and I’d have to agree. Seeing her rendered in Coipel’s modern style is a bit jarring after a hundred issues of Ron Frenz’s far more “classic” pencils.

This is a GOOD comic, continuing Slott’s epic run on the wall-crawler. It’s even worth the extra buck at $4.99!

Amazing Spider-Girl v4: Brand New May

I still love stopping by Tom DeFalco's take on the Marvel Universe. It's clear this whole universe is just an extrapolation of mid-90's Marvel. This is a What-If DeFalco was able to age the Marvel U after his time as editor-in-chief. It isn't genius or genre-breaking, but this is good solid action in the mighty Marvel manner.

May finds out about a link to that common spider-problem, clones, by the end of the trade. Most of the issue has Peter Parker taking the clone's side awfully easily, I don't care if he does think his May might be a clone, he spent his whole life raising her! He knows she's a good kid.

May's superheroics are always fun, in this trade she teams up with the X-People against Magneta. Those portions of the book are fun and move along nicely. The interpersonal drama involving May and her boyfriend are a bit harder to take. I don't think she'd be too interested in quitting her spider-career to join the dance squad, and adding more and more thought bubbles about it just gets annoying.

Ron Frenz's pencils still have that dated 80's look, but I mean that as a compliment. The costume design is classic, and the updates are wonderful. Arana's terrible suit actually looks good!

Fair

Fantastic Five TPB

If loving the MC2 universe is wrong, I don't want to be right. I love Tom DeFalco's crazy take on the Marvel U. The best part is that he basically took Marvel as it existed when I was in high-school and real-time aged it. The Fantastic Four has expanded into Five. Lyja is a member of the team. The Thing married (and divorced) Sharon Ventura. Mr. Fantastic has been replaced by a robot and the Invisible Woman is missing. Best of all, Franklin Richards has grown up into a 90's style hero called Psi-Lord with a sweet mullet.

I need to go to the art a bit sooner than usual. Paul Ryan's designs looks straight out of the 90's too. The Thing's robotic parts are terribly dated, but fun. Lyja has a long ponytail like all extreme characters did back then. I love it. The coolest thing in this story was the Master's underlings, all tricked out to look like classic Marvel villains like Moonstone and the Trapster.

This story isn't going to win any awards, but it is fun and has the sense of adventure that comics from that era had for me. I can't remember who said that the golden age of sci-fi (and therefore comics) hits when you are twelve, but that's why this comic feels so natural for me. It is like a continuation of a bygone era.

Good

Amazing Spider-Girl v2: Comes the Carnage TPB

I really enjoy seeing Tom DeFalco's version of the Marvel U. Even the bad guys have a wonderful sense of nostalgia, acting the way they "should" as they engage May Parker and her allies. DeFalco is great at using a mix of new and classic villains to make sure the reader knows that even though time has passed, a lot of heroes are still in the game.

This trade reintroduces Carnage, this time without Cletus Cassidy. Carnage still hungers for killing, often forcing his new (unwilling) partner into violence. DeFalco does a nice job throwing some of his new villains against Carnage to establish how tough the symbiote is. There are numerous moments when May seems totally outmatched, but she never gives up. Peter Parker exhibits his great stubbornness/responsibility nicely too.

I also appreciate seeing the Ladyhawks, in their Falcon-inspired costumes, start to interact with their father. This really is a nicely developed world.

Ron Frenz draws some of the best fights in comics. Check out anything with the Carnage toddler in this thing; he's hilarious and scary at the same time! His Hobgoblin... heck, his EVERYONE looks classic. This is what Marvel looked like when I grew up.

Good

Amazing Spider-Girl v1 TPB

Tom DeFalco has created a wonderful little corner in the Marvel U for Mayday Parker. I may be really late getting to it, but I'm enjoying it.
Much like the alternate future in Last Days of Animal Man, the Marvel U has moved on in this series. Mayday Parker is the teenaged daughter of Peter Parker and Mary Jane, and the whole Marvel U sort of feels like it started aging closer to real time in the late 90s. Mayday is a good-hearted gal trying to resist the urge to act responsibly as Spider-Girl. Naturally, she ends up donning the webs and fighting villains, but I like that she's trying to do the right thing by her parents.

The villains feel wonderfully retro. There are old classics like Black Tarantula and Hobgoblin, but even the new guys like Bitter Frost and Reverb have "classic" looks. These feel like stories from the old Peter Parker series from the 70s, only starring a girl instead of a guy.

The supporting cast gets a LOT of pages, probably a few too many, but I can appreciate the effort to make Mayday's world a bit more than just heroes and villains. I bet my daughters will probably like that effort when I pass this trade onto them.

Ron Frenz's art is classic and fun. I love the character designs and the complete backgrounds. The art is solid from cover to cover.

Good