Comics / Comic Reviews / Marvel Comics

Spectacular Spider-man # 1

By Kevin Scott
July 14, 2003 - 15:27

 

The big relaunch……..Spider-man, Jenkins……back with Ramos on art! All I've heard about, is how great Paul Jenkins run was on Peter Parker – Spider-man and how much of a travesty it was that he was taken off the book. How his Spider-man was sooo well written and conveyed sooo much feeling. Well, it's finally here! So, I think the question on everyone's lips (well maybe not everyone, but you get the gist) is………..does the "S" stand for Spectacular or Sh……!

Well, with this much anticipation, I couldn't wait to check out this book and see if someone else could make me feel for Spider-man like Bendis does every month. Could Jenkins make me believe! Well, the first two pages, everything was OK. Nothing amazing but the book's just starting, warming up, getting ready to roar. All this was in my mind, but then came the 4 panels on the next page and it was a downward spiral from there! The language and dialect were dreadful. This was best highlighted in the Peters narrative. There just wasn't any feeling in there. It felt disconnected, void of any emotion. The character interaction felt disjointed an unnatural. Peter talking to his aunt, and there was no love, no warmth. I couldn't believe what was happening! Then to crown it off, there was the whole Venom interaction thing, which wasn't good! Can this book be saved?

Could the art lift this book up……pump some life into it? HELL NO!!! Some people may like this style, but me, I just don't think it worked. Nothing seemed in sync. Peter looked completely different from the other characters, like Ramos was going from one style to another. Sometimes the proportions seemed off and none of the characters seemed to show any emotions. Spider-man………well, he just didn't work. The movement didn't look slick or acrobatic. It looked limp and misjudged.

They say "never judge a book by its cover." Well I'm afraid here, you can. The cover art and the interior work are bad, and the writing walks hand in hand with it. Both are sitting in the corner where a donse hat. Lets hope a lesson will be learned and the grades rise next issue.

Report Card – D (I don't think this can get any worse can it? Then again, I said that bout Alien 3, then they made 4)

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12