"In a perfect world, this was how it was always meant to be": Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1

While many of Marvel's Secret Wars tie-ins have taken their titles and parts of their plots from past stories set in different realities or alternate futures and timelines, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows is one of the few that is based on a previous status quo. And, it's worth mentioning, a pretty popular status quo that many fans were unhappy that Marvel changed on what amounted to an editorial whim.

Without getting too deep into the death of the Spider-Marriage, here's the short-ish version. Previous Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada didn't like the fact that Spider-Man Peter Parker was happily married to Mary Jane Watson, as he felt it unnecessarily aged the character, but un-marrying him didn't really solve the problem, as making Peter Parker a widower or a divorcee wouldn't exactly make him younger. This was one of three "genies" in the Marvel Universe that Quesada wanted to find a way to re-bottle.

He found a way, but it was a terrible, terrible way: A soft reboot that only affected Spider-Man continuity. When perpetually dying old lady Aunt May was on her deathbed yet again, Mephisto–i.e. Satan himself, essentially–appeared to Peter Parker and told him he would restore his beloved aunt to health in exchange for his soul. No, not his soul! Don't be silly! Why would you think the devil would want to render services to someone willing to sell their soul to him? No, Mephisto wanted Spider-Man's marriage. As in, he wanted to manipulate the time-stream to make it so that Peter and Mary Jane were never married.

This was really cool of the devil, and worked out pretty great for all involved. Because while he claimed that he wanted Spider-Man's marriage because it represented Spider-Man's happiness, the devil was also going to strip away all memory of the marriage from Peter Parker, so he won't have any reason to be sad about losing the marriage. What a nice guy, that devil is!

Now, this was problematic for a lot of reasons, the fact that Spider-Man did a deal with the devil to supernaturally extend the life of his elderly aunt being just one of them. (Why would the devil do that, anyway? Why would the devil want that? Would Spider-Man really want that? Would Aunt May have wanted Peter to make that decision? Isn't death a natural part of life? Is Spider-Man going to put together the Infinity Gauntlet and challenge the entire Marvel Universe the next time Aunt May gets cancer? Why does having an unmarried 30-something Peter Parker matter, anyway–issn't that why Marvel created the Ultimate line?).

In addition to undoing the marriage, the devil basically just did a random reboot of Spider-Man continuity, rebuilding Aunt May's house, seemingly brining Peter Parker's dead best friend back to life, that sort of thing–it was bad enough a story that J. Michael Straczynski (who has, remember, wrote some real stinkers in his career), argued with Quesada about the scripting of the One More Day miniseries in which this nonsense occurred, ultimately asking to have his name removed from the issues and publicly disavowing it as it was being released).

I guess people got over it pretty quickly, though. I quit reading Amazing Spider-Man at that point, but I would have quit not long after, when they jacked the price up. Marvel started publishing ASM about three times a month, and they hired a slew of great writers and artists to work on it. One of them was Dan Slott, pretty much the idea Spider-Man writer, and that guy is still writing Spider-Man. Hell, he's writing this very comic.

I'm not a fan of reboots, myself, and I hate these sort of soft reboots the most, as they don't work well in a shared universe; they essentially punish fans for knowing too much about the setting and history. DC's increasingly frequent re-settings of their continuity are annoying too, but at least those have been across the board, and generally done in-story in a way that makes a modicum of sense. The devil didn't cosmically annul Superman's marriage at any point; rather time itself was disrupted so badly by The Flash and Reverse Flash's attempts to alter it in Flashpoint (and Pandora's still un-explained attempt to strengthen the universe by blending it with two different alternate realities) that it completely changed all of history, not just a marriage (DC has done its share of dumb soft reboots too, including a John Byrne-lead one of The Doom Patrol and a Jeph Loeb/Michael Turner-lead one of Supergirl, but both were made irrelevant quickly by people either not reading/caring or later, universe-wide reboots.

Anyway, let's read Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1, the first issue in a comic book set in an alternate reality where Joe Quesada never managed to convince anyone to reboot the Spider-Man franchise, an alternate reality that is now part of "Battleworld: A massive, patchwork planet composed of the fragments of worlds that no longer exist, maintained by the iron will of its god and master, Victor Von Doom!"

THE COVER

There's a lot of verbal information on this cover, but if you take a quick glance around it, you'll note how important Marvel apparently thinks the Spider-Man and marriage parts are compared to the Secret Wars-iness of it.

The ASM logo is at the top, the same size as it usually would be, long with the sub-ttile and an oversized "#1." The Secret Wars logo, in contrast, is tiny, about the size of the creator credits or the tag letting us know that this is a Marvle comic book and that we get a "bonus" digital edition because we are over-paying for this $3.99, 21-page comic.

The image is by Adam Kubert, as the large pink "Adam Kubert" signature next to it makes clear. It features an unmasked Spider-Man standing next to Mary Jane, a little girl that looks more like MJ than Peter sitting on his shoulders. Is this the long-lost Parker baby, grown up? Yes, yes it is.

Behind them is an oddly elongated version of the Spider-Heart that appeared on the wedding issue. I'm not sure why Kubert would have drawn it in that particular shape, as drawing it out like that obscures it so much behind the logo. I have to assume it was simply because there was some miscommunication between artist and publisher regarding the final lay-out of the cover, or because Kubert screwed it up but didn't want to or have time to go back and change it.

I like Adam Kubert's art okay, but like his brother, he's not really the sort who handles deadline pressure well. Or at all.

TITLE PAGE

The spiel about Secret Wars is repeated here: "The Multiverse Was Destroyed! The Heroes of Earth-616 and Earth-1610 were powerless to save it!" and so on. The page ends with a big "The Amazing Spider-Man" logo (sans the "Renew Your Vows" subtitle), and some of the credits, starting with the letterer and ending with the executive producer.

PAGES 1-3

The first page opens with a narration box designated by a Spider-symbol as Peter Parker's: IN a perfect world, this was how it was always meant to be." Oh, snap!

Behind it are framed photos hanging on the wall, including one of the Parkers on their wedding day and another in the hospital, MJ and Peter posing with what looks like a tiny Wilson Fisk swaddled in a pink blanket.

"Renew Your Vows Part 1: Why We Can't Have Nice Things" fills the over-sized gutter between the page's two panels, along with the missing credits from the first page: Writer Dan Slott, pencil artist Adam Kubert, inker John Dell and colorist Justin Ponsor.

At a cramped table in a cramped-looking kitchen, a shirtless Peter Parker tinkers with his web-shooters, while MJ feeds their poorly drawn daughter, whose age seems to change from panel to panel. Kubert may draw great superheroes, but toddlers are not his strong suit.

It appears to be sometime in the late 1980s, maybe early '90s. The Parkers trade jokes a bit, and Peter mentions that he seems to be picking up the slack of other New York City costumed vigilantes, as it seems he's been fighting his villains and there's lately.

PAGE 4

Peter rushes into the Daily Bugle office to sell some photos, where he learns that some superheroes have been showing up dead ("Punisher, Moon Knight, a boy going by the name Night Thrasher") and others with powers have gone missing ("Daredevil, Iron Fist").

Is it weird that any time a creative team gets the opportunity to do an alternate reality story of any kind, they almost always resort to killing everyone off? I mean, it makes some degree of sense, given the fact that killing everyone off is something they can't normally do, so maybe they just have some pent-up bloodlust for superheroes they need to release somewhere, but you never read an alternate reality story where some of the good guys just retire or something...

SPECIAL PULL-OUT ADS SECTION

This being a modern Marvel comic book, there have already been two ads, but here we get the first pull-out section of house ads. There are four ads for four different Secret Wars tie-in comics, all printed on a glossy, heavier paper stock, and which a reader can unfold as if they were going to be a poster or something cool.

Nope, just ads. One for Secret Wars #5, one for Spider-Island #1, one for Age of Apocalypse #1 and one for Hail HYDRA #1.

PAGES 5-7

Spidey makes all haste to Avengers mansion, where Jarvis lets him in and lets him know they've been expecting him–"and anoyne else left standing."

Inside, he finds "The Avengers, New Warriors, Hulk and Namor." We can tell this is an alternate timeline because Captain America has a star on his forehead and an A on his chest. Totally different. Also, I think The Vision is wearing an all-white costume with just a yellow diamond shape on his chest, and thus look 98% less stupid than usual.

Cap is in the middle of a debrief, explaining that many superheroes have gone missing lately, including all of the X-Men. Iron Man and Spider-Man gossip in the corner, ignoring Captain America, while Shellhead offers to move Spidey and his family into the Mansion for safety's sake. Peter calls home on a very, very large phone to ask MJ about this, while in the background Cap reveals their best lead, the CEO of a company researching "super-human abilities and bio-technologies" with the perfectly villainous-sounding name of Augusts Roman Then Hawkeye reports in from the field, noting that there's a full-scale prison break at Ryker's and that "Everyone's broken out!"

Cap's just all like whatever.

"Sorry Clint," he says. "But I'm calling it. Roman's an omega-level threat. We need all hands!"

MJ told Spidey to hold on, as someone was at the door, and then she didn't answer again. Could the two things have something to do with one another?

Yes!

PAGE 8

Master tactician Captain America is in the process of loading every single superhero left into a single Quinjet with which to launch an assault on Roman, when Spidey bugs out of there, jumping through his own apartment window with a KSHHHH.

"Well, look at this..." says someone off-panel in a white on black dialogue balloon that either represents a slightly drunk Morpheus or...

PAGE 9

...Venom! He's sitting comfortably on Peter's busted love seat, holding the baby in one hand (and one tentacle, his other arm (and several tentacles) around MJ.

Now I believe this is a reference to an earlier story in which something, for lack of a better term, rapey either happened, or at least was strongly implied as having happened. (I actually tried reading that part of Todd McFarlane run in a library-borrowed trade in the very early '00s, and I just couldn't do it; like the Chris Claremont/Jim Lee X-Men, they were just too bad for me to force myself to read them; spending a few minutes online researching, the official line is apparently that Venom "terrorized" Mary Jane. Those of you who lived through Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man run can feel free to set the record straight in the comments section.)

Scanning the full-page splash for clues, there's no real strong implication of that here. MJ's no more naked than she was previously, the rips in her jeans all in the same places they were during the dinner scene. Aside from Venom's long, dripping tongue curling in her direction, there's nothing terribly suggestive going on here.

I do like the fact taht Kubert drew a stuffed Hulk doll with its arms ripped off. Venom clearly smashed the door in, tore up a pillow and part of the couch and ripped the arms off of Annie's toy.

What a jerk!

PAGE 10

Venom starts talking to Spidey, but he doesn't listen, punching him so hard in the face that he breaks bones in his hand while Venom's in mid-sentence. Why Venom didn't bite his own tongue off, I don't know. Just like I don't know why Venom's voice is so clear, despite talking with his tongue out of his mouth all the time. Shouldn't he sound more like Daffy Duck...?

Peter tells MJ to get the baby out of there, while he punches the hell out of Venom.

PAGES 11-12

MJ runs out to the street, and see the Avengers fly over head, attempting to hail them, but they're busy, flying straight at Roman's headquarters, Empire Unlimited. He has been expecting them, as he has "telepathy, like Professor X," and introduces himself. He's a big, robotic-looking Darkseid type, with his company logo as a chest emblem, pink energy emanating from his flying form.

"From this day on, call me REGENT," says Augustus Roman, CEO of Empire Unlimited. See, he did indeed capture all the missing superheroes, and he's managed to extract their powers and put them into his own body, and now he's ready to fuck up The Avengers.

PAGES 13-14

MJ thinks about Venom's powers and weaknesses out loud, and then she jumps on to the back of a speeding fires engine, hanging on with one hand while holding her baby in teh other.

Venom jumps out the window, in pursuit, followed by Spidey.

Spider-Man looks briefly in the direction of the glowing pink explosions around the Empire Unlimited skyscraper, but heads off to save his family.

"The Avengers..." he rationalizes "...will be just fine."

Will they?

Regent is boasting, telling Cap that this is "literally a show of force" and that he can evade and counter anything they can throw at them. And then The Hulk jumps at him.

PAGE 15

I'm not 100% sure what happens here. The art's a bit murky. Regent grabs Hulk's arm, shoots Cyclops' energy beam and then BAMFs away, clutching The Hulk's severed arm.

It's unclear if he cut it off with eyebeam and then teleported away with the severed arm, or if he severed it via teleportation.

Either way, I don't think Hulk's, Cyclops' or Nightcrawler's powers should work like that, but whatever, this isn't a Hulk or X-Men comic, it's a Spider-Man one.

...

...Oh! Hey! Remember a few pages ago, when Kubert drew a stuffed Hulk doll with its arms torn off? Maybe that wasn't a little clue that Vemon was a big mean bully and jerk; maybe it was foreshadowing this very moment.

PAGE 16

The firemen notice MJ on teh back of their truck with a baby as they pull up to a burning building. They start to give her grief, but are soon distracted by the giant black tongue monster rushing them. MJ lifts a line from what has to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 different comic books and movies (Venom: There's nowhere left to go! And notheing left to do... ...except scream!" MJ: Yeah? You first.")

MORE PULL-OUT ADS

A turn of the page brings us a half-page ad for Secret Wars: Civil War and a half of a page explaining how to redeem your code for a free digital copy of the paper comic you over-paid for. Next to it is a second pull-out section of house ads, including one for the third issue of this series, showing Spider-Man in his black costume and the tag "The Most COntroversial Spider-Man Story of The Year Continues!", plus ads for Old Man Logan #3, The Infinity Gauntlet #3 and Star Wars: Lando #1, which is not a Secret Wars tie-in, but man, if they were collapsing the whole Multiverse into Battleworld, there really should be a Star Wars tie-in. Maybe ones featuring the characters from Castle, Once Upon a Tim, those Oz comics and the Jane Austen adaptations as well.

PAGES 17-20

The sirens do indeed cause Venom to scream–"AAARGHHH!"–as sound is one of his weaknesses. Then Spider-Man arrives and starts wailing on Venom, each blow pushing him back further and further until they're within the burning building.

MJ asks a fireman if there's anyone left in the building aside from the two spider-themed super-people, and when she learns that it is, MJ shouts that the building is empty, "You're the only ones in there! Do you understand?!"

He does. God help him, he does. He pulls down a support column and brings the whole burning building down on top of them. OMG! Spider-Man just killed one of his villains!

As you can see, Spider-Man emerges from the burning rubble, but Venom? Not so much. He is apparently dead. Or maybe just "dead." I guess we'll find out.


PAGE 21

It's sometime later, and Peter Parker is helping his now much older-looking daughter–she has long red hair as she does on the cover–cross the street. Off-panel, someone shouts, "Help! My purse! That man's flying away with my purse!" And, behind an oblivious Peter Parker, we see The Vulture successfully flying away with a purse.

"It's not a perfect world," Peter narrates over the last panel, where billboards and bus signs indicate that REgent has taken over the city/Battleworld domain, "But, I look after me and mine. And that's...good enough."

This makes for a nice, parallel to Spider-Man's origin story. You'll recall that he decided to use his super-powers to fight for good after choosing not to help stop a criminal, a criminal who then went on to murder his beloved uncle shortly afterwards. In the course of this story, he finds that by using his super-powers to fight for good, he was actively endangering his family members, and must now make the opposite choice–to selfishly not fight crime to keep his family members alive.

This story, then, shows the Spider-Man story coming full-circle. Now, we already know Spidey probably isn't going to not be Spider-Man for too long–that ad for ASM: RYV #3 in this very issue appeared to show Spider-Man in a Spider-Man costume, Spider-Manning, but it's interesting to see Slott doing something interesting with the opportunity to do an out-of-continuity Spider-Man story.

I made much of the first line of the book, the bit about in a perfect world, Spider-Man and Mary Jane would have been married, but I suppose that could be read as an ironic statement, rather than Slott meta-endorsing the previous, pre-devil deal continuity. After all, how "perfect" is this world...? Every superhero except Spider-Man is apparently dead, Spider-Man is retired, a super-villain rules the city/world/Battleworld domain and animal-themed super-villains are free to snatch purses with impunity (Although, there are flying cars and hover buses in Regent's New York City, so it's not all bad).

I've only read four Secret Wars tie-in books yet–I haven't written about the fourth one, X-Men '92 yet–but this was certainly the best of those four.

Meanwhile, at Robot 6...

Okay, so there were two new comic book-comic books I read this week that I didn't review here last night: All-New Ghost Rider #1 and Silver Surfer #1. I did not review them here, because I was going to review them at Robot 6, and now I have.

Also at Robot 6 today, Tom Bondurant discusses Pandora and the more-confusing-than-ever cosmology of the DC Multiverse in the era of the New 52, while comparing and contrasting Forever Evil with the 2002 original graphic novel JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice, which have a few things in common.

Pandora's fusing of the three universes—the DCU, the WildStorm Universe and the so-called Vertigo universe—annoyed me right from the start, as it didn't really make sense on a meta-level, not with what Pandora told The Flash (the argument could be made that the Vertigo imprint fractured the way the DC Universe was "meant" to be, but the WildStorm universe was never split from it), not with DC publishing history (There is no Vertigo Universe; the first crop of Vertigo characters were all from ongoing DC super-comics, and ever since, characters relatively regularly appeared on both sides of the imprint's border) and certainly not with what was going on, like, a month or two prior to Flashpoint (While the Doom Patrol and Animal Man were appearing regularly in the DCU for years since their Vertigo series ended, Swamp Thing and John Constantine had both been back for months as well).

Anyway, Bondurant's piece reminded me that, at the time of Flashpoint, there were 52 parallel dimensions in the DCU multiverse...one of which was the DCU ("New Earth") and one of which was the WildStorm Universe. If we go ahead and give DC the fact that there was a Vertigo Universe, then that would mean that Pandora fused three of the 52 universes, so now the multiverse would only have 50 universes, right?

But wait! The New 52 rejiggering didn't merely add to the DCU, it also subtracted—all of the Golden Age heroes, as well as a sizable chunk of the third generation of DC superheroes (Donna Troy, Aqualad, Flash II Wally West, Jade and Obsidian, etc) were banished from the new, fused DCU, many of them landing on a new Earth 2.

And that Earth 2 is a completely different Earth 2 than all the other, previous Earth 2s, just as the current Earth 3 is a brand-new version of Earth 3. So, I guess Pandora didn't just fuse three timelines, but she fused three timelines, subtracted large swathes of heroes and history from it, and rebooted at least two more timelines, creating or re-creating Earths 2 and 3...?

Jesus God this stuff is complicated. You would think that, by this point, DC would have learned that reboots only ever make things more complicated—it's just quicksand, and the more you struggle the faster you sink into it. (I suppose a pure reboot, one that did not involve the in-story justification of Flashpoint and Pandora could have avoided all of that, but I don't think anyone really wanted and "Ultimate" DC Universe...)

Virtue and Vice was a pretty great comic though; the DCU is a hell of a lot poorer without those characters in it today. And I liked the idea of an annual JSA/JLA Thanksgiving dinner, even if all we ever got out of it was that one great graphic novel and one great done-in-one issue of JSA in 2001.

Also also at Robot 6, there's a link to this very funny webcomic entitled "The Adventures of Business Cat." I liked it a lot.

Also also also at Robot 6, there's an image of Arthur Adams' cover for the upcoming Godzilla graphic novel tied to the upcoming Godzilla film. Is that the clearest look at the new Godzilla design so far...? I would assume so, as it wouldn't do to have an off-model Godzilla on the cover of the book. I like it; it looks an awful lot like the Godzilla Adams drew on his cover to IDW's ongoing Godzilla comic, but with smaller teeth and less separation between the head and neck. It's a pretty big departure from the previous Godzilla designs, but not as radical as the one in the last American Godzilla movie, which ought to make a lot of folks happy. Anyway, based on that one single image, it works for me.

I sure wish I knew what was up with the Godzilla comics license at the moment, though. I saw an IDW Godzilla comic—in which the title monster was battling the Frankensteins/Gargantuas!—on the new rack today. But the movie tie-in is being published by Legendary, and distributed through DC Comics...?

I hope IDW gets to hang on to the license; they've done some pretty great stuff with it (And their choices of artists have been much more inspired than those working on the Legendary graphic novel). And I'm actually really, really scared of a DC Comics Godzilla, for fear it would lead to a crossover with the DCU, and based on DC Universe Vs. Masters of The Universe, I have no desire to see the DCU do any sort of crossing-over with other franchises I like.

Unless I get to write it, I suppose. Speaking of which, I have a great idea for a DCU/Toho crossover! Superman, Godzilla? If you two are reading this, give me a call. The three of us should really sit down for a meeting.

Four short-ish reviews of four books I haven't much to say about:

The Flowers of Evil Vol. 2 (Vertical; 2012) The first volume of Shuzo Oshimi's intense high-school humiliation psycho dramedy ended with a pretty potent cliffhanger—Nakamura blackmails Kausga into wearing Saeki's stolen gym clothes underneath his own clothes while on a date with Saeki—so I was pretty excited to see where it went next. And I wasn't disappointed, although I was more than a little surprised to see that Oshimi was able to to continually amp up the level of anxiety and wring more and more suspense out of this truly bizarre triangle of characters—often in very unexpected ways (I laughed aloud when I saw how Nakamura handled Kasuga confessing his feelings for Saeki at the end of their date).

The solution to Kausga's problems seems fairly simple to me—forget your dream girl and go for the crazy, perverted girl who is obviously obsessed with you—but then, the characters in manga never seem to pursue the most simple solutions that seem so obvious to us readers. Particularly where love and romance are concerned (And, of course, Nakamura does seem crazy in a scary, sometimes emotionally sadistic way).

One of the many things Oshimi does extremely well in these comics is capture and convey the operatic intensity that accompanies hormone-fueled experience of any kind with the opposite sex.

Take, for example, this scene where Kasuga notices he can see the tiniest corner of Saeki's bra, and reacts by...totally freaking the fuck out.

This volume actually has a cliffhanger the equal of that at the conclusion of the first volume, climaxing in a beautifully-drawn, epic act of vandalism that leaves two of the characters panting and spent. What's the morning after that going to be like? I can't wait to find out.

Also! More talk of shitbugs!

I kind of love when Nakamura yells at Kasuga, in large part because of how weird the things she shouts at him sound, perhaps because of their translation from Japanese to English, and perhaps simply because she's a teenager and teenagers say dumb shit sometimes, or perhaps just because Oshimi is awesome, and writes awesomely weird insults.

(Note: Though they may look it, those two panels above aren't consecutive ones; they're just the two panels in the whole book where Nakamura insults Kasuga in the funniest ways)

Foiled (First Second; 2010) If I've counted correctly, I believe Jane Yolen has written somewhere in the neighborhood of one billion prose fiction books, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before she wrote a graphic novel. This is the graphic novel she wrote, which is drawn by the extremely talented Mike Cavallaro.

It's about a slightly alienated and normally angsty teenage girl highly devoted to the sport of fencing and to playing role-playing games with her cousin, a teenage girl whose life gets a little more dramatic and then a lot more dramatic when two new things enter her life: A new practice foil with a fake-looking gem-stone at the bottom of the hilt, and a very handsome but slightly off new boy at her school.

Yolen's story and characters are very YA, and the set-up and pay-off fairly obvious, but the structure is unique and fairly clever (each chapter reflects a part of a fencing match), and while she hammers various fencing-to-life metaphors, the blows all land.

Cavallaro gets an "illustrated by" credit instead of...something else, so it's difficult to tell just how much he did when it came to putting the book together, but I suspect an awful lot: This doesn't read like an experienced prose writer toying with a comics-format, it just reads like a very professional graphic novel put together by people who know exactly what they're doing (Of course, First Second isn't exactly known for poor comics or anything).

While our heroine narrates, there are several passages that are extremely effective comics-only ones (that is, one doesn't need the narrator around to walk us through what's going on—and Yolen and Cavallaro do a pretty swell job of making this story into one that would only work in comics, the mark of any really excellent comic book.

Wizard of Oz-like, the "real" world is black-and-white (the protagonist is colorblind), but the visitors from another plane to our world, fantasy creatures of the sorts that populate the RPGs played in the comic, are in brilliant primary colors.

The book ends rather—I'd even say very, maybe even extremely—abruptly, but that's likely because it's meant to continue into future volumes. And, a quick peek at Amazon reveals Curses! Foiled Again was released in January. I oughta look for that. You oughta look for this, if you haven't already.

Our Valued Customers: Conversations from the Comic Book Store (Perigree Trade; 2012) Rather than listening to me try to explain it over the course of the next paragraph, you could always click to cartoonist Tim Chamberlin's ourvaluedcustomers.net and simply take a look at his work for yourself. If you're reluctant to go all that way out of your way and, like, push a button, I'll give it a shot.

Our Valued Customers is basically just an overheard in the comics shop feature, with Chamberlin finding a funny quote someone said, sticking it in a dialogue bubble, drawing that bubble over a caricature and sticking that caricature in a panel, with a short, punchy narration box setting up the gag.

Each is pretty similar. The box will read something like "Regarding a Thor Poster..." or "To His Mom..." or "Before Paying For a Spider-Man Comic..." The characters Chamberlin draws are all big-headed, pointy-fingered and rarely appealing. They generally have overbites, big, wide mouths—presumably because that's where they breathe out of—and flecks of spittle. Certain signifiers regarding age and style will be drawn around them. None of them look like poster men, women or children advertising the attractiveness of people who read comic books.

What's interesting about the comics, to me anyway, is how beautifully they stand alone, and the wide variety of points-of-view. Sometimes they say something really stupid, yes; often times about comics or some related form of nerd pop culture, other times something stupid that has nothing to do with comics or the comics shop (although the fact that they are comics-readers saying it in a comics shop does reflect back on the medium, industry, market and its participants in some ways, even if only faintly). And sometimes they say things that are genuinely clever and funny.

Like the above, maybe my favorite of the half-dozen or so strips in this book collection that I really liked. That one stuck with me, and whenever I think about it, I start to giggle a little, imagining teenage Bruce Wayne inventing this elaborate cover story and that becoming so committed to his lie that he finds himself backed into a corner and he basically has to become Batman. And...well, never mind all that.

Tone is hard to read into some of these, particularly the funnier ones. That is, it' shard to tell if the person was joking when they said something or if they were serious, as Chamberlin's artwork generally makes the speakers look like the sort of folks that couldn't be ironic or sarcastic when saying some of the dumb things they say. Not that it ultimately matters, of course.

Regardless of how you might feel about the presentation, the artwork or the cumulative effect, if you've spent any amount of time in a comics shop, you will enjoy some of Chamberlin's comics. You'll laugh, as many are amusing in the "it's funny because it's true" kind of way. And hell, maybe you'll then weep, as many are depressing in the "it's sad because it's true" kind of way, too.

Spider-Man: Spider Island (Marvel; 2012) When Marvel first started soliciting this Amazing Spider-Man story arc, I was intrigued by the simple but clever premise (everyone in New York gets Spider-Man's powers) and the timely delivery mechanism for those powers (bed-bugs). I was confident in the skills of the creative team of writer Dan Slott and artist Humberto Ramos, two creators whose particular talents are ideally suited to Marvel's wise-cracking adventure hero.

But I was also intimidated by the indeterminate size and scope of the storyline, and pretty alienated by the "One More Day" Spider-Man continuity reboot that shook up everything I thought I knew about Spider-Man and made it different, just because.

Well, it turns out I pre-judged it pretty well.

The storyline is gargantuan, being collected into two 400-ish page hardcovers (the above-mentioned one, featuring material from the Slott/Ramos/Other Artists issues of ASM and tie-in issues of Venom and some ASM-branded tie-in material, and Spider-Man: Spider-Island Companion, containing all of the tie-in material from miniseries, one-shots and other monthlies). It's a very thorough collection, but the reading experience involved a lot of stopping and starting (the book begins with short, several-page prequel stories that apparently ran in the back of previous issues of ASM...?) and, particularly when the Rick Remender/Tom Fowler Venom issues appeared, ground would be retreated over and re-covered, as the different creative teams would tackle major plot points from different perspectives. The inclusion of the specials also meant narrative hallways, dead-ends and cul de sacs were carved out.

It was a weird reading experience, but not necessarily a bad one. The plot is just the one I described above, with a major Spider-Man villain from the past originally cast as the bad guy, before it's revealed he's actually a sub-ordinate to another villain (whom I had never heard of). Their plan is to turn everyone in New York City into giant spider-monsters they can control, and our hero has to try to stop them with the help of Marvel's other heroes (and, behind the scenes, the new Flash Thompson-possessed, gun-toting, black-ops version of Venom) while dealing with all the chaos that naturally ensues when everyone in Manhattan gets spider-powers.

It was pretty surprisingly laden with continuity (the reboot from a few years back didn't clear the cobwebs off of Spidey's 50-year-long story, just reorganized random elements), with heroes and villains and supporting characters appearing from old, relatively minor stories of ancient Spider-Man past, the much-maligned "Clone Saga" storyline and, of course, the then-current ASM status quo.

I like looking at Ramos drawings of stuff, and there's a lot of stuff for him to draw in here. I was lost on a lot of plot-points that seemed like they would have been bigger deals if I had read all the same comics that Dan Slott had read, but, at the same time, it was kind of fun experiencing reveals as random occurrences. It was a very old-school comics-reading feeling, like buying a continuity-heavy "universe" superhero comic off a drug store rack and joining a story in-progress. Remember that? Not having any idea what the hell was going on, exactly, but still kind of digging it?

I think Marvel sacrificed coherency and aesthetic unity for completion with this particular packaging job. In short, none of the artists draw much of anything like one another; Ramos draws most of the important parts, but Stefano Caselli comes in for much of the climax, and the Venom pieces and many of the digressive stories are all by different artists.

No Sale: Amazing Spider-Man #546

The devil on my left shoulder made the following arguments for not buying Amazing Spider-Man #546, the first issue of the new post-devil deal rebooted continuity “Brand New Day” initiative:

—Are you really going to be able to read a Spider-Man comic for a few months without hearing EIC Joe Quesada’s weird rationales in the back of your head? Hell, thanks to Howard Stern, you’ve even now got a voice to put to them.

—Are you really going to be able to read a Spider-Man comic for a few months without trying to figure out what the hell is going on continuity-wise now? You know you’re way too anal when it comes to there being actual sequence in your sequential art, consistency in your serial story-telling—wouldn’t reading “Brand New Day” Spider-Man just be like asking for a seizure?

—This thing cost $3.99, a $1 more than your average comic book. Sure, it's oversized, but that’s almost one-fourth a volume of Essential Spider-Man. Or a little less than half of this.

—Steve McNiven is drawing the lead story. Are you going to be able to read a McNiven-drawn story without being reminded of all the irritation you felt at Civil War? Look, your face is turning red with anger just seeing his name on the cover.

—Don’t you get all the Spider-Man you need from Ultimate Spider-Man and the occasional Marvel Adventures Spider-Man issue or digest? Just how many Spider-Man comics do you really need to read a month, man?

—And check that out: One of the back-ups has Mike Deodato doing his photo-referene a la Photoshop thing with an Osborn again...this time plopping the Ditko-designed hair on top of James freaking Franco. Not only is that stupid looking and horrifyingly lazy for a professional comics artist, isn't it also illegal? Franco owns his own likeness, after all...did he give Deodato and Marvel permission to "cast" him in this story, or are they profitting off his likeness without compensating him?


The angel on my right shoulder made the following arguments in favor of buying ASM #546:

—Two words: Dan Slott. Twenty-one more words: The lead story is written by Dan Slott, whom I believe you have a buy on sight rule regarding, don’t you? Remember how well Slott wrote Spidey in that one issue of The Avengers: The Initiative? Or that issue of She-Hulk where he tried to sue J. Jonah Jameson for slander? (Or was it libel? Or both?) Or Spider-Man/Human Torch? Dan Slott was born to write Spider-Man comics; are you really going to miss out on that just because his Editor-in-Chief can’t write his way out of a paper bag?

—You also tend to buy and enjoy everything with John Romita Jr.’s name on it, right? Well, he drew two pages of this.

—You’ve only been regularly reading Amazing Spider-Man since 2001, man; don’t act like you have a personal stake in whether the last 20 years of Spider-Man comics actually happened or not.

—This is the start of the triweekly shipping schedule for Amazing Spider-Man. You loved the structure of the weekly-shipping 52; this is going to be almost like that, only with better art.

—This is also the beginning of Steve Wacker’s tenure as the editor in charge of the Spider-Man franchise. He edited 52, one of the most enjoyable comics-reading experiences of, like, your whole life. Surely this is going to end up being worth checking out, right?



They both made some valid points, and I admit I was more than a little torn.

Then the devil on my left shoulder countered with, “Look, I wasn’t going to say anything at first but come on; this thing has Greg fucking Land art in it. Checkmate.”

To which the angel on my right could only meekly reply, “Dude, he’s right. Greg Land is just awful. Forget it.”

The price is right: Free Comic Book Day 2007 offerings announced

Borrowing the tried-and-true tactic of drug dealers, Free Comic Book Day gives newcomers a free first taste in the hopes of hooking them on comics and, should they become truly addictedd to the medium—bam!—comic shops and publishers have another new customer for life.

Free Comic Book Day is May 5th this year, which is probably a little too early to start seeing which of your local comic shops are participating and finalizing your shopping list, but it's not too early to look at what books we can look forward to, and contemplate whether or not they’re very good choices for evangelizing the medium and growing the customer base.

First, let’s look at the offerings of the two big companies which, for all intents and purposes, constitute the comic book industry.

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES
IN THE 31ST CENTURY #1

DC's gold-level title for this year, is [the] all-new, all-ages Johnny DC series spinning out of the smash-hit animated series on Kids WB on the CW! In this debut issue, the Legion travels back in time for reinforcement to stop the Fatal Five from destroying Metropolis because this looks like a job for—Clark Kent?! Can six teenagers from the future help a mild-mannered teenager become the Man of Steel, or will the Fatal Five determine his destiny before it's even begun? The Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #1 is a 32-page comic book written by J. Torres, with art by Chynna Clugston-Flores and a cover by Steve Uy.

Media tie-in books are popular giveaways on FCBD, but the choice for companies to release them always struck me as somewhat counter-intuitive (DC’s been giving away a comic book adaptation of a cartoon adaptation of one of their comic book every FCBD since the holiday was launched).

On the one hand, they tend to be titles newcomers are already familiar with, making them likely to pick them up, but on the other hand, they’re also books that don’t really need any sort of push. The Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century (holy shit, is that title long enough?) is a comic book that already has a half-hour commercial for itself running on TV, does it need the FBCD push too?

Additionally, I can’t imagine it being a book that’s going to lead to life-long comics readers or, if it does, that it’s the best one to start them on. I’m about as nerdy a DC reader as you can get (Hell, I blog on their comics, for chrissakes!) and even I’m leery of the LOSH. The first year’s worth of Mark Waid and Barry Kitson’s current series is the longest I’ve ever read any Legion series, and I wouldn’t have even attempted that if it weren’t a hard reboot. Legion continuity is a fucking desert full of mirrors, and any traveling into it are risking their own sanity.

That said, I do plan on reading this new series for a couple of issues, at least. All of DC’s cartoon tie-ins are incredibly hit-or-miss, but this one has the advantage of Chynna on art chores. Of course, Chynna writing and designing her own LOSH series would be even cooler than this, but I’ll take Chynna art wherever I can get it.

Confidential to DC: There’s no hyphen in the word "superheroes!" Cut that out!



JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #0

DC's silver-level title is Best-selling author Brad Meltzer broke the JLA down in the top-selling, critically acclaimed Identity Crisis—and now he puts all the pieces back together again! The core heroes of the DC Universe, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, are back—but where do they stand with each other? Join us for this historic and unforgettable new beginning of the Justice League of America as we look at the past, present and future of the World's Greatest Super Heroes! Justice Leage of America #0 is written by Brad Meltzer, with art by Eric Wight, Dick Giordano, Tony Harris, George Pérez, J.H. Williams III, Luke McDonnell, Paul Neary, Gene Ha, Rags Morales, Ethan Van Sciver, Kevin Maguire, Adam Kubert, Dan Jurgens & Kevin Nowlan, Jim Lee, Howard Porter & Dexter Vines, Andy Kubert & Jesse Delperdang, Phil Jimenez & Andy Lanning, and Ed Benes & Sandra Hope, and a cover by Michael Turner.



Now this is just a jaw-dropping surprise, although I guess it shouldn’t be, since last year DC gave away Superman/Batman #1, a title that was so chock-full of crazy cameos and Easter eggs that you need to read it with a copy of Who’s Who within reach. And it was also a title that was always late, making it one of comicdom’s more frustrating “monthly” series.

JLoA is one of DC’s bona fide hits, one of only three such hits that comes out on a monthly basis (along with JSoA and 52). According to Comics Buyer Guide’s latest estimates, the title’s #4 and #5 issues were the top-selling books in December, both topping out at over 130,000 books.

It’s one of the very few books that doesn’t have any problems attracting new readers, and doesn’t need any help racking in tens upon tens of thousands of readers each issue.

But as popular as it is with people who already read comic books, it’s hard to imagine that this special zero issue will convert non-comics readers into comics readers.

The one thing the book had going for it was a ton of great art (seriously, look at that list!). The story is pretty unintelligible, consisting almost entirely of flashbacks and flash-forwards.

The flashbacks occur along a heavily revised timeline of Justice League history. This is set on the post-Infinite Crisis timeline, which is similar to the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths time line, although it covers events between the two Crises as well. See, you have to know special nerd vocabulary just to get through a synopsis of the issue.

The flash-forwards cover scenes we might see at some point in the future (the Trinity’s re-discovery of Earth-2, the death of Pa Kent, the battle with Luthor, Hal Jordan’s wedding) and events we almost certainly won’t see (Wonder Woman’s wedding, Superman and Wonder Woman commiserating after Batman’s death). Meltzer has some neat ideas in the story, but if you don’t already know who Hal and Barry and Arthur and J’onn are, then it’s unlikely they’ll strike you as neat.

Of greater concern is the fact that if someone picks this up and falls in love with it, where do they go from there? Track down every Meltzer comic book, and all you’ll get are a particularly strong Green Arrow trade and Identity Crisis, both of which are extremely steeped in continuity (or Meltzer’s version of it; IC actually makes a number of mistakes regarding secret identities), and the latter of which pivots around a brutal rape and puts most of the “Satellite Era” JLoA in a very unflattering light.

And I did mention the brutal rape, right?

In that respect, if DC had to put one of their best-sellers out there, JSoA #1 woulda been a much better choice. It’s a more accessible read (jam-packed full of legacy characters as it is), and anyone who reads it and wants to follow Johns’ work on the JSA will have a whole backlog of trade paperbacks to peruse featuring the team, not to mention Johns’ Flash, Green Lantern, Teen Titans, Infinite Crisis and so on.

Better still might have been a very accessible, jumping-on-point of a book featuring a popular character that isn’t already a blockbuster hit, like 52 and the two Justice titles. Maybe Superman #654 or All-Star Superman #1 (or any issue of that superior series, really).

Come to think of it, DC doesn’t really offer a lot of good jumping-on-point books that are also done-in-one’s sure to hook a lot of readers, do they? I guess they could always create something original that fits that criteria. That’s the route Marvel’s going with one of their FCBD offerings, namely…



AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: SWING SHIFT

Written By Dan Slott
Art by Phil Jimenez & Andy Lanning
Cover by Phil Jimenez
Fan-favorite writer Dan (Avengers: The Initiative; She-Hulk) Slott and Superstar Artist Phil ( New X-Men; Infinite Crisis) Jimenez bring you a brand new tale of danger and intrigue starring your favorite web-slinger...a tale that may just come back to haunt Spidey in the coming months.



Well, if I had to choose between one of these first four books, this is the one I’d be all over.

Dan Slott is pretty much the perfect Marvel writer—his scripts are smart, fun and funny, his understanding of the characters and history are unassailable, and he manages to tell stories that capture that old Marvel spirit while reading thoroughly modern and vital rather than dated. He’s a perfect Spider-Man writer (as his Spider-Man/Human Torch and Shulkie story about Spidey suing J. Jonah Jameson proved) and I can’t wait to see what he does with the wall-crawler (I’d like to see him take on a monthly Spider-Man book at some point, but hopefully not until Marvel loses interest in its current Spider-Man direction, what with the magic totem powers and the arm spikes and the different costumes every ten issues).

Phil Jimenez has long been one of my favorite artists, but I wouldn’t imagine him as a very good fit for Spidey stylistically, which actually makes me more eager to see his work on this book.

This seems like a good FCBD offering. Anything Spider-Man is a good idea in light of this summer’s movie, the fact that this is an original book means it’s likely to interest people who already read comics, and Slott is a writer with enough trades under his belt that if this is a hit with brand-new readers who want more of the same, it could potentially interest them in Slott’s ongoing She-Hulk and it’s trade collections, the Spider-Man/Human Torch digest and the upcoming Avengers spin-off.



MARVEL ADVENTURES THREE-IN-ONE
Written by FRED VAN LENTE and PAUL BENJAMIN
Penciled by JAMES CORDEIRO
Cover by DAVID NAKAYAMA
First, Tony Stark must find out who or what is behind a mysterious series of thefts at Stark International of Brazil, but is the answer more than his alter-ego, the INVINCIBLE IRON MAN, can handle?
And in our second feature, brilliant scientist Bruce Banner has a secret side to his personality—an alter ego that's capable of causing mass destruction—THE INCREDIBLE HULK. Can he keep the gamma-powered monster at bay while on the run from the authorities?
PLUS…we've got a story featuring Eisner Nominated FRANKLIN RICHARDS! Son of a Genius!



I have no idea what the hell this book is all about. I’m assuming the Iron Man and Hulk stories are new, since neither character has his own Marvel Advantures book. Fred Van Lente’s philosophy comics are phenomenal, but I’ve never read any of his super-work.

As for the Franklin Richards story, I would assume that would have to be the work of Marc Sumerak and Chris Eliopoulos, but the copy doesn’t say for sure.

I’ve heard good things about the Franklin books from other members of the “Best Shots” crew, but the whole thing makes me very uncomfortable. The Calvin and Hobbes homage was cute once, but doing it over and over well, that joke isn’t funny any more, and the longer it goes one, the less it seems like an homage and the more it feels like robbery.



And now, everything else!



THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY / ZERO KILLER / PANTHEON CITY—FCBD EDITION

By Various
Three for the price of… none? Conceived and written by My Chemical Romance front man Gerard Way, The Umbrella Academy features interior art by Gabriel Bá (Casanova) and Dave Stewart (Hellboy), and covers by multiple-Eisner-Award-winning artist James Jean (Fables). The Umbrella Academydebuts with a 12-page story set before the start of the upcoming series. This issue also features sneak-peeks of two other upcoming Dark Horse titles: Zero Killer, by Rex Mundi creator Arvid Nelson and Matt Camp (Shadows), and Pantheon City, written by Ron Marz (Samurai: Heaven and Earth) and drawn by Clement Sauve (Stormwatch)!



Something about the words “Conceived and written by My Chemical Romance front man” fills me with anger and hatred, but one glance at that beautiful James Jean cover soothes me and dissipates all my negative feelings. This one might be interesting.



WALT DISNEY’S MICKEY MOUSE—FCBD EDITION

2006 Eisner Award Hall of Fame honoree Floyd Gottfredson brings you the Mickey Mouse you love: a two-fisted scrapper in a jaw-dropping epic! “The Robin Hood Adventure” takes our hero to Medieval times, where he must prove himself a warrior—sword-fighting, jousting, and risking his life to rob the rich! And then there’s that little matter of marriage to one of Minnie’s ancestors… ods bodkins!



The Gemstone offerings tend to be some of the best FCBD books. While I generally prefer ducks to mice, this one certainly sounds fun, doesn’t it?



THE ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN

by Robert Kirkman & Jason Howard
When Gary Hampton is mauled and left for dead — his life takes a drastic turn. Gary is cursed—when the moon is full he transforms into a beast of the night—a werewolf! But this curse will not be used for evil— witness the birth or the world’s most unlikely new superhero—The Astounding Wolf-Man! Don’t miss Robert (Invincible, The Walking Dead) Kirkman’s new series from Image Comics! It all starts Right Here for FREE!


Aaa! If you must use a dash in every single sentence in the same paragraph, at least use them right! Ghah. Anyway, this looks awesome. Robert Kirkman certainly knows his away around the superhero genre, and is no slouch at horror either. This should be a series to keep an eye on well past FCBD.




THE UNSEEN PEANUTS—FCBD EDITION

By Charles M. Schulz
Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts is the most-reprinted comic strip of all time, with literally hundreds of collections published in the last 50 years. You would expect that by now every Peanuts strip has been collected more than once... and you’d be very wrong! In fact, hundreds of Peanuts strips were never reprinted. The Complete Peanuts has been rectifying this, and The Unseen Peanuts is a special collection of over 100 of these rarities. It’s a great introduction of the strip to new readers, and a fascinating trove of rarities that will surprise and delight even the most diligent Peanuts — a perfect sampler for both neophyte and old hand!


THE TRAIN WAS BANG ON TIME—FCBD EDITION
AN EPISODE FROM THE BLACK DIAMOND DETECTIVE AGENCY
By Mr. Eddie Campbell
First Second Books celebrates Free Comic Book Day with a preview of the graphic novel The Train Was Bang On Time: An Episode from The Black Diamond Detective Agency by Mr. Eddie Campbell, to be published later this spring. It’s a tale of robbery, explosions, and terror in America's heartland at the turn of the twentieth century.






As someone who is alread a comics addict, I’m not a big fan of these sorts of preview books on FCBD, since I’ll likely buy and read these things in full eventually anyway, but they should be great recruiting tools. Particularly that Peanuts one. I don’t know how hooky an Eddie Campbell book will be to people who just walked into their first comics shop, but Schulz’s Peanuts is a tried and true sequential art lure, and Fanta as designed a beautiful set of books collecting his life’s work.



COMICS FESTIVAL! 2007—FCBD EDITION

By Various
It’s time again for Comics Festival!, the most exciting FCBD title of the year! Featuring new stories from Darwyn Cooke (The New Frontier), Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim), Hope Larson (Salamander Dream), Chip Zdarsky, Michael Cho, and a host of great Canadian cartoonists (including a full-color section!), Comics Festival! 2007 is the FCBD book not to be missed!




Based on that line-up alone, I concur with that last sentence of copy. I kind of wish Oni had another kick-ass installment of Scott Pilgrim to give away like that did last year, but their offering is still a solid if old one.




WHITEOUT #1—FCBD EDITION
By Greg Rucka & Steve Lieber
Oni Press and the Eisner-winning team of Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber are pleased to offer the first issue of one of the most critically acclaimed indy comics series of the last decade! U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko is the lawwoman charged with maintaining order in the snowy wasteland of Antarctica, but when someone commits murder on "The Ice," will Carrie be able to find the culprit?


Easily Greg Rucka’s best comics work. Considering how old this story is (Whiteout was one of Oni’s first offerings, if I recall correctly) I’m downright shocked to see this here, but it is a book that will appeal to mainstream, non-comics readers. If I were Oni Press, though, I might have tried to make something like their old color specials, in which characters from a variety of their titles would interact in a single story drawn in a jam-style by many of their creators.




BONGO COMICS FREE-FOR-ALL! 2007—FCBD EDITION
By Matt Groening
The comic company that brings you The Simpsons and Futurama in the fantastic four-color format joins the ranks of promotion-seeking publishers on Free Comic Book Day by joining with retailers to reel in new readers, with a comic cornucopia of tantalizing tidbits and a spectacular sampling of the best in humor comics!

I generally only read the Treehouse of Horror Halloween specials, but it’s nice to see Bongo offering this, if only to remind folks that there’s still one medium in which the Simpsons are still really funny.

Delayed Reaction: Spider-Man/Human Torch

Spider-Man/Human Torch: I'm With Stupid (Marvel Comics), by Dan Slott and Ty Templeton

Why’d I Wait?: Both Spider-Man and the Human Torch can be incredibly fun characters in the right writer’s hands, and I’ve long admired the work of series artist Ty Templeton, but I had no idea who this Dan Slott character writing the thing was when it was originally released.

Why Now?: After hearing the ten thousandth person praise Slott’s work on The Thing, She-Hulk and G.L.A., I thought I’d check my local library for some of his trades, and all they had was the Spider-Man/Human Torch: I’m With Stupid digest.

Well? As soon as I got done reading the library’s copy of the trade, I set it down, went straight to my computer, and ordered a copy of my very own. Simply put, this was one of the most fun mainstream superhero comics I’ve read this year, and certainly one of the better Spider-Man books.

Slott takes us through various stages of Spidey and Torch’s rivalry/friendship by teaming them at different points in their continuity. Each issue of the original stories is a single story, but an overarching story about the heroes’ and their civilian identities’ mutual jealousy of one another, a theme that loops in and out of the episodic adventures.

So we get Johnny Storm and Crystal hanging out with the gang at the Bean during Spider-Man’s college years. Torch giving Spidey driving lessons in the Spider-Buggy between battles with the Red Ghost and his super-apes. Black Cat and Black Panther guest-starring during the time Johnny and Spidey both wore black. And even an appearance by Paste Pot Pete, and some talk of clones.

It’s mostly all about the fun and the funny, which Slott has become known for, but there’s also some surprisingly strong pathos here and there. I picked it up knowing I’d love the art and not sure what to expect from the writing; but when I set it down, it seemed clear that Slott was the star here. Not that Templeton’s off or anything, of course. In fact, while it doesn’t seem to be in his regular style, he does a great job of drawing to the era of comics the story is plucked from, imitating a series of Marvel house styles without ever losing himself in them. A pretty tough trick to pull off, really.

The digest format isn’t the best way to read the series, as it has the same problems as all of Marvel’s digests. I’m not really sure what they’re thinking is when it comes to digest collections—if they’re trying to trick young manga readers into picking it up thinking it’s manga, or if they’re simply seeking a cheap, kid-friendly format.

Either way, they’re off base. On the one hand, the dimensions of the art and letters are for standard comics, and thus seem too small on the digest pages (and don’t read one bit like manga, which is more than just an art style or set of dimensions, it’s a different type of storytelling with it’s very own visual language). And on the other hand, I doubt many kids will give a damn about the story it’s telling—if you don’t remember the decades worth of Marvel history Slott pull’s the details of each chapter from, half the charm of the book will be lost on you.

Would I travel back in time to buy the first issue off the rack?: Hell yes, the sanctity of the space-time continuum be damned.