Avenging Spider-Man #16 Review

Hello Everybody :). Welcome to my review of Avenging Spider-Man #16. For this first issue of the "Superior" era, Spock (whoever thought up that nickname is a total genius) teams with Wolverine & the X-Men. The comic starts with a giant spider terrorizing New York. Spock arrives to stop it, running into Wolverine & the X-Men in the process. What I like most about this issue is that everything proceeds in a logical manner (for a superhero comic anyway). The X-Men don't notice at first that somethings off with "Spidey" (that's what fighting a giant, mutant spider will do to you) but they slowly become more suspicious. However seeing Spock finally use that supposedly "Superior" brain of his & attempt to act more like Peter Parker is, in a way, satisfying. It's been one of my main complaints with Amazing Spider-Man #700 & Avenging Spider-Man #15.1 that none of the supporting cast seemed to notice "Peter's" radical change in personality, so seeing writer Christopher Yost finally acknowledge this is great.

The brief fight between Spock & Wolverine is certainly entertaining, but in my opinion, Yost uses it to establish Otto's arrogance rather than his superiority. Personally I think the reason that Spock won the fight so quickly is that Spock caught Wolverine off-guard, not because he is "superior in every way" as he puts it. Given that Wolverine was featured in the Fired teaser for Superior Spider-Man, I'll be interested to see what role he plays in that storyline now that he's been left suispicious of Spock. The other X-Men feature more in the background, but they each get a moment in the spotlight & Yost's voices for them are on the mark. IGN complained in their review of the issue that Yost "laboriously uses Otto's monologue to introduce every single X-Man and offer the new Spider-Man's extended thoughts on mutants." For me this is a good thing, it showcases Spock's opinion of each of the X-Men, which once again showcases his arrogance. The reveal that the Jackal was behind the giant mutant spider (which turns out to be a clone as well) is an interesting development which suggests that Avenging Spider-Man is adopting a format similar to Doctor Who & the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

 Paco Medina's art is substantially more impressive than in the last issue, there are some very dynamic shots here, the fight between Wolverine & Spock being the highlight of the issue, Medina also draws the new costume well (although the nose spike makes Spock look like an owl). There's a lot more humour in this issue than you'd expect, Yost implements this well and it never feels out of place, nor does it feel in conflict with the darker material (most of the time anyway). This is a great start to the new era of Avenging & I hope Christopher Yost & Paco Medina keep the following issue's to this standard...

Score: 4.5/5.0

 

Venom #28-29 Review

 

Hello Everybody :). This is my first post on my all-new Marvel-ous Blog ;). I'm due to take over from Adam Zenobi as the regular reviewer for Venom on the site spidermanreviews.com starting with issue 30, so I thought I'd do a quick review of #28-29 to lead up to that. I'm new to Cullen Bunn's run on the series and if this is the standard, then I'd say right now, this is a decent comic book, the key word here being decent. Right now the plot, whilst there's some interesting occult stuff here and there, is pretty much an excuse to get Flash to move to Philidelphia (which in my opinion is just to get him out of the way of the new Spider-Man so Flash doesn't become suspicious). On the plus side though, Bunn has a good voice for Flash that's very consistant with Rick Remenders work on the series. I especially like the scene in #29 when Flash critcises himself for throwing around football terms when he should be saving lives, only to come right out and say how its just a cover up to mask his fear of failure.

Flash's sparring match with Valkrye is fun to read, the scene where Venom accidentily refers to Valkrye as his girlfriend is a much needed dose of humour in an otherwise tense and creepy atmosphere. The two make an interesting pair and I hope Bunn takes things in an interesting direction for them. The character of Katy Kiernan meanwhile comes off as a clone of Norah Winters from Amazing Spider-Man, only a little more annoying. The villians of this particular story are the U-Foes, who I've seen before but don't know anything about. They aren't very interesting as villians (though their ultimate scheme has yet to be fully unveiled) . Thony Silas provides some entertaining artwork that matchs Bunn's writing (although personally I prefer Tony Moore's work on the series). Ultimately, this isn't anything outstanding, but its still a decent read and I look forward to the resolution in #30. As for the future of the character, well, I like how far Flash has come since the early days of Spider-Man and honestly, I hope he lasts a few more years as Venom. Eddie Brock will always be my undisputed favourite Venom, but Flash comes really, really close...