Superior Spider-Man #25 – Review

by Dan Slott, Christos Gage (Writers), Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba (Artists), Edgar Delgado (Colorist)

The Story: It’s the Avengers against the Superior Venom as chaos erupts in the city.

The Review: There’s always something rather nice in longer issues. While the normal 20 pages structures can be generally used well by most writers, there’s something satisfying in knowing that publishers aren’t against the idea to print larger book in order to tell bigger stories. They come as a bit more costly most of the time, but they are worth it more often than not.

However, I cannot say that the higher page count was used in the most efficient of ways in the big conclusion to Darkest Hour, the Venom story which pitted Otto as infected by the symbiote. There is plenty of nice ideas and a general sense of action that is rather entertaining, yet there are several problems that makes this large issue not the best it could very well be.

The most obvious problem is the number of plots and subplots the book tries to handle at the same time. The war against the Goblin King and Hobgoblin, the transformation of Carlie Cooper, the fate of Flash Thompson, how citizens reacts and many more such events are thrown at the readers, with not all of them receiving the buildup or enough space to have the impact it should have. It does get exciting at times, but most of these scenes ends way too soon for them to be satisfying.

Spooks #1 (of 4) – Review

By: R.A. Salvatore, Geno Salvatore (story), Ryan Schifrin (story & script), Larry Hama (script), Adam Archer (art), Jonny Rench (colors)

I picked this comic just for the great cover art! It reminded me of the old box art for computer games from the 80s. Check the awesome animated cover at www.spooksthecomic.com – first time I’ve seen something like that.

The United States Department of Supernatural Defense (BPRD… I mean DPSD) has specially trained forces on its payroll to protect us from supernatural enemies. We first meet Zach Ramirez, who’s using silver bullets to kill a loose werewolf, but the beast doesn’t die. I guess the “normal” rules don’t apply here. The werewolf bites Zach on his arm but he’s one of the 0.0001% of the population that is immune to werewolf bites.

The main plot goes on about this witch who is raising an army of evil doers to conquer the world once and for all. She has the werewolves on her side and even a headless horseman that she animates from the dead. Vampires join her swelling army as well, but each race has their own agenda. This group from hell is completed by a bodyguard figure in the form of a Frankenstein-esque monster.

I really don’t like having all these monsters together in a kind of crossover world. I’d rather deal with one species per story. I hope the book gets enough sales to make it into an ongoing series (right now it’s a four issue miniseries). I’m intrigued on what’s going to happen next but I don’t mind if I have to skip on it. The only way to guarantee a buy from me is if issue #2 cover is done by Staples. (Grade: C-)

-Daniel Yanez