Superior Spider-Man #13 – Review

Dan Slott, Christos Gage (Writers), Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell, Terry Pallot (Artists), Antonio Fabela (Colorist)

The Story: Spider-Ock deals with the Spider-Slayer once and for all as the chaos at the Raft ends.

The Review: It can be hard to have a fitting and decent conclusion to any arc, however long it may be. Most of what is written, be it the action, the conversation, the exposition and so on usually leads to a finale that leads to the next arc or set up something else for the title in question, which is per course for pretty much every superhero books published nowadays. As we have seen Spider-Ock fight a big crisis at the Raft caused by the Spider-Slayer, many other elements went into the situation, as we are now in the very end of the whole deal. Does Slott and Gage manage to give us something exciting in the process of closing that chapter, however?

In many ways, they do succeed admirably in making the most of what Slott had set up in his early run with Peter Parker and with the new character that is Otto. The action is still pretty good, the character work that is to be found here is entertaining and solid and we do get some big surprises along the way. Both writers do a lot of good there, despite some minor fumbles here and there.

One of the most preeminent piece of the story is the action, as we get to see Otto trying to accomplish what he had promised in the previous issue: kill Alistair Smythe, the Spider-Slayer. The confrontation between these two, taking places two times in this issue, reads very well as it is, after all, a villain fight. As Alistair tries to play the nobility and heroism that was more akin to Peter Parker, it is always fun to see just how Otto differentiates from what was previously established. The fight between those two is brutal in some ways and it does show some surprising twist in the second and final encounter between the two. There’s also some other action scenes featuring some of the other characters, like the Lizard, which are actually pretty fun to read too, as the writers uses this character that had been teased during the whole arc. In short, the action is fun and it does play up to may things introduced before in smart ways.

Superior Spider-Man #12 – Review

By: Dan Slott, Christos Gage (Writers), Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell, Terry Pallot (Artists), Antonio Fabela (Colorist)

The Story: Spider-Ock deals with Alistair Smythe and his goonies inside the Raft as things get rather chaotic.

The Review: If there’s something that a superhero fan needs to face sometime, it’s the fact that a lot of those capes and tight comics are build on a very specific thing: action. Now, many might argue, with legitimacy might I add, that the superhero genre has evolved in the many years of its existence, yet a lot of them are based on the infallible principle that those men in costumes fight evil or crime or whichever cause they see as wrong in violent ways, much to our delight.

We see here the second issue of a three-parter dealing with Otto fighting people he had put in the Raft, a prison for super-humans, enhanced criminals and the likes. As he fights Alistair Smythe, he also has to contend with Scorpion, Vulture and Boomerang, three super-villains that he has beaten quite violently in the early issues of Superior Spider-Man. The issue is mostly fighting, as Slott and Gage moves several other pieces on the board for the conclusion as they try to give us a story that both encompass plot points from Amazing Spider-Man and Superior Spider-Man.

The Amazing Spider-Man – A Second Opinion

By: Too many to list—check out the review, then check out IMDB afterward.

The Story: Boy meets girl.  Girl likes boy.  Boy saves girl from mutant lizard.  Classic.

The Review: I’ve never seen (500) Days of Summer, but believe me when I say I have friends who are so obsessed with that movie that I feel like I’ve seen it—multiple times.  I gather it’s a wistful tale of love found and lost, of a hapless guy trying to win the heart of his dream girl.  Just that tagline alone should explain to some extent the film’s success.  Every decent guy can empathize with the story, and every decent girl has a puppy-dog compassion for it.

In Amazing Spider-Man, director Marc Webb may be capturing the spirit of the film that brought him to mainstream prominence, and certainly the script has shades of (500) Days all over it.  Again, I never even saw the latter film, but the fact that it cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel as the leads already tells me volumes about the quirky, finely-tuned awkwardness that movie must have generated.

The Amazing Spider-Man – Movie Review

Directed by Mark Webb; Starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Martin Sheen, and Sally Field; story by James Vanderbilt

I’d like to share a revelation I’ve had with you. It was when I was watching The Amazing Spider-Man at midnight with a scattering of people (sadly Spidey isn’t selling out midnight openers anymore) and it was the scene where Peter Parker awkwardly tries to ask out Gwen Stacey, who in equal awkwardness tries to say yes… The Sam Raimi Spider-Man films are not that great. It took Raimi 2 movies to get us to feel for Peter Parker; while Webb and Garfield do in about 40 minutes. In a brief breakdown, here are my thoughts for Marvel’s latest reboot…

The Hero: Spider-Man is entering Batman/James Bond territory, in the sense we can start comparing different Spider-Man renditions. Andrew Garfield is in every conceivable way better than Tobey Maguire. Did they change some things about the character? Yes. To the purist, giving Peter a skateboard is like saying Peter kissed Paul, but if you can let go of the continuity reigns, you’ll see that this is still Peter Parker—awkward high school kid, but also realistic. Garfield sells this partly by attending the Mark Ruffalo school of acting. He talks a little awkwardly, fidgets a bit, stumbles over his words. It works very well for Peter Parker. Now, I do have to admit that it was actually my good friend Vonia I Peng (VIP wherever she goes) who spotted that out—also remarking that Garfield is hot like Ruffalo, so for any female readers out there who thought the best scene in Avengers was Ruffalo naked on the floor of an abandoned warehouse, you should totally see The Amazing Spider-Man. Still, while Ruffalo-esque, Garfield isn’t simply trying to be like his peer—it’s what works for the character. He brings something to Spider-Man that Maguire didn’t; kind of like what Downey Jr. did for Iron Man when the mask is on– you’re still watching Peter Parker. With Maguire, when the mask was on, you were watching Spider-Man, the Peter Parker was gone. Not this time. Same persona in and out of the mask. This movie is about Peter Parker, and we have an actor who can give us that.

The Villain: The Lizard was a good choice for this film. One, it took a cue from Batman Begins and didn’t start with one of Spidey’s core villains. I don’t want to say that the Lizard is expendable, but trying to get into the BIG big bad when we still need to learn about Parker would have been unfair to both characters… Yes, I realize that is exactly what Spider-Man did, and yes, it was a mistake. This model sets up for sequel goodness. We went into The Dark Knight with a fully developed Bruce Wayne/Batman. It allowed for the Joker to be fleshed out in a way he couldn’t be if he had been in Begins. Now, with the excessive amount of hints in the movie that OSBORNE IS COMING, we should see what really happens to Peter when a villain like this is introduced.  That was reason one. Two, Dr. Connors is an easy character to develop in a short amount of time. Guy lost his arm and wants it back. You’d have to be a dick not to feel for him. Hell, the first time he “lizards out,” he’s going to stop one of Osborne’s minions from testing the serum on war vets. Of course, he kind of loses his mind after that. Turning into a giant lizard might do that to you, I suppose. Rhys Ifans plays Dr. Connors well. Another lesson from Batman Begins, even for a small part; get actors that know what they’re doing. What Ifans struggles with though, is playing the Lizard; which is of course all CGI, but when the Lizard spoke and it sounded like Ifans, the creature lost its menace. It kind of made you wonder why Spider-Man would struggle against this thing at all. Changing his voice might have been a good idea.