Scarlet Spider #2 -Review

By: Chris Yost (writer), Ryan Stegman (pencils) Mike Babinski (inks), Marte Gracia (colors)

The Story: Scarlet Spider punches the bad guy, saves the girl, and finally gets an origin that makes sense.

What’s Good: It’s fun to watch Kaine argue with himself about his actions. Sure, we know that he’s going to be a hero, but watching him struggle with making the right choice is fairly compelling. This guy is clearly damaged goods, frightened about whether or not he can actually do something good, and ridden with guilt over past wrongs.

Give him something to punch though, and he’s all over it. Fortunately, he’s got a pretty good punching bag, in the shape of the Salamander, a massive brute who has been “kissed by the fire god, Xiuhcoatl!” Drawn by Ryan Stegman and Mike Babinski, Salamander is a fairly menacing force. His design is simple, but watching the dancing serpents in the flames he controls is really a visual treat. When we get to the fight scene between the two, we also see that the art team is really trying to give Scarlet Spider a different physicality than his Northern cousin. Kaine is a scrapper. His fighting is focused and aggressive, and he does without Parker’s more acrobatic finesse. The storytelling is much more streamlined in this issue as well, with nothing as gimmicky as the spider-stickers from issue #1.

We also see the beginnings of a supporting cast of local civilians, which I think will be important for the series. Protagonists in the Spider-Man franchise are largely defined by their loyalties and responsibilities to their personal communities. It looks like Kaine is going to have a very different relationship with the citizenry of Houston than Peter Parker or Miles Morales does with New Yorkers. I won’t spoil it here, but I see it as a good sign this book is headed in an original direction.