Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine 1-4 Review!

Now bear with me here. I’m not going to review the other three issues, but for those who have not read the other issues, I’m going to do a rundown of the plot.

Issue 1: Begins with Peter (or Spider-Man) and Logan (or Wolverine) back in prehistoric times (I’m not a geologist so that’s as blanket a term as you can get). Peter is spending his time studying the place, gathering first hand knowledge that other scientists could only dream about. That, plus, he doesn’t have to worry about all those dangers, cause he can lift ten tons! Logan is spending his time irreparably damaging the time stream spending time with the small people of the era. Peter goes and tells Logan that they are going to die, as the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs is about to hit. Logan lets his prisoners go, and tries to get himself ready for death, as Peter Parker, boy genius, tries to come up with a way to save them all. We are treated to a flashback showing Logan and Peter attempting to stop a bank robbery by the Orb. As soon as these crazy diamonds are shown, our two heroes are whisked off to another time. The asteroid proceeds to hit Earth as Peter furiously uses his mad math skills to try to save everyone, and Logan attacks some guy with robot hair who may be in on the whole plot. The asteroid does hit, and Logan and Peter are transported to a future world which seems to be ruled by an alternate Moon boy and robotic Devil Dinosaur.

Issue 2: I must say issue 2 was my favorite so far, just for the gag with peter getting a Spidey costume from a museum of the worlds lamest superheroes. On his ass, it says “lame” and every time Peter would webswing and we could see that, I would just laugh and laugh. Good times. I don’t have a scanner and couldn’t find a shot online, but trust me, its good stuff. Anyways we find out this future world isn’t run by Devil Dinosaur, but by Doom the living planet. Doom was able to find a way to transport his mind to control Ego, and now the world is suddenly a lot scarier. Peter spends his spare time teaching science to the small people of the last issue, who thanks to learning survival techniques from Wolverine, have been able to hide in the shadows, and take over the Earth once us regular humans die out. When Peter isn’t teaching science, he and his assistants are looking for a way to take out Doom. Logan, meanwhile spends his time productively fighting robots? Peter tries convincing Logan to go interact with the people of that world, as they view him as a messiah because of the events of last issue. Peter runs into the Orb, who is quickly taken to another dimension before anything can be explained. Peter than finds the phoenix force in a bullet, and a handy gun to fire it. The bullet can take out Doom, but will also kill the person who fires it. Logan knocks out Peter and takes the gun for himself, thus ending issue 2.

Issue 3: Logan goes out to greet his followers on his way to face Doom the living planet. One of his followers brings him “the sacred liquid” in a chalice. At the point Logan realizes he invented beer. Now he just needs to invent cigarettes and a bong and he’s got a pretty good party going. Logan goes to face Doom in an awesome 3 page spread. Spidey tries to get to the scene, but shows up in time to see both Doom and Logan destroyed by the Phoenix force. Logan is dead (in a scene that really shows the talent of Adam Kubert, Mark Roslan, and Justin Ponser). He’s finally going to get everything he ever wanted, which was just to be held by his mother (I think that’s all Doom needed too) when Peter uses the cosmic cube to bring him back to life. Logan attacks Spidey, who thinks that Logan should be grateful for the assist. They are about to get into one of those super hero brawls we all hear about, when Czar and Big Murder (two sinister guys in on the whole plot) stop the fight and send Logan and Peter back to the others personal past.

Issue 4: Finally, issue 4. This issue is really mostly dedicated to finally letting us the reader know what the hell is going on. We get a look at Czar and Big Murder who like to go through time and mess with things. They run into some soldiers during the crusades, and sends one of them to Hiroshima circa 1945, with his bat covered in those crazy diamonds they keep showing us. They also go to a huge palace at the end of time and hobnob with not only past and future versions of themselves, but Joan of arc (who’s a freak, lol).Besides that, we see Logan back in time as Spideys wrestling partner. Peter went back in time as someone who Wolverine liked to hunt as a kid, and cover in meat. I’m not that familiar with Logan’s early years. The two of them get a look at the others personal tragedies, with Logan seeing what happened with Uncle Ben, and spending some time with a pre responsible Peter parker. The both of them get sent through time again after getting beat up with the time machine bat. Logan and Peter seem to be in trouble as they are being burned at the stake, until Spidey shows us he got hold of some of the diamonds! We then learn that Mojo is behind this all, using our heroes to make interesting television.

The good:

I got to say that I am enjoying this story so far, but issue four was by far the weakest issue. With that being said it did have very good art. One thing I thought was cool is all the adds I see for the Kubert art school featuring Adam Kubert as alumni. For those not familiar with his work, they need look no farther than the very book they are holding. I got to say Adam Kubert is great. He has a lot of help from a great inker and colorist. It was nice to finally get an idea of what’s going on. That being said…

The first three issues gave us great concepts, like Peter trying to save them from the asteroid. We got to see Peter studying things and wondering about life in general. We got to see Doom the living planet, Devil Dinosaur, the phoenix bullet etc. very interesting stuff. Issue four we find out Mojo is really behind everything. Is there a more lame villain than Mojo? Yes there is. Czar and Big Murder. We spend most of issue four following those guys as they enjoy their excess. We don’t know anything about these guys, and I really don’t care. I really hope they get a good ass whoopin from Spidey and Wolvie by the end. It seems like this fourth part is just an attempt to drag the story out longer than it has to be. I see no reason why the few salvageable parts of this issue couldn’t have been added to issue 3. The one thing that bugged me about all the issues is the antagonistic relationship between Wolverine and Spidey. In all the issues they have been around each other for at least the last five years have depicted a friendly relationship between the two. Here they seem to loathe each other. What gives?

I understand that the people working on this title have very little, if any, experience writing Spidey, but did they have to make Spidey out to be a punching bag? First in issue one Spidey is afraid to even go talk to Wolverine, as Logan might kill him. Did nobody who worked on this read Secret wars or Spideys fight with Firelord. Later on when Spidey and Wolverine are about to throw down, Czar and Big Murder say that Spidey is all talk. I don’t need a lot of action, and I understand Spidey gets beat up, but if they spend one more issue making him look like a huge wuss, I’m going to be very mad. Oh Yeah, the Orb beat him up too. *sigh*

The first three issues were great, minus the stuff listed in the negatives. This issue seemed like a lot of filler. I think the last two issues will bring about a satisfying conclusion (at least I hope so).

The whole story-4/5 webs

Issue 4- 2/5 webs