Marvel Adventures Spider-Man 18 review

I was bitten by a radioactive spider. It gave me super human strength, speed, and other awesome abilities. At first it was cool. I used my powers to become a celebrity. Then my uncle was killed by and I could have stopped. I’m doing my best to make up for that. I’m Peter Parker. You can call me Spider-Man.

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man 18

Writer-Paul Tobin

Pencils-Roberto Di Salvo and Matteo Lolli

Inks-Terry Pallot

Colors-Sotocolors

Plot- This issue has two stories. The first one is a Green Goblin tale, and the second one is about Madame Masque.

The Green Goblin one is about Spidey following his frequent menace as he goes around bombing New York for no apparent reason. That is inter cut by a scene of some kids bullying a smaller lad over a game of dodge ball. The kids see Spidey going after GG and decide to follow. They see Spidey meeting with the Terrible Tinkerer. It turns out the Tinkerer, who makes all of GG’s bombs, accidentally equipped one of them with an anti matter bomb powerful enough to destroy half of New York. The Tinkerer gives Spidey a containment field that will stop the bomb from exploding. The kid’s continue to follow Spidey as he fights the Green Goblin. GG ends up grabbing the wimpy kid and throwing him for Spidey to catch, buying himself time to get away. GG doesn’t believe Spidey’s warning about the anti matter bomb and throws a regular pumpkin bomb at Spidey, incapacitating him. Gobby then throws his anti matter bomb, and the wimpy kid catches it in the containment field, thereby saving the city! Spidey then beats up the Green Goblin, and swings away after the cops have picked him up. The other kids are so impressed by the catch the saved the city, that they all accept the kid and think he’s cool. Aww

The second story starts off with a family unhappily moving all their furniture into a new apartment.  Spidey’s swinging by, and decides to help the family move…for some reason. They are all impressed with the way he lifts a heavy padded chair to the second story. During a break from moving in all the families belongings, they tell Spidey about how a masked woman and her goons evicted the family, and the rest of their building from the apartments. They family explains that they took up the issue with a lawyer, and were turned away, presumably after they were threatened. Spidey goes and pays the apartment a visit, only to find Madame Masque and her thugs have turned the building into a hideout. Spidey defeats them all and leaves them for the police. Madame Masque tells Spidey how she has the building rigged so her confession that Spidey taped will be garbled. Spidey then breaks out his SCIENCE! and reveals that his recorder is designed to pick up vibrations from her mask, so he has the whole thing recorded. The cops pick them up, and Spidey informs the family they can move back in! Awww

Commentary-

This was a very enjoyable issue. In the first story I liked the parallels between the kids, and Peter’s own school experiences. The bigger, bully kid was talking about how Spidey was his hero. It reminded me of Flash Thompson. I halfway expected Spidey to say something to the bullies, but things still worked out pretty well, with the kid earning the respect of the bullies by saving the city. The bully even tells the kid “If such a scrawny guy can be Spider-Man, than maybe you could be something too”.

I enjoyed how the Green Goblin was like his old self, and by old self, I mean the Ditko days. He’s cool as an evil Lex Luthor type genius they have turned him into, but it was nice to have the old trickster goblin back. I also really enjoyed the art in the first story. Roberto Di Salvo was on fire this issue. He did a great job.

The second story was great too. Nothing special, but I enjoyed seeing Spidey interacting with the family. he gave the little girl a web ride, and helped the son out with his science project. Matteo Lolli did great pencils as well. Paul Tobin was in top form this issue. if anyone read my review of last issue, they would remember I wasn’t too pleased with it. This issue is so much better.

Overall-

A great issue. This is the type of issue that gives me faith in this series, and the Marvel Adventures banner in general.

4/5