“Hey kid, do I have your attention? I know the way you’ve been living: life so reckless, tragedy endless; welcome to the family.” Yeah I’ve been listening to Avenged Sevenfold while typing up the review for this issue, not a lot anyone else can do about it. Welcome to the family of Spider-Books, AvSM (there I go again with the music). Without further ado let’s tackle this first issue shall we?
Writer: Zeb Wells
Artist: Joe Madureira
Colorist: Ferran Daniel
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover: Joe Madureira & Aaron Lusen
Variants: Ramos & Delgado; Campbell & Delgado; Joe Quesada, Danny Miki, & Richard Isanove
Spidey Team-Up: Spider-Man (Peter Parker) & Red Hulk (General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross)
The Plot
Spider-Man and the Avengers are fighting AIM agents and a giant robot somewhere outside of New York. After saving the day Spidey is baffled that no one’s going back to NYC. After the heroes quickly call out “NOT IT”, Red Hulk is left with taking the web slinger back to the city. Mean while back in NYC, J. Jonah Jameson hosts the New York City Marathon run. As people start running the marathon their suddenly swarmed by an army of Moloids.
Spidey gets the call from Iron Man about what’s happening and tells Red Hulk they need to head to the George Washington Bridge ASAP as they’re the only ones available for the time being. Once the two Avengers show up their attacked by one of the Mole Man’s underground monsters. The two heroes are swallowed up inside the monster as Mayor Jameson is taken by a group of Moloids. Red Hulk tells Spidey that the monster is giving off a neuro-toxin and its starting to slow even him down. Eventually the wall crawler succumbs to the neuro-toxin and goes unconscious.
Elsewhere, underground, the Moloids lead Jameson to a chained up Mole Man. Mole Man informs the mayor that he’s no longer the ruler of Subterranea and now his Moloids follow a new master whom which so happens is holding Mole Man’s chains.
The Avenging
This issue was fun to read. Unlike ASM where the drama all happens, this is supposed to be the fun, action packed series which our favorite wall crawler finds himself teaming up with other heroes. This book looks exactly like what I wanted to see out of it: fun, humorous, adventurous with a dash of good looking art.
Of course I’ll be picking this up every single month (“I’m the God damn Avenging reviewer!” *AHEM* Batman voice now put aside…), and even though its four bucks it does come with a free digital copy of it so to me it feels like an okay deal.
Zeb Wells does a great job with the writing in this issue. If I had to pick between Wells and Dan Slott on Amazing Spider-Man, I’ve got to say I enjoy how Wells writes Spidey’s dialogue more. The quips are funny and heck, J. Jonah Jameson is written in perfect character and that just adds to the humor.
Of course the writer is nothing without his artist and damn Joe Mad does a great job in this first issue. Last time I saw his work it was on Ultimates 3 and that is the one good thing that came out of that series. But anyway, Joe Mad’s fluid pencils and stylized poses should be one of the good reasons as to why someone should give this book a shot. The expressions; in both facial and poses; really does a great job bringing Zeb Wells’ dialogue to life.
I’m intrigued to see how the team up between Spider-Man and a “newer” character like the Red Hulk will play out as they work together. Their characters already work well off of one another as shown in some of the panels and the dialogue between the two shows that there will probably be some funny moments to come.
I’m interested to read what happens in the next issue. The writing is good, the art is stylish and Spidey is written in character.
The Not-So-Avenging
On the other hand with the price tag, not a lot happened in this issue. Plus with the fact that the offer to download the digital copy expires today (Thursday, November 10th, 2011 to be exact for those kids of the future who will look back on this) means that unless you buy the comic on the day it comes out or the next day, your digital copy will mean nothing. Will I personally download it? Not sure yet though I should make a decision as soon as possible.
No one is willing to give Spidey a ride back to the city? Really? He’s on two Avengers teams and he’s part of the Future Foundation yet he’s forced to have a piggy back ride with the Red Hulk? Apparently Peter hasn’t yet earned to ride a plane yet with the Avengers.
Still on the topic of the Avengers, what’s going on with the continuity? Steve Rogers’ is wearing his Super Solider uniform and Thor is still alive. Looking at that I would think “Okay, this must take place before Fear Itself,” but Spidey then briefly says he recently got his spider sense back a few pages later. Peter didn’t get his spider sense back until the end of Spider-Island and yet were told Spider-Island took place AFTER Fear Itself, AFTER Steve donned his Cap uniform again and AFTER Thor died.
There, I pointed out that error.
And the two spread page that will be the recap page just took up space. I hope that we don’t see that in the next issue.
Favorite Avenging Spider-Quip: There were a couple but I’ll just list one of them.
-Spidey and Red Hulk stand next to one another after the battle with AIM and are about to head off-
Red Hulk: “Grr…”
Spidey: “How should we do this? I could web up a backpack and we could do a Luke/Yoda thing, or–”
-Red Hulk grabs him by the arm, preparing to jump-
Spidey: “–you can pretend you’re my abusive boyfriend–?”
I should note that the page with Jameson trying to shoot down the Moloids with the starter pistol full of blanks was amusing. Almost every moment with Jameson in this issue was fun to read.
Rating
4 out of 5 avenging webheads. Minus a bump in continuity this was a decent read.
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“Eat lead Bilbo.” “Jog hippies.” That was funny. But in the Avengers titles, are we ever going to see Spidey actually fight, rather than just swing through the scene? The jokes are great, but I do miss some gravitas in my Spidey. He used to be a bad ass, albeit, a funny bad ass. I mean, if he had to, he would take on Red Hulk and might even find a way to beat him. sigh…
@21 – Huzzah, I thought I would never see the day. You’ll eventually get there Butters, its just a matter of time.
@22 – Thanks man, I hope you enjoy the issue once you pick it up.
@23 – Oh okay. I haven’t been following Secret Avengers for the past while let alone the other Avengers titles. Makes sense now even though there were still some mix ups in the issue (like Iron Man’s Extremis armor and Thor’s appearance of course).
@17, I haven’t read Spider-Island. It was said in Secret Avengers, I believe.
Good review. Looking forward to this, have not had chance to pick it up yet.
Hey you are past the 20 post mark! i have never gotten that much 🙁
@19 – Moloids were the creatures who lead JJJ to Mole Man. I’m going to guess at this point that another tribe of Moloids have managed to overthrow Mole Man as king and have taken over Subterranea (for the time being). They look like new characters, especially what seems to be the new ruler. We’ll just have to wait and see next issue.
@17 Nathaniel… hey hey hey, Not trying to make you look bad. Just correcting you on the digital date and congratulating you in your native Canadian tongue.
Are the Moloids the creatures that were holding Mole Man hostage in the end or were those new characters? i thought the Moloids were his people, the smaller green ones who kidnapped JJJ.
They didn’t plan this out for what was happening later, but they haven’t for a long time. They never planned out what happened to Spider-man before the marriage was erased obviously. Maybe the 10 writers that took ever planned their stuff out, but they had to deal with the ramifications unfortunantly. I haven’t picked up a new Spider-man book in a long time. But this interested because Joe Mad was drawing it. It’s just a fun read and I don’t have to read the ‘New Avengers’ or think about the other Spider-man stuff. Yeah, I’m old reader and will only pick stuff like this up now. I might even pick up X-Sanction, too. Red Hulk is a good enough character that it transcends the idea that it is THunderbolt Ross. So, it’s good to have him around. Plus, Joe Mad drew it. Poor Moleman.
It’s a fun book. It’s got fun art. Jonah’s in it and he’s in character. The only quip about it is Spider-man is still the same mindless character that he’s been portrayed as for a while, yet he’s still likable. There’s no way he’s magic or comes back in a cocoon. What else could I want. As for the variant covers, it’s JOe Mad! Do you need any variant covers. I’m ‘so, so’ on the JSC one. His Amazing covers were so fantastic and I don’ t think this one measures up to those… that and my local CS wanted way too much for it. They got all the Cliffhanger guys together on this. I bet Bachelo does a variant cover for one these.
ALl in all, a fun book and can’t wait for issue #2
@Jon M Wilson – Yeah I remember the explaination about Cap’s uniform at the end of Spider-Island but it felt to me Slott was explaining the error in the art (then again I don’t remember if Bucky’s “death” was already revealed at the start of the event).
@Brian Bradley – Brian shut up, don’t try and make me look bad here “lol”. As for the Moloids appearances I can see what you mean (sort of, I don’t play WoW but I’ll believe you). And yeah, almost at the 20 comments landmark!
@Sthenurus – You are correct about the Extremis armor. I noticed that while I was looking over the issue but apparently I was so amazed by Thor’s apparent quick recovery from Fear Itself that I forgot about it. 😉
Also on the weird things department, you forgot to mention Iron man is wearing his pre-dark reign (extremis?) armor. Maybe he is teaming up with time traveling avengers 😛
Was going to make a 20 comment quip here, but you are doing just fine on your own. I noticed a couple other things, like Avenge Sevenfold from the podcast, which had me laughing quietly to myself.
Nice job on the review, I have to agree with everything you said and the Jameson Gun situation was the very best part of this issue, unless we’re counting the art which has me hooked like Joe Mad’s my abusive boyfriend. And agreed on the best Spidey quip.
As for that plot issue, it stood out to me, but I just assumed it was before Fear Itself, didn’t know Spider-Island took place after that. Also, costume designs looked a little wonky to me for some of the Avengers, but I love Joe Mad’s Cap and his Thor, no matter how out of time/place their outfits are.
Also I can justify the 3.99 price by it being a three issue arc and not a… 6 or 7 issue one.
Once again, helluva review, great job on getting it up so quick.
Good jod, pal. The digital download expires in 2012 though… that’s next year. I agree that two page spread intro page was a complete waste.
That Luke and Yoda line was great and overall I enjoyed the Avenger feel of the comic but from Spider-Man’s point of view. He doesn’t always get enough screen time or chance to shine in the regular Avengers comics (I know not every book can be about Spidey) so this is a good solution to that. Really enjoyed the art, but I was thrown for a loop at the end cause those characters at the end look like the orcs walked out of my WoW game.
way to get this review up quick like as well, I took a sick day today so I’m glad there was something up here to entertain the masses while my reviews are delayed an extra night… you’re almost to that 20 comment mark!
Quesada is a good artist, I’ll give him that.
I wasn’t going to pick this up because I’m buying too many comics as it is. However, I am glad that I did. It was fun, and I especially loved Spidey’s Kool-Aide Man line.
Cap’s been using both costumes as he sees them to represent different missions or themes or something. But as for Thor, I got nothing.
Good review man will have to pick this up! but seriously Avenged Sevenfold? Synester Gates well I guess the media loves them most overrated band of all time it
s like the jocks at my high school formed a Heavy metal band
Good job getting the review up so quick and with all the variant covers. Thumbs UP!
man is humberto ramos awful.
@Butters911 – To each his or her own taste of music. Not saying I only listen to that kind of music, I listen to almost every genre except the bad ones. 🙂
@Cap Cheesesteak – Really? What about the art? Do you not like Joe Mad’s pencils? I do say again that Wells brought the funny when it came to Jonah’s character.
@spideytothemax – We’ll just have to wait and see with what will be done with the Red Hulk. The #3 solict says that Red Hulk dies but then again we know that won’t really be the case. I do also hope that Wells brings more than just the typical action packed team up. With the blind spot gone apparently, other heroes could discover Peter’s identity. Again, only time will tell.
@Doc Folsome – I know right? Imagine having that hanged up on your wall. Personally I’d probably just use it as a background for my computer. 🙂
George, what was that you said about continuity when you channeled Wacker?
That Quesada cover is pretty bad ass…
A fun read. Three whole issues of a Red Hulk team-up though? That seems unnecessary.
Aside from that, I hope it isn’t always pure super hero stuff. That’s fun, but with the characters who already know Peter”s ID there’s room for more.
Jameson was the only thing I liked in this.
I can’t wait to pick this up
good review
bad taste in music though