Superior Foes of Spider-Man #4 review

“Look, I’ll give you it’s starting to get convoluted, but I am a complicated man.” – Boomerang

Writer: Nick Spencer

Artist: Steve Lieber

Color Art: Rachelle Rosenberg

Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna

Cover Artist: Paulo Siqueira & Marte Gracia

Variant Cover: Declan Shalvey & Jordie Bellaire

Editor: Tom Brennan

Senior Editor: Steve Wacker

THE STORY: Luke Cage and Iron Fist bust up the Sinister Six (now four). Boomerang meets with Chameleon, who gives him just 24 more hours to get the head of Silvermane, or Chameleon’s going to take HIS head instead. Boomerang then meets a lady bartender who eventually kicks him out. He then breaks the Sinister Six (four) out of the van transporting them to prison, looking like a badass. After he gives them a rousing speech about getting the head, Shocker takes him outside to confess he knows the Punisher was Chameleon. Boomerang plays it off pretty well, then goes to get a date with the bartender. He then drives a car to a cliff, gets out, and sends it over before we find out Shocker is in the trunk.

MY THOUGHTS: I keep thinking this book can’t possibly keep up the level of quality entertainment it’s been delivering in the first few issues, and it just keeps getting better. The humor is spot on here, from Overdrive trying to tell Luke Cage what an honor it is to get beaten up by him, to Boomerang referencing everything from “Breaking Bad” to “Charles in Charge,” and, of course, Speed Demon still not being able to say hardly anything about The Beetle except “Hot.” Few comics really keep me laughing and grinning consistently through all 20 pages, but the fourth issue of this one shows no signs of letting up.

This installment also has some very opposing moments for Shocker fans, delivering both the most awesome and most insulting moments of the series for the character. On the one hand, we see the Shocker get to be pretty badass in the fight between the Foes and Cage/Iron Fist. If you look at that fight, Shocker’s the only one of the Foes that actually gets solid hits in. There’s a point where he pretty much says “screw it” and just goes for broke, wailing on the two with vibro-glove enhanced punches. He does get beaten, but he’s clearly the best fighter on the team in that scene. But then on the other hand, there’s a point of the issue where the Beetle references that the Shocker warned them he has “bladder spasms” on missions sometimes – meaning he pees his pants. Now, I defended the line in issue 1 where Boomerang calls him a coward because that’s Boomerang talking and the guy talks a lot of s@#t. But this, to me, is different, because not only does Beetle say that this came from Shocker himself, but she says it in Shocker’s presence and he doesn’t say otherwise. Now I’m not going to harp on this too much because frankly I see this as a comedy book and as such I don’t feel like it has to have as strict an adherence to continuity and I don’t feel like it will have too much of an impact on other books going forward. But even still, that is pretty far over the top for a character that’s fought Spider-Man many times and, let’s face it, never had to ‘clean up’ afterwards. In the end, though, these two moments for the character are a pretty strange dichotomy to have in the same comic.

Now, it’s at this point I have to admit that I’ve been sitting on this review for awhile. You’ll notice this issue was released a week and a half ago and I’m usually pretty prompt with my reviews. The problem is, this book is just very, very, INCREDIBLY consistent in a way that most books are not. Month in and month out it has the same strengths and they are incredibly strong: wall-to-wall funny moments, great art that creatively tells the story and adds to it with little touches all over the place, and an ever more involved story of just how complicated this life is for these people. It’s relentlessly reliable and I can’t think of a higher compliment. But for my part, I feel I have a duty to write a review of a decent length for you Crawlspacers, but there’s just not much more to say when a book keeps doing the same things so right every month, and I think it’s a disservice to just write you a list of all the great moments and hilarious lines in the issue out of context. So I apologize, but this is where the review ends this time. All I can say is please, please pick up this book and see for yourself how brilliant it is, because it’s truly one of the best ones I read every month.

GRADE: A  Another great issue, and it probably would have been an A+ if not for the slight weirdness with Shocker.