Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artist: Pasqual Ferry
What If? is back with a new logo and a new format. What If? will now be a series of mini-series, with better branding, more room to breath and telling bigger stories. The first outing is Spider-Man: Spider’s Shadow. Let’s see how the story develops.
Depth of Field:
According to the credits page, this story takes place circa Amazing Spider-Man #258 form 1984. A fantastic issue with an iconic cover. Peter is dating Black Cat. MJ knows he’s Spider-Man. Aunt May and Peter aren’t speaking due to a falling out. Spider-Man has the black suit from Secret Wars. This is an era with such rich, defined stories.
Focal Point:
This is definitely a personal opinion, but reading Spider-Man stories from #250-#350 always feels like coming home. It’s not even where I started reading Spider-Man, but there’s something about the elements of this era that really appeal to me as a Spidey-fan.
A popular element from this time is the Hobgoblin mystery. Zdarsky uses this as his first real comparison point for this new Spider-Man. We are presented with a standard Spider-Man vs. Hobgoblin tussle. Webs and pumpkins bombs fly as expected. Only this time, the Hobgoblin doesn’t escape, Spider-Man hits him with a truck before unmasking the Goblin as none other than Roderick Kingsley. Something I’m sure readers at the time wished Spider-Man had been able to accomplish so simply. To quote another 1984 classic, “That wasn’t such a chore now, was it?” Confident that Kingsley has been defeated, Spider-Man sets him free with a warning for the underworld, “Spider-Man is playing for keeps now”.
I like that it is this interaction that sets off the divergent timeline. This is a scene we’ve seen unfold again and again, and all it took was Peter making a snap second decision in the heat of the battle to change events from what we know. It clearly shows Peter is not thinking straight and reminds us that small events can have big impacts.
Feeling conflicted about his win, (he is still Peter, after all) Spider-Man reacts differently from his 616 counterpart moving forward. When Mr. Fantastic explains the suit’s true origin to him, Peter isn’t as quick to judge as he was originally. To him, the suit is the only thing he understands about his life and the only thing that makes living easier. MJ, Black Cat and Aunt May all cause him worry in some way. while he believes with the suit he has found a truly symbiotic partnership and that both sides are willing participants. Peter’s overly aggressive, but successful fight with the Hobgoblin is making him review his life and relationships differently.
Unfortunately, Peter decides that to cure his nightmares and his exhaustion he must make amends with Aunt May. Kingsley, bitter from his earlier defeat, tracks Spider-Man to Aunt May’s house and attacks. Spider-Man forces the fight outside, but realises he’s left Aunt May alone in a burning building. While Peter is desperate to save her, the suit refuses to go near the fire. Aunt May is left to die (presumably), and once again Spider-Man’s inaction has led to a relative’s demise. Though this time rather than responsibility, Peter is fuelled by his tiredness and anger, which manifests in a more twists version of himself. Let’s call it “Venom” for sake of argument. Venom finds the Hobgoblin webbed to a tree where he left him, and decides on a more permanent solution this time. It’s unclear whether he kills him, or just blinds him, either way this is a brutal moment. The ambiguity only adds to the tension.
The art in this book is stunning. I’ve seen the artist’s work before during Matt Fraction’s Thor and Ultimate Fantastic Four, but I really feel Ferry has stepped up here. His art feels classic and fresh. During the character moments Ferry is able to show the awkwardness between Peter and May. During the action scenes each participant’s movements are defined and clear. The presentation of the suit as it moves and reaches out for Peter is eerie, and the final reveal of Peter’s Venom-form is terrifying. I really struggled to select images for this review as there is so many I wanted to share.
Photobombed:
In Zdarsky’s previous Spider-Man series, he proved an ability to mix Spider-Man continuity in new and unexpected ways. That being said it was still surprising this issue to hear a voice in Peter’s dream ask; “Who are you? The Spider? Or – -“. Is Zdarsky going to bring the JMS/The Other era into this retelling? Does the Spider-Totem have issues with another entity controlling it’s avatar? We will have to see how far Zdarsky is going to go. Will the next issue pick up from here, or like Life Story, are we going to experience a time-jump?
Negative Exposure:
The unfortunate handicap of a What If? story is that a creative team can not assume you have read the original story, or remember it in such vivid detail. This means that with any retelling there is an element of retelling. The book definitely walks where others have before and certain scenes or moments can feel repetitive. I’m willing to not judge this book too harshly for that, as for us to understand and enjoy the switch that’s coming, we needed to see the bait first.
If I was being critical of the art, the colourist has chosen to use dark shadows, which while adding to the horror elements of the story, obscure MJ’s signature colors. It’s still recognisable as MJ though, it’s just always nice to see the red. I feel like I’m really reaching for something negative.
Grade:
B, a strong start, and I’m looking forward to what comes next.
Zoom In:
What did you think of Spider’s Shadow? Let me know in the comments!
• Adam (alias AdamBParker)
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Pandora
Amazon Music
iHeartRadio
Podbean
Amazon Alexa
Player.fm
Listen Notes
Stitcher
@Sthenurus – Good to know! I’ll have to go back and read that!
@mark there a an issue of the spiderman/FF miniseries where that idea is kinda exploited. The symbiote escapes reed custody and bonds in turn with reed, sue and Ben before trying to bound to Johnny and getting hurt by his flame. It’s implied that’s this is how venom got his extra powers: invisibility from sue, stretching from reed and superior strength from Ben.
@ Dark Mark
I’m not much of a photographer unfortunately. I don’t have the eye. My creativity was exhausted coming up with the review format.
I’ve read that What If, I really like it. Black Cat and Kingpin get some interesting stuff to do.
I like your pitch, has Dazzler every been venomized. I don’t remember her from Absolute Carnage, so probably not. What a story that could be. I always wanted Sue Storm and Kitty Pryde to team up as Agents of Shield. That would be a formidable team.
@Adam – Oh I plan to keep reading it in my three months late fashion. I like your photography theme to your review. Goes well with Peter Parker. Are you into photogrpahy as well?
What If? ran again in the late ’80s. Vol. 2 #4 was a great one (if memory serves correctly) of a story where Spidey waited just a little longer to go see Reed and the suit had just enough time to bond with Peter. This story pre-dates the concept that the suit has an evil nature, so it has a different spin to it. If you have Marvel Unlimited, check it out. It is one of the few vol. 2 issues that they have.
I always thought a good story would be to keep the idea that the suit tends to take on the powers of the user (since the suit has Spider-Man powers now). So when it broke out of the FF container, it disguises itself as Sue’s suit so that it can take her powers and try to bond with Peter again while it is invisible. But while on Sue, it discovers that there is a mutant out there (Dazzler) that can turn sound into light. That power would get rid of it’s main weakness, so it begins a quest to go after Dazzler by hopping on different heroes to to get there, taking on all of their powers along the way. It would effectively end the concept of Venom, so it could never be done in a main continuity, but I always thought that would be a fun story to read. Alas, Marvel never called me in to write it…
@Dark Mark – thank you, and welcome to the party.
I saw Spider’s Shadow had been added to Unlimited and was tempted to revisit it. I’m a little jealous you get experience this for the first time. I’ve really enjoyed this series. Though I am nervous with one issue to go.
I don’t want to spoil it for you, and I may be misremembering but I think Zdaraky does explore the “suit turns you evil” gimmick later in the series. As of this issue though, I’m happy for the retcon to be included. It’s something I grew up with and I think it adds more to those stories. I think it can be debated is the suit turning him evil, or is his anger fuelled by his exhaustion – giving him a shorter temper?
I hope you keep doing with the series, you’ve got some good twists ahead of you.
Great review, Adam! I’m a bit late to the party as I am reading this on Marvel Unlimited, but I am really digging this first issue! Wow!
Since I am late, the others beat me to the comments, but I did notice that this drive to be evil was not in the original and it wasn’t until he was spurred that he ever felt hatred toward Spider-Man. As far as the Kingsley sees Peter without the old Peter Tingle, that bothered me too, but I chalked it up to Peter being extremely tired and not focused. He does have a history of ignoring his Spider-Sense in the past. I was more nit-picky with him calling Hobgoblin “Gobby” rather than “Hobby”. Isn’t that how he used to refer to Hobgoblin?
Oh well, I can’t wait until the next issue. You guys are already ahead of me, but I’ll get there eventually.
@Michael – Yeah, as I was typing it I thought “Wait, didn’t Kingsley use the spider-sense cancelling gas?” but I couldn’t remember when. But #249-251 sounds about right.
Which brings up the question for Norman and Kingsley – if you had that tool in your arsenal, why not use it in *every* fight with Spidey? That would be the first thing I’d throw at him from my bag of tricks.
Kingsley DID use the gas in Amazing 249-251. But yeah, if the idea was that he used it on Peter. Zdarsky forgot to show us where in the story he did so.
A good start for this story, but I have a couple of problems …
How was Hobgoblin able to find out Peter’s secret identity? Him being able to follow Spidey to Aunt May’s without Spidey’s spider-sense letting him know seems rather convenient to the plot. Norman managed to do this way back in ASM #39 with his spider-sense-removing gas, but as far as I can remember, Kingsley never had access to this gas (or did he???) Even if he did, we don’t see him use it against Spidey here, so I don’t know how Kingsley follows him to Aunt May’s. Even if Peter is affected by the realization that the suit is a symbiote, his spider-sense still would have warned him that he was being followed. It’s like Zdarsky came up with Hobgoblin killing Aunt May, and worked backwards from there.
I’m afraid that this series is going to go with the “the symbiote turns you evil” trope that was never in the original comics. That was an invention of the 90s cartoon, and has been used in every (?) adaptation since then. But as Donovan once said on the podcast, “it just took Peter out on patrol at night when he was asleep, using him like a prison cellmate”. I did appreciate that Peter kept mentioning how tired he was, so at least Zdarsky seems to know that the symbiote was doing this to Peter. But it shouldn’t turn him evil just because. Venom wasn’t evil because the symbiote turned Eddie evil – Eddie was already evil. I am ok with the voice of the symbiote being able to convince Peter to do things he wouldn’t normally do, because that voice would be constant and non-stop and would eventually wear him down.
@sthenurus – “It also solves a problem I always had with Peter’s reaction to the symbiote. He get’s Reed to remove it from him right away and leaves him to be studied. It always striked me as out of character for Peter. I always tought that his compassionate side would bring him to try and communicate with the symbiote and try and figure out a better way before forcibly removing it from him.”
I agree with Peter here. He’s wearing what he think is a suit, then is told that it’s alive and trying to permanently bond with him. He tries to remove it, just like he’s removed it many times, and it refuses. He’s right to flip out here.
Thank you both for the support of the review.
@ sthenurus
Eye gouging is a real phobia of mine for some reason, so I naturally worry that is what has happened. Though I suspect your right and Peter went for the full skull crush. Never thought I’d write that sentence.
@David
You’re right about MJ’s voice. It really reminded me of when she and Peter spent the issue walking in Central Park. It was an MJ not putting on the party girl act and being very open.
I hadn’t made the connection with Aunt May in life story, but yes she does seem to be a Zdarksky punching bag.
Great review for a great new series!
I personnaly understood the end of the battle between Hobgoblin and “Venom” as Peter crushing Hobby’s skull.
I like where this is going so far. Peter was close to the breaking point then (which he eventually reached a few years later right before the clone saga). It makes sense that the symbiote influence would push him closer to the edge, especially without the support web of MJ or May.
It also solves a problem I always had with Peter’s reaction to the symbiote. He get’s Reed to remove it from him right away and leaves him to be studied. It always striked me as out of character for Peter. I always tought that his compassionate side would bring him to try and communicate with the symbiote and try and figure out a better way before forcibly removing it from him. Especially once he learns that the creature is sentient.
Great review Adam, I agree with you that revisiting this era, a fun and advancing phase in Peter’s life, has a lot to offer to a new or inexperienced reader, it sets up so much of what made Spider-Man “modern” for me.
Peter dealing with Kingsley so easily is one of those crazy instances where plot armour is not on Hobby’s side. It’s Chip fully realising the perks of having a suit and amplified spider-strength in battle, and even insinuating that Peter sort of likes the game that Hobby alludes to him ‘ruining’ later in the story…which is something even more chilling to consider. Peter treating oneupmanship sort of like a sport.
MJ’s hair looking darker in the panels does still have a slight reddish hue, so not too much a deal breaker, like you said, it’s distinctly MJ. Speaking of her, Zdarsky captures her more vulnerable and conflicted voice from those 1980s comics, a dear friend trying to figure out where she fits but eager to still lend Peter an ear and some advice. It’ll be heartbreaking to see what becomes of our favourite two star-crossed besties, as in all likelihood this will not lead to one of their happier endings.
Wasn’t so keen on the art personally, and there are times where the dialouge doesn’t feel so natural, and I think were I writing it, I would have built Peter’s first kill across the whole series and not the first issue.
Zdarsky is unspeakably cruel to May isn’t he? Between her dementia in Life Story, to roasting her alive, I think I’m looking forward to the day he writes her in 616