It’s Spidery versus your favorite villain! No, we haven’t implemented some high-tech Facebook mind-reading app, it’s just chances are, your favorite villain is here! If not, I’m sure we have at least one of your top five. Spidey vs. Everyone!
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Story Title: Sinister War part 2
Writers: Nick Spencer and Ed Brisson
Pencillers: Mark Bagley, Diogenes Neves, Carlos Gomez, and Ze Carlos
Inkers: Andrew Hennessy, John Dell, Andy Owens, Carlos Gomez, and Ze Carlos
Colorist: Brian Reber
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga
Cover Artists: Bryan Hitch and Paul Mounts
Asst. Editor: Lindsey Cohick
Editor: Nick Lowe
Published: August 4, 2021
Remedial ASM 101
The mysterious Kindred has finally begun his revenge. A Harry is locked up in a mysterious cell with Carlie Cooper. Norman Osborn has been bequeathed a mysterious key by Mendell Stromm, and practically every villain has mysteriously joined some Sinister-themed or Six-themed (or both) team. Meanwhile, Mysterio has taken MJ somewhere, but the side he will take (Kindred or MJ) remains a mystery.
That should clear it up.
The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test
Doc Ock is finding out that trusting to follow through on his word is not the smartest and Slyde is about to find out that he hasn’t really thought out his head position here.
Foreigner and friends fight Super Foes for Spider-Man only to have Sinister Syndicate jump in to claim him. All along, this great fight scene is interrupted by infuriating flashbacks to tell us why they are out to get Spider-Man (spoiler alert – Kindred’s behind it).
That’s it. Oh, and we get a splash page of two Sinister Sixes doing something. Entering the fight, maybe? Who knows. They are just striking poses with nothing else in the art to tell us why.
A what? Optician? Opticist? Optionee? Optimus Prime? I guess we’ll never know for sure.
What Passed and Failed
PASS – Brian Reber and Joe Caramanga – while all the other jobs required two or more people to complete, these work horses did their job alone. Neil can complain all he wants to about colorists, but it didn’t take fifteen of them to do the job.
PASS – Shocker and Hydro-Man team up – I love it when a writer finds a new spin to old villains!
Practice? When? Didn’t they just form back together in the bar that they just left drunk? You know what, it doesn’t matter. This lead to Black Ant’s ‘nether regions’ quip, so I’ll allow it.
FAIL – Flashback storytelling – Look, you guys have been with me long enough to know I detest flashbacks. They are the Chi-Towns of literary terms.
PASS – This Quote:
This comes from Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Satan has all the best one liners in that epic.
OOTI (Onomatopoeia of the Issue)
On a scale of 1 (POW) to 10 (BLRKBQRKPQRBLNB), VNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN gets a 4. Why so low? These is the sound of a Vespa. Overdrive would have something a bit more robust. However, that is a lot of Ns, so there’s that.
Analysis
The villain motive – I thought this was a weak point in the story.
These guys want to kill Spider-Man already, but they want self-preservation first. Kill Spider-Man and you get to not have that centipede in your brain kill you painfully. Kill Spider-Man and I give you money. Either of those works. Kill Spider-Man and I still kill you, but you get to go to hell with him and hang out with me. That seems a recipe for turning all these guys against Kindred since if there can be only one person who somewhat comes out on top while ALL others die, then all the others will need to make sure Kindred can’t make good on that threat. Also, why does Kindred want them to kill Spider-Man? It can’t be because he wants Spider-Man dead. He’s already killed Spider-Man several times. What’s Kindred’s end game?
Other than that, there is little break down here with the exception of maybe the inclusion of Mysterio jumping in on the last page. Wasn’t he off alone with MJ?
Extra Credit
Bonus points to anyone who knows the name of this little Jungle Queen (without having to look it up!):
Final Grade
If Spencer wanted to show how he got the gang together, then I wish he had started with that and then just given us several pages of unadulterated scenes of fight awesomeness. The breaking it up left me feeling like Tantalus, always reaching, but never quite getting what I wanted. Still, villains galore, and fighting each other and in unique ways – that’s awesome! I want to go higher, but I think I’ll stick with:
B
Required Reading
Is this required reading for the ASM storyline? Probably not. Is it worth reading? Sure. But you know what is, required reading? Did you notice a much cooler Spider-Man on my feature image than normal? Yep! That’s the Turkish Spider-Man and you need to read my Cobwebs article on the Turksih Spider-Man movie. Yes, I know it is a shameless self-plug here, but I had so much fun writing that article! READ IT! Then leave a comment there or here!
What’s Next?
You haven’t read the end of SINISTER WAR #2 yet, but when you do, YOU WILL BE VERY MAD YOU HAD TO WAIT TWO WEEKS FOR THIS! Things have never been worse for Spider-Man, and it’ll be a MIRACLE if he makes it through this alive.
Wait…What the? I haven’t read the end of Sinister War #2? Are there extra pages that will pop up later on my Comixilogy? No, Lowe. If you put it in #3, it is #3, not the end of #2.
Actually, the next part of the story is in ASM next week and Chi-Town will walk you through that one (but I doubt he’ll get the review out as quick as I did this one). But I’ll be back in two weeks to review #3 or the end of #2 if the preview is right. Either way, see you then!
Nick Lowe has asked people to let the Spider office know how they are doing by sending an email to spideyoffice@marvel.com and to make sure you mark it “OK to print”.
Mark ‘OK to Print’ – Yeah… right.
‘Nuff Said!
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I thought the issue was terrible. I don’t think it moved the storyline along and honestly the dialogue just seemed like words on a page to me without much meaning to them. The words just didn’t flow in a nice storyline like I would expect.
Well, I enjoyed the review more than the comic. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood, since the big change in my life didn’t go the right way (or maybe it did, but I’m poorer now), but I found this issue useless.
I didn’t like the HydroMan and Shocker combo, it felt like someone mistook Shocker’s power (as sometimes happens, due to his name) for being electric and then someone else came in to remind everyone that Shocker has vibrational power, so they just changed the caption for the already drawn art. Surely it doesn’t help the poor Shocker for being mistaken for an Electro wannabe.
That’s Ana, the daughter of the original Kraven! I swear on my Spider-man collection I didn’t read anyone’s comment yet! 🙂
I also recall the last time I saw her, she was becoming an Inhuman cocoon under the effect of the terrigen mist, but I don’t think any writer explained what her powers are, now that she is Inhuman (Nuhuman).
Spidey is an opti-“missed” or optimist, Spencer used the panel on the next page as wordplay to finish Spidey’s sentence.
Also, I think the solicits were posted months ago, so that’s what the “you haven’t read the end of Sinister War #2 yet” was about. Nick was assuming we were reading the solicits back when they were first released.
This issue was weaker than the #1, I feel like not much happened – although the fight scene in the first half was great. I’d give it a B.
@Franz29 and @Paul Penna
Franz29- I’ll agree that this could be labeled skippable since the plot doesn’t actually move forward here. I bet you could read #1 and #3 and have it flow together decently. It is nice to have more backstory on why they are joining the fray, but I just wanted to see the fray, myself. And here’s the thing – both of us sound like we were a bit disappointed with this particular issue, yet we both gave it in the B range. That’s the thing I’m finding with Spencer – a lot of Bs, stories that are good, but seemed like they are just missing something here or there. I’ll put more thought to that later. Oh, and that typo, I bet it was Chi-Town. We all have access to these posts and I’m betting he is sabotaging mine to make his look better. I guess I could have made an error. I did once in college and could very well make another one at some point. 🙂
Paul Penna – My thought is that the Sinister War issues will focus more on Spidey’s fight with the Sinister and Six type villains and the ASM issues may be more of a focus on Kindred. We’ll see. I don’t mind the villains not having much motivation for attacking Spidey (they are villains, after all), but then don’t give us a whole issue on their motivations (especially if it is all the same). Electro’s inclusion is more to bring that character back, to fix that death. Maybe if Spencer was staying, he would have done more with it, but since he’s leaving, I guess we’ll never know (especially if he doesn’t do an exit interview – I know BD is trying hard to get one with him, but having no dice so far).
I would assume that it was it was Spencer’s choice to involve each of these different groups. He’s set them up, featured them previously in his run. My problem is that because Kindred has put a centipede in each of their brains, that they’re just puppets for him.
There are no reason for these particular villains to be featured. In fact, if Electro can’t die, and can be brought back by Doc Ock, then I would even argue that Kindred doesn’t have any real leverage over him, and so it was counter-intuitive to have Electro involved.
I know, I know, Kindred let Doc Ock pick his team. Maybe Max isn’t smart enough to work out that he isn’t in danger (well, at least not danger of permanent death), but it’d be good to have this acknowledged.
As for editors and marketing, it’s their job to hype up these storylines, and if a bunch of Sinister groups are involved, you can’t blame them for hyping up the Sinister War.
Maybe Kindred’s control over the villains will be negated next issue, and they’ll genuinely go to war, but right now it kinda feels like Spencer had two great ideas; Kindred’s revenge plot and a Sinister War, and has kinda mushed them together. And because of that, I would think that at least one of those plots will not reach its full potential.
Honestly, I’d rather be reading a Kindred story, since he’s Spencer’s big villain, but to me it would’ve made a lot more sense to keep the focus on Kindred and made use of a bunch of random villains, or even villains that thematically relate to Kindred and his revenge.
It still might be a good story, I truly hope it is, but I definitely think there have been some missteps in the writing, and this is the issue that this is most evident in.
@Sthenurus, @Paul Penna, @Hornacek, and @Chi-Town
Sthenurus – After discussing with some commenters on the Facebook post for this article, I think I know why we feel that nothing happens. At least for me, I was expecting the story to be about the fight and interactions with the villains. To that end, we got very little and what we got was interrupted by the flashbacks. However, I think Spencer’s story was about why the villains are there, and he paces it out with the fight scenes in between. I think if we had gone into the comic looking for that story, we would have felt that the comic was longer and more filling, so to speak. Whether that is a fault of us the reader or Spencer the writer or editorial, I am not sure. But I do agree that I am getting a little worried that the end will be a rush job, especially since we know that Spencer is not on for much longer.
Paul Penna – False advertising seems to be a problem with the last few years. Whose fault would that be? Spencer’s? Marketing? Editorial? I would think that Nick Lowe would the place where the buck stops on that. I was expecting each group to have a little more individual motivation as well, even if Kindred offered them each something different. Why teams? It seems that Kindred’s carrot here is for the ONE that kills Spider-Man, not the team that wins. Maybe if they titled this Kindred War instead of Sinister War? Also, I really don’t think you are going to get an Electro match up. Maybe a writer down the road will tackle that in its own story.
Hornacek – Holy cow, man! You went there? Jeez! No bonus points for you!
Chi-Town – Well, I would say that with so many threats happening at the same time, his Spider-Sense is a bit overwhelmed here. Let’s give Skittles…(dern you, Hornacek!) Ana the benefit of her hunter lineage and say that she maneuvered so that Spider-Man, in reacting to other threats, put himself in the right place for her to act. Or just say it was blind luck and he was overwhelmed. Whatever floats your boat.
@Chi-Town – His Spider-Sense is going off in the panel preceding the stabbing. I’m putting it down to Peter being totally overwhelmed by danger all around him.
Good review as always. Summed up my feeling on the issue. Easily skippable and not a lot of cohesion going on. Not sure why it couldn’t have been shortened and kept in the main books (aside from the new writers coming in/milestone issue targets of course).
This one is a B- for me.
(Quick typo: Seems like you’re missing “Kindred” in the line reading “Doc Ock is finding out that trusting to follow through on his word…” in the story recap)
@Mark: Speaking of Details, schmetails. Where is Spider-Man’s spider sense when Anna stabbed him?
“Bonus points to anyone who knows the name of this little Jungle Queen (without having to look it up!”
Is that Skittles the penny hooker?
Well, so much for having a bunch of different groups with different motivations. Now it’s everyone versus Spidey. Frankly, we might’ve well have had Kindred recruit a bunch of different villains and forgotten about this whole “Sinister” War angle.
And Electro really should have some kinda beef with Electro II, given that she murdered him (and she’s his ex).
If you’re going to have a Sinister War, make it about the Sinister groups. Here the the Sinister groups are just puppets of Kindred. They could be swapped out with anybody. This story is about Kindred. And I have no problem with a story about Kindred, it just feels like false advertising.
Ya I really didn’t like this issue. It felt useless. Nothing happened at all, and only a handful of issues away from the grand finale it’s very disappointing. I’m afraid we will get a repeat of sins rising/last remain.
@Stuart and @Adam
Stuart – Nope. They just dropped him in and everyone is acting like it is normal. I guess they all have died and come back so many times it just feels like Arbor Day to them now. I think Spencer just wanted to get him back and now that we are pushing for time, he maybe just dropped the fanfare about it. Marvel should look at hiring you to be a PR man for them.
As for Hydro-Man, there may be a set up here since the others acted like he wasn’t a *real* foe, so maybe he’ll jump ship and go to the Sinister Six soon. We have, what, four issues left? (Chi-Town is apparently the detail oriented one around here) so we’ll see what we get.
Adam – Talk to Stuart about the angry turtle line. I hear he’s taking on that role for Marvel soon! And I’ll start at #1, or as early as Unlimited will let me, since you have high praise for the series. I don’t know why I haven’t yet. I read most of what I missed when I had checked out there in the late ’90s, early 2000s, but maybe they were all there at the time or something. Whatever the case, I’ll get on it! I can’t have this gap in my knowledge base and still be a respectable member of the Crawlspace, you know!
@Mark
“Like being stalked by angry turtle” has to be the pull quote for the trades cover. Make it happen Marvel.
That Peter Parker Spider-Man series is what turned me from a casual reader into a collector. I do like the Wells’ issues but if you’ve not read them, starting at issue 20 with the Paul Jenkins issues is a must.
@Prof Warren, @Evan, @Jeff, and @Jeff Plaza
Prof Warren – I hate you are not enjoying the Spencer run as much as I am (current pacing excluded) and I hope Beyond lives up to your hopes. I am . . . trepidatious about it myself.
Evan – Just Googled searched Optimus Mime. Was not disappointed.
Jeff – Yeah. I’m all excited about a Spencer book chocked full of B and C list villains and then it fizzled. I so much wanted to see more of them fighting and talking to each other than what we got. We were on the verge of greatness. We were this close. Maybe next issue will make it better. I have hope. I’m quite the opti…
Jeff Plaza – I guess you could say that it was a .sw issue in a way since it is this different title. It serves the same purpose. The coming end has me worried about it resolving as well. Thanks for the kind words!
A quick question to anyone here: is anyone else kind of shocked, no pun intended, by Marvel not hyping up and promoting Electro’s return from the grave for the recent “Sinister War” event? Has anyone even reacted to Electro’s resurrection at all? Does Electro talk to anyone in this issue? Heck, has Electro even spoken at all since he returned from the dead? I haven’t read recent issues all the way through, so I’m a bit out of the loop here. Also, you’d think that Marvel would’ve had the return of a classic A-list Spider-Man foe promoted as part of the reason to turn into the story. “The ever-electrifying Electro is back from the dead! HOW did this happen? WHO made it happen? WHY is he back? Tune in to issues of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ for more information on Electro’s shocking return, as it all builds up to Nick Spencer’s new ‘Sinister War’ storyline where fans will find out the whole story!” See how easy that was and how little time it took to write a brief headline to grab fans’ attention and get them intrigued for where this story is going?
Also, I’m curious as to when Hydro-Man replaces Mysterio as the Sinister Six’s sixth member since it was all over the promo images and variant covers. If it’s a fake out, it’s an odd choice to make. Then again, spoiling Electro’s return on the cover of “Sinister War” #1 before fans even saw his resurrection in “Amazing Spider-Man” was an odder choice. We’ll see where this goes.
I hope you all are having a wonderful day and stay safe, True Believers.
Great Review as always!! Sadly I hate to say this but I was disappointed with this issue. It felt like not much new ground was covered and we only got few issues left of this series. This felt like this issue should’ve been .LR or .Hu type of issue. Spencer only has a few issues left to wrap up his run and this felt like a missed opportunity because of it.
@Chi-Town, @Michael, and @Adam
Chi-Town – I knew mine was out on the 18th, and just assumed yours would be the week between. Weird. Details, schmetails.
Michael – Sure if you want to be traditional… 🙂
Adam – Bonus points for you! Ana it is! I’ve pulled up that Peter Parker #51 on Marvel Unlimited and will read it later today. Thanks for the tips. I had stopped collecting during that time and I need to get caught up on what happened in the Peter Parker: Spider-Man series. I’ll get on that. It sounds like you and I have the same read on this issue. All the components were there, but it felt empty. Oh well. It felt like it was going to be so good, but…. Spencer is a good writer and I bet if I read this in a binge fashion, this trailing me along would not be an issue, but this issue by issue crap is like being stalked by an angry turtle. You know it’s coming. You are ready for it to come. It’s on its way. And….you wait.
I have to say, this issue did not do it for me. Sadly, this was a pretty weak second issue, one that immediately ground down the momentum of SW. While I guess – or hope – that Spencer will explain Kindred’s motivation for trying to get a villain to kill Spider-Man when he already proved he could do it all on his own about a hundred times over, it makes for an eye-rolling annoyance in this issue. Kindred has already long worn out his welcome. It doesn’t help to have him spend an issue rallying villains to do what we already know he can do himself, all while ranting for the 1,000th time about Peter’s sins. Ugh. Still got my fingers crossed that Spencer is going to bring it all home in a satisfying way but it’s become a very exasperating journey.
*Spidey
Please pardon my Spoonerism — I just couldn’t resist.
For my money, Spider is about to say “Optipus Mime.”
Having enjoyed SW #1, I was really disheartened by what a dud this issue was. Too many flashbacks dragging down the momentum and the inexplicable motivation on Kindred’s part in seeking help to kill Spidey when he already killed him about fifty times over a few issues earlier. I don’t know, I’m just eager for Spencer’s run to be over. Whatever Beyond ends up being, it’s got to be an improvement over this dragged out nonsense.
Is Kraven’s daughter called Anna? I honestly can’t remember.
Great review. How you were able to get such a good review out of a such a non-issue, I don’t know. It might be because I only got this issue today, but at the end I was left feeling disheartened. I wanted more comics then I got today
Kindred seemed really off this issue. As you mentioned his desire to kill Spider-Man seems redundant, and his bargain with the villains seems to lack an up side for them. I feel like Kindred in the past has been better than this.
I don’t know if this is a tease for Zeb Wells arrival, but Hydro-Man and Shocker teamed up in one of his Peter Parker: Spider-Man issues 51-52 (I think) and tried a similar attack. A story called Manic Monday. I really champion his run on Peter Parker: Spider-Man I think he did a nice little arc over his ten issues or whatever it was.
“A what? Optician? Opticist? Optionee? Optimus Prime? I guess we’ll never know for sure.”
Optimist?
Nice review Mark…hmmm.. “The Chi-Towns of literary terms” Thanks for the compliment buddy, I do consider myself a represent of a carefully crafted speaker geared towards both logical and emotional thinking,
Actually… August 18th is when Sinister War #3 arrives on stands and ASM #72 comes out August 25th, but I’M sure you already knew that! That’s what I like about you Mark, your attention to detail….orlackthereof…