Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #5 review

Writers: Jason Aaron and Justin Ponser

Pencils:Adam Kubert

Inks:Mark Roslan

Never fear, fellow crawlspacers, I, Anthony ‘cash money’ Sinibaldi, aka Butters911, am back with my review. Some of you may remember my review of issue 4 to be pretty negative. With one glaring exception (which I’ll mention in the bad part) issue five is an improvement.

Plot:

Last issue we found out Mojo was behind all the shenanigans of the previous four issues. He is turning all of this into a reality show for people of his planet. I don’t read x-men, at all, but Mojo reminds me a lot of hedonism bot from Futurama. The issue starts off with Mojo raging about everything. First he complains that there isn’t enough sex in the reality show, when just five minutes previously he told his workers less sex and more violence. He seems like an awfully tough guy to work for. Czar (along with his shady partner Big Murder) arrive and tell Mojo that Spidey managed to snag one of the crazy time diamonds. Spidey and Wolverine use the diamond to show up at Mojo’s where Spider-Man runs into a woman he’s been dreaming about (who I honestly expected to be either MJ or Gwen. Or maybe Carlie. That would have made a lot of people mad) who Mojo has brought on to play Spidey’s love interest. Spidey takes on Big Murder while Wolverine fights Czar. Czar tells Wolverine that there is no way he (Czar) loses, or he would know about it. All of a sudden, a much older Czar with a metal hand comes back in time to warn his younger self. Just than Wolverine cuts off his hand, and takes Spidey and the bat with the diamonds with him through a time portal. After they leave another version of Czar arrives to warn himself about losing his hand, albeit too late. Spidey and Wolverine go to a tree in some dimension where the time diamonds grow on trees. They load up on time diamonds and head back for the last confrontation against Mojo and his guys. All of a sudden, Wolverine becomes dark Phoenix and the story is to be continued.

The Good:

This issue had some great moments. First off, every once in a while, the scene would cut to what Spidey and Wolverine look like on TV, and the funny caricatures of them made me LOL. Every time too, Wolverine would say ‘Snikt Snikt” while Spidey just says ‘booya’. Idk, it’s prolly one of those moments you have to see for yourself, but, alas, I dont have a scanner (damn this economy!) Mojo introducing Spidey’s love interest lead to some great moments. When Spidey shows up unexpectedly, Mojo worries about introducing the love interest organically. When one of the guys tells Mojo that he pushed Spidey into her, that works for Mojo. Mojo reminds me of one of those guys you see in a movie whos trying to make a movie, and couldnt care less about quality. He just wants extravagance, and cheap stunts to pull viewers in. Its played to great comedic affect in this issue. Another great moment was the different Czar’s showing up to warn himself. I cracked up when Czar shows up to warn himself about Wolverine cutting his hand off, and it’s too late. When Spidey and Wolverine are coming back from the diamond tree, they grabbed as many diamonds as they could, and Wolverine put his on his claws. Spidey puts his on his gloves, boots, and around his eyes, because he said he always wanted to bedazzle something. Spidey, by far, had the best line of the comic though. When Wolverine and Spidey are coming at the guys, and they are all decked out in time diamonds, and Spidey asks Wolverine how come he still looks tough, but he (spidey) looks like the worlds worst Liberace impersonator. Wolverine, not listening tells Spidey Czar is his, and Spidey, ignoring what he said, says “Your right I do look awesome. Thanks Pal.” Classic Spidey. I know in my last reviews, I didnt really mention the art. We all know Adam Kubert can draw, and it goes without saying, that the issue looks great.

The Bad:

Like Bendis seems to have a habit of doing, Spidey, in this whole series has been used for comedic affect, and, what I expect was a just a ploy to get readers (for shame) and when the action starts, he seems to fade into the background. He does have a lot of great lines, but that’s it. The title feels like it should be called Astonishing Wolverine and sidekick. Also, this issue continues the trend of making Spidey into the biggest wuss. While Wolverine has what is essentially a fair fight with Czar, Spidey gets his ass handed to him by Big Murder, who happens to be about two feet tall, and his only skill being martial arts. That kinda stuff gets to me. I understand that Spidey gets beat up a lot, and its somewhat a part of his character, but this story is taking it too far. Besides grabbing one of the diamonds last issue, Spidey has yet to do one useful thing in all five issues of the story. Wolverine is the hero of the book. It just seems to be disrespecting the legacy of Spidey.

The Ugly:

Osborn still shows no remorse about G…oh wrong comic. But Wolverine getting another big moment (this time turning into the phoenix, whereas another issue he killed Doom the living Planet etc.) while Spidey is left on the sidelines to marvel at how awesome Wolverine is.

Overall:

The Spidey stuff pisses me off, but this issue still had enough good moments to make it worth a read. Seriously though, if Spidey dosen’t do anything in the next issue, which is also the last, I am going back and retroactively  lowering all my scores. For now though this issue gets a 3/5