Written by: Zeb Wells
Penciled by: Khary Randolph
Inked by: Wayne Faucher
Colored by: Studio F
Lettered by: Randy Gentile
Editor: John Miesegaes
Publisher: Marvel Comics
The adage of “don’t judge a book by its’ cover” proves very appropriate with PP. For the last few months the covers have been done by Fransisco Herrera, whose art gives a new meaning to the term “stylized.” Take this month’s cover, for example. It looks as if the Spider-Man’s body was designed by making a “thumbs up” and then tracing it. Use your thumb for the head and try it, kids!
Thankfully, the interior art (done by Khary Randolph in this final chapter) is much better and displays a basic grasp of human anatomy that Herrera lacks. He has a cartoony style similar to that of Mike Wieringo, but with a stronger Manga influence. Aside from a Johnny Storm with a receding hairline, I can’t think of anything in the artwork which really stood out, good or bad.
Sadly, Wells is still writing and still dragging out the same concept that has fueled the last two issues. That is, a group of rich men with way too much money are funding a privately televised “fight club” where they pit their super-villains for hire against Spidey and take bets on the fights. The whole concept has been played for laughs as Spidey has faced off against Grade Z reject Boomerang and much abused B-list regular Scorpion, as well as a robot called the XP 2000.
And now, the Hollywood director in the group has unveiled his fighter. The proverbial secret weapon. And his name is… Rocket Racer?
Yes. Freaking Rocket Racer. In a new costume. With nipples.
Okay, ashamed as I am to admit it I did laugh at this. But only because I despise Batman and Robin with such a passion that I couldn’t help but laugh as this director (mental note: find picture of Joel Schumacher and see how it matches up) explains that he is going for a campy angle in hiring on one of the lamest, most fad-driven villains in all of history.
What didn’t have me laughing though is the portrayal of Peter here. While I like the idea of his disguising himself to go undercover, I can’t believe he would be as incompetent as is shown here. Think about it: it’s been shown he knows how to use make-up to cover-up bruises, so the disguise he has here is not unbelievable. Heck, with all the times he’s nearly had his secret identity discovered he’s proved he’s pretty good at improvising and no mean actor himself, not to mention what he probably picked up from MJ. So couldn’t he think of something better than “I love drugs and all sorts of illegal stuff!” when trying to establish himself? And I’m not even going to touch the fact that he lets himself get beaten up in order to protect his cover. You’re in disguise, Peter! Just don’t stick to the walls and they’ll just think you’re one more tough but fast wiry guy.
All in all, my opinion of this book remains unchanged. It should have stopped at the excellent issue 50 and then gone into the new Spectacular Spider-Man book, rather than subject us to six months of cheesy stories with no point.
Showing posts with label Peter Parker: Spider-Man. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peter Parker: Spider-Man. Show all posts
Monday, May 5, 2003
Monday, March 31, 2003
Peter Parker: Spider-Man #54 - A Review
Written by: Zeb Wells
Penciled by: Machael O’Hare.
Inked by: Wayne Faucher
Colored by: Studio F
Lettered by: Randy Gentile
Cover by: Fransisco Herrera
Editor: John Miesegaes
Publisher: Marvel Comics
I reviewed this same book last week. Not this same title. This same book.
Okay, a FEW things have changed. Instead of facing off against lame baddie Boomerang, Spidey faces off against the not-as-lame, but lamely done in recent years Scorpion. And writer Zeb Wells does provide us with wholly original bad jokes as he continues this rather uninspired storyline.
The plot thus far is that a bunch of rich jerks with more money than they’ll ever need decidde to make even more money by investing in a reality show/Fight Club concept that will have hired super-villains going after superheroes. And Spidey, having no legal endorsement or team affiliations, is the apparent perfect test subject.
As for the bad jokes, work with me on this one… along with The Scorpion, one of the millionaires (a software magnet by the name of Edwin Hills) complains of the US trying to split up his company and decides to test his new product against Spider-Man. His new product being a robot called the XP 2000…
Gee. A software magnet with too much money, problems with the government and a revamped product which turns out to be next to useless… I wonder who that is based on.
Sadly, that’s the high-watermark for the humor in the issue. Unless you’re a big fan of big, dumb loud Texan oil baron stereotypes. Then you might enjoy Buck Masterson: The Man Who Has No Neck!
A shame the story doesn’t work, because the artwork is as good as last issue. Nothing special, but the pencils are clean and crisp. I’ve seen better work on Spider-Man, but if I had my way I’d pick O’Hare over cover artist Herrera as the artist taking over the new Spectacular Spider-Man title when this book ends its run.
Oveall, I really can’t recommend this book. It’s not that bad, but it really isn’t that good either. It reads like what I think it is: filler until the last issue and the start of the new book. The only thing I can really say with enthusiasm is that I can’t wait for Paul Jenkins to come back.
Penciled by: Machael O’Hare.
Inked by: Wayne Faucher
Colored by: Studio F
Lettered by: Randy Gentile
Cover by: Fransisco Herrera
Editor: John Miesegaes
Publisher: Marvel Comics
I reviewed this same book last week. Not this same title. This same book.
Okay, a FEW things have changed. Instead of facing off against lame baddie Boomerang, Spidey faces off against the not-as-lame, but lamely done in recent years Scorpion. And writer Zeb Wells does provide us with wholly original bad jokes as he continues this rather uninspired storyline.
The plot thus far is that a bunch of rich jerks with more money than they’ll ever need decidde to make even more money by investing in a reality show/Fight Club concept that will have hired super-villains going after superheroes. And Spidey, having no legal endorsement or team affiliations, is the apparent perfect test subject.
As for the bad jokes, work with me on this one… along with The Scorpion, one of the millionaires (a software magnet by the name of Edwin Hills) complains of the US trying to split up his company and decides to test his new product against Spider-Man. His new product being a robot called the XP 2000…
Gee. A software magnet with too much money, problems with the government and a revamped product which turns out to be next to useless… I wonder who that is based on.
Sadly, that’s the high-watermark for the humor in the issue. Unless you’re a big fan of big, dumb loud Texan oil baron stereotypes. Then you might enjoy Buck Masterson: The Man Who Has No Neck!
A shame the story doesn’t work, because the artwork is as good as last issue. Nothing special, but the pencils are clean and crisp. I’ve seen better work on Spider-Man, but if I had my way I’d pick O’Hare over cover artist Herrera as the artist taking over the new Spectacular Spider-Man title when this book ends its run.
Oveall, I really can’t recommend this book. It’s not that bad, but it really isn’t that good either. It reads like what I think it is: filler until the last issue and the start of the new book. The only thing I can really say with enthusiasm is that I can’t wait for Paul Jenkins to come back.
Friday, March 7, 2003
Peter Parker: Spider-Man #53 - A Review
Written by: Zeb Wells
Penciled by: Machael O’Hare.
Inked by: Wayne Faucher
Colored by: Studio F
Lettered by: Randy Gentile
Cover by: Fransisco Herrera
Editor: John Miesegaes
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Long time fans of my writing will know that the esteemed Peter Parker, better known as the Amazing Spider-Man, is the favorite hero of yours truly since childhood. So naturally, with two of his three titles coming out this week, The Starman was in a state of bliss as he picked up his comics this week.
I read this title before Amazing Spider-Man #50 for two reasons. The first was that I wanted to check out artist O’Hare, having found the work of Francisco Herrera (who did the cover of this issue) distasteful and too abstract for my tastes. The second, is that I was afraid that Amazing, which I have been eagerly awaiting all month, would be so good that any other lesser Spider-Man story would be viewed more harshly by me when the time came to write the weekly reviews.
Having read the book twice, before and after sampling the latest work by JMS and Romita, I can’t say that it helped. This issue isn’t nearly as good as its’ more acclaimed sister-title. Which is a shame because until Paul Jenkins and Mark Buckingham left the title with issue #50, Peter Parker could easily stand up to any issue of Ultimate Spider-Man or Amazing.
This left Zeb Wells (mis)handling the writing chores with Francisco Herrera doing the (badly disjointed) artwork. And I honestly wish Marvel had shut the doors on this title with issue then, instead of waiting until issue #57.
Wells is probably best known for writing a number of Spider-Man stories based around best-forgotten super-villains take from Wizard Magazine’s “Mort Of The Month” column. (“I Was A Teenage Frogman” from Tangled Web, for example.) While not quite as grating as Ron Zimmerman, Wells does suffer from the same problem of trying to write a plot into a joke instead of the other way around.
Case in point: his first two-part story on this title spent the first part showing Peter doing whatever-a-spider-can interspersed with humorous scenes showing off the miserable lives of Z-list bad guys “The Shocker”and “Hydroman”. The second half of the story was spent trying to convince us that “Dumb and Dumber” were a credible threat to Spider-Man. It kind of defeats the point of trying to build a character up as a serious menace when you make fun of their inherit lameness in your previous breath.
The sad part is that Wells does present a lot of interesting ideas, but they are often not developed . The idea presented in the previous story of a major corporation secretly using their money to train super-villains is an interesting one and is well worth exploring, especially in the Post-Halliburton/Enron economy. But it is only used as a plot device to set up two men loosing their jobs and turning to desperate measures to survive.
This same concept (the rich and powerful funding supervillains) is explored in this issue as well, with a similar joke character: Boomerang. The scenes introducing us to him are intercut (without any sense of transition) among scenes of Peter stopping a fight at his school, a CNN news show with two people debating the place of the superhero, Peter holding detention, Peter reading “Lord of the Flies” to a comatose Flash Thompson. There is not much rhyme or reason to anything up until the ludicrously one-sided battle between Spider-Man and Boomerang and crashes into a cliffhanger that doesn’t really hang.
Thankfully, the artwork by Machael O’Hare is a big improvement over the over-exaggerated work of Herrera. (Just look at the cover and you’ll see what I mean.) Sadly, the good artwork cannot save the lame humor and poor plotting. Not that this book is all that bad, really. I can name worse Spider-Man stories written in the last year. But on a menu that includes steak and lobster, even the best hamburger in the world is going to look a little lackluster. And that’s what Peter Parker is right now. Not that bad, but it could and should be a lot better.
Penciled by: Machael O’Hare.
Inked by: Wayne Faucher
Colored by: Studio F
Lettered by: Randy Gentile
Cover by: Fransisco Herrera
Editor: John Miesegaes
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Long time fans of my writing will know that the esteemed Peter Parker, better known as the Amazing Spider-Man, is the favorite hero of yours truly since childhood. So naturally, with two of his three titles coming out this week, The Starman was in a state of bliss as he picked up his comics this week.
I read this title before Amazing Spider-Man #50 for two reasons. The first was that I wanted to check out artist O’Hare, having found the work of Francisco Herrera (who did the cover of this issue) distasteful and too abstract for my tastes. The second, is that I was afraid that Amazing, which I have been eagerly awaiting all month, would be so good that any other lesser Spider-Man story would be viewed more harshly by me when the time came to write the weekly reviews.
Having read the book twice, before and after sampling the latest work by JMS and Romita, I can’t say that it helped. This issue isn’t nearly as good as its’ more acclaimed sister-title. Which is a shame because until Paul Jenkins and Mark Buckingham left the title with issue #50, Peter Parker could easily stand up to any issue of Ultimate Spider-Man or Amazing.
This left Zeb Wells (mis)handling the writing chores with Francisco Herrera doing the (badly disjointed) artwork. And I honestly wish Marvel had shut the doors on this title with issue then, instead of waiting until issue #57.
Wells is probably best known for writing a number of Spider-Man stories based around best-forgotten super-villains take from Wizard Magazine’s “Mort Of The Month” column. (“I Was A Teenage Frogman” from Tangled Web, for example.) While not quite as grating as Ron Zimmerman, Wells does suffer from the same problem of trying to write a plot into a joke instead of the other way around.
Case in point: his first two-part story on this title spent the first part showing Peter doing whatever-a-spider-can interspersed with humorous scenes showing off the miserable lives of Z-list bad guys “The Shocker”and “Hydroman”. The second half of the story was spent trying to convince us that “Dumb and Dumber” were a credible threat to Spider-Man. It kind of defeats the point of trying to build a character up as a serious menace when you make fun of their inherit lameness in your previous breath.
The sad part is that Wells does present a lot of interesting ideas, but they are often not developed . The idea presented in the previous story of a major corporation secretly using their money to train super-villains is an interesting one and is well worth exploring, especially in the Post-Halliburton/Enron economy. But it is only used as a plot device to set up two men loosing their jobs and turning to desperate measures to survive.
This same concept (the rich and powerful funding supervillains) is explored in this issue as well, with a similar joke character: Boomerang. The scenes introducing us to him are intercut (without any sense of transition) among scenes of Peter stopping a fight at his school, a CNN news show with two people debating the place of the superhero, Peter holding detention, Peter reading “Lord of the Flies” to a comatose Flash Thompson. There is not much rhyme or reason to anything up until the ludicrously one-sided battle between Spider-Man and Boomerang and crashes into a cliffhanger that doesn’t really hang.
Thankfully, the artwork by Machael O’Hare is a big improvement over the over-exaggerated work of Herrera. (Just look at the cover and you’ll see what I mean.) Sadly, the good artwork cannot save the lame humor and poor plotting. Not that this book is all that bad, really. I can name worse Spider-Man stories written in the last year. But on a menu that includes steak and lobster, even the best hamburger in the world is going to look a little lackluster. And that’s what Peter Parker is right now. Not that bad, but it could and should be a lot better.
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