Marvel Pick Of The Week – August 13, 2014

PICK OF THE WEEK!

Spider-Man 2099 2, by Peter David and Will Sliney

Though I loved several of the 2099 books in my adolescence (X-Men, Doom, X-Nation), Peter David’s Spider-Man never did it for me. As I read through the series in trade, I see that it had some adult ideas that just couldn’t compete with the shiny punchy colorful mutant teams, and I couldn’t appreciate it. I haven’t finished the original series, but when Dan Slott brought the character to the present day in Superior Spider-Man, he was complex and interesting but easy to understand. With Peter David returning to his baby in an ongoing solo title, that character has maintained consistency while building a world of intrigue around himself.

In this issue, Miguel O’Hara stops a bank robbery while whining about the statistical absurdity that every time a hero passes a public place, he has to fight a few goons. Then he and his holographic assistant continue to attempt assimilation into this low-tech era, and he balances high-tension scenes with his romantic interest and the sinister Liz Allen. No super villains. No extreme science fiction. Minimal showcase of powers. Just a great Spider-Man story. We haven’t seen this powerful of a solo character since the Houston-based Scarlet Spider series folded.

When Peter David is on, he’s unbeatable. The dialogue is amazing, and the humor is plentiful and perfectly-timed. This issue has all the quality of his best X-Factor arcs. His work is magnified by pairing him with Will Sliney’s art – Man, Sliney can draw a sexy-creepy set of spider-acrobatics, and his presentation of the street-clothes conversations is almost as compelling. Slott’s Amazing Spider-Man, Spencer’s Superior Foes, and David’s Spider-Man 2099 tell a variety of stories but keep quality high and tone bright. It’s a great time to be a Spider-Fan, gang.

Honorable Mentions:

Amazing Spider-Man 5, for raising Black Cat’s dialogue to absurd levels of menace and sexual tension with lines like “This black cat’s crossing your path. Moving in on your action. If you’re a smart eel, you’ll slip away.” Though you can hear her purring throughout, the scene never descends into camp. You don’t have to become some self-aware Batman TV show to make good use of villains with silly angles. I love when you do, of course, but Slott and Ramos get points for going a little more Chris Nolan with her.

All-New X-Men 30, for the scene where young Iceman sees Emma Frost and young Jean Grey in psychic training and gets Kitty Pryde to intervene because “They’re going to murder each other to death.” Because they so are. Pass the popcorn.

Nightcrawler 5, for pushing all the buttons a gay X-fan in his thirties could want. In order, that would include 1) flashbacks to Claremont’s all-team baseball games on the back forty of the Xavier Institute, 2) Todd Nauck absolutely killing a drawing of Jean Grey as Phoenix, and 3) a shot of Kurt Wagner stepping out of a hot shower. I am a man of simple pleasures, and this book met them all.

Inhuman 3, for shifting the book from a tolerable exercise in a decent writer taking over a project into something truly special. Charles Soule continues to steer a concept that felt like an outdated nonstarter (There are tons of new Inhumans around the world, and it’s a big deal, except it absolutely isn’t and no other book beyond New Warriors even cares anymore) into a tense thriller with a long road ahead (Something bad is coming, and it’s going to take a lot more Inhumans to stop it than we currently have, and Medusa needs to take control of every one of them within an impossible deadline). The dialogue is sharp enough to cut your fingers, such as when a girl welcomes a new boy into their team, then looks at the scary leader and whispers, “There used to be two more of us.” Soule gets tons of credit for whipping this into shape – pick this book up.

Avengers World 11, for a funny scene of Maria Hill trying to exert some discipline with the surly time-displaced teens of Next Avengers, and for Torunn’s deeply inspirational approach to taking out a group of bad guys: “Too many of them. Or not enough. We determine which.” Someone needs to put a generic inspirational picture on that one and shop that thing around.