Review: Vault of Spiders #1, four new kinds of Spider-Men

When the future of every Spider-Men ever is in danger, is up to Karn to find new soldiers to recruit in this issue of Vault of Spiders.

Spider-Geddon is here! And that means there are multiple comic tie-ins in order to make this one big, interconnected event. That brings us to Vault of Spiders, where we get the chance to met new Spider-Men for the very first time. With the great threat of the Inheritors ending the whole Spider-Verse as we know it, Karn sets to find new warriors with the hope that they can help with the battle that’s coming. Fortunately, he finds brand new Spider-Men that have the potential to be great warriors.

This issue has 4 stories: The Web Slinger!, Final Galaxy Battle!, Spider-Byte and Savage Spider-Man. Each one of them introduces a different Spider-Man with their own unique twist and story. That can be pretty tricky for just one issue. So, as usual, there are things that brilliantly pay off and some others that, well, they just feel off.

The good

Let’s start with the art and illustrations of the prologue, Final Galaxy Battle!, Spider-Byte, and Savage Spider-Man. They all look good, and there’s something really different and unique in the manga-style illustrations of Final Galaxy Battle! that really sets it apart from the rest of the stories. There’s a lot of attention to detail in all of these drawings. For example, there is a panel in Savage Spider-Man that includes a giant red spider in it, and that thing looks both awesome and terrifying. You can even see how hairy it is! (and yes, it makes it even grosser). But the cool thing here is how all of the stories mentioned above have a great art-style and illustrations that really pay attention to detail.

More from Spider-Man

Some ideas presented here are quite interesting. Like a Tarzan-like Spider-Man or a virtual Spider-Man. They all feel really different from each other, and even if they don’t have many pages to really shine, you can still distinguish the personality each one has. That’s great, as it gives the reader a sense of who these people are and why they deserve to be all Spider-Men.

There isn’t a lot of action here (except on Final Galaxy Battle! that story is one big action scene with giant robots). But that decision can be for the better so that this issue can focus on telling (sort of) an origin story for each main character. There’s very little room for these protagonists to really have an impactful or strong origin, but just enough to make things interesting, at the very least. Will any of these come to be a really iconic Spider-Man? Maybe, but in order to do so, they need an issue of their own.

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The bad

The weakest story here may be The Web Slinger! and it definitely falls short compared to the other stories in terms of how good it looks. The drawings are flat and sometimes even uninspired. They lack the charm and attention to detail all of the others stories perfectly capture. And even if they just wanted to have a different art-style in this section in the comic, it definitely could’ve looked way better than it did.

The stories may be way to short for their own good. And that may be the worst part of Vault of Spiders. Aside from the cowboy Spider-Man, you can see every other Spider-Men here had the potential to be something amazing. Even if a digital web-slinger may not be helpful at all with a fight against the Inheritors, her story on her own terms could’ve been pretty awesome. That’s also the case for the Tarzan-like Spidey and the over-the-top (but really cool) manga Spider-Man. Unfortunately, none of these characters had enough time to be really memorable. That doesn’t mean they were bad at all. It’s just a shame they didn’t have a little bit more room to tell their own complete story.

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Overall, Vault of Spiders is a fun issue with (for the most part) entertaining mini-stories that all have a new Spider-Man as a protagonist. The art-style is amazing for most of the issue and there are some interesting ideas behind these new heroes. But with one weak story and not enough room for all these characters to breath, it may not be a necessary read for many fans out there.

B-. . Jed MacKay, Cullen Bunn, Nilah Magruder, James Asmus, VC’s Joe Caramagna. . Vault of Spiders #1

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