Doubleteaming: Avenging Spider-Man #1 Review (Analog Edition)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Avenging Spider-Man is the first book in a new Marvel Comics initiative where they provide a free download codes for a digital copy of the book inside the print edition’s back cover. This review is about the story and art itself. We will be publishing a secondary review about what it was like for me, who has never downloaded or read a digital comic in my life, to try and download and read the digital copy. I imagine it will be slightly more difficult than downloading pornography, which I accidentally did four times while writing this paragraph.

Amanda made me promise that I wouldn’t start my review of Avenging Spider-Man #1 ranting about Marvel’s lack of internal logic in it’s own continuity. She made me swear that I wouldn’t start screeching about how the book depicts Mayor Jameson taking time to officiate the New York Marathon not ten days after the conclusions of the Spider-Island and Fear Itself events, both of which had left Manhattan looking like a fraternity toilet the morning after Bladder Bust night. And she made me promise on a stack of Holy Books (Well, my issues of Miracleman) that I wouldn’t sneer in pointing out that Thor is shown in this book as the most dedicated Avenger, reporting to duty to battle a giant robot despite a prior commitment made in Fear Itself to decay and smell bad.

So, being a man of my word, let’s talk about Avenging Spider-Man #1 on it’s own merits. To start with, the title “Avenging Spider-Man” is a much better title than “Marvel Team-Up”, which is really what this book is.

Marvel Team-Up was a book that ran through most of the 1970’s where every month, Spider-Man would, well, team up with a different superhero, usually in a one or two-issue arc. Marvel often used it to showcase new or underperforming characters with Spider-Man, and you always knew you could buy it anywhere in it’s run and not be lost in too much continuity. Which is a concept that is sorely lacking in today’s decompressed storytelling world, and a book I am predisposed to be enthusiastic about, for nostalgia if for no other reason: Marvel Team-Up #41 by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema was the first comic book my dad ever bought me. It was a reward for getting it all in the toilet. I was 22. Ah, Bladder Bust Night… But I digress.

Avenging Spider-Man #1 features a team up between Spider-Man and the Red Hulk, battling Moloids on the streets of New York City… even though the Moloids were just shown living peacefully and giving aid and comfort the the green Hulk not two weeks ago in The Incredible Hulk #1, but…

Right: no continuity talk. Anyway. Zeb Wells writes a relatively entertaining little tale here, if you take it on its own merits. The story is certainly not lacking in action – we open right in the middle of Spider-Man and the Avengers battling the aforementioned giant robot, then very rapidly drop into the Moloids attacking the marathon and kidnapping Jolly Jonah and dragging him, Spider-Man and Red Hulk (With Miracleman as my witness: you will never see the abbreviation “Rulk” on this Web site) underground to meet the Mole Man, and…

Shit. We’re done already?

Okay, then let’s talk about Joe Madureira’s art. Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Madureira’s style is very much in the vein of Humberto Ramos, which is to say it reminds me of Manga. A lot of big eyes and broad, caricature-styled facial expressions with exaggerated anatomy. Let’s just say I don’t ever want to see him draw Ron Jeremy.

What sets Madureira apart a bit is that he embellishes that Manga look with more fine-line work, both in his pencils and his inks, than you might normally find in this kind of art. So while I am normally not a fan of this style, he distinguishes himself enough that I at least found it more interesting than I usually do. It worked well enough here, even though I will never buy his stuff at Artists’ Alley.

And he will have stuff to sell at Artists’ Alley, because Goddamn does this guy draw splash pages. This issue is packed with giant splashes and widescreen double-page spreads. In a 22-page story, I count at least three double-pagers and no less than four full (or almost full) page splashes. Which is pretty if you like the art style, but in practical terms, it means that almost half this book is devoted to single story beats – one picture, one beat. And one of those full-page beats is of the Red Hulk scaring a fucking bird. I did the math: I paid 18 cents to see the Red Hulk – the Strongest One There Is – terrify a fucking pigeon, which I can watch Beavis and Butthead do for free.

So even though this book is a couple pages longer than many we’ve been getting in single issues recently, it feels… slight. Sure, there’s some fun dialogue – having to suffer through the traffic nightmare of the Boston Marathon every year, I’d kill for a mayor who opened it by saying…

–Let’s get this over with so you jog-hippies can get back to dressing like normal human beings–

…but so much of the book is taken up by big ‘ol pretty pictures that there isn’t any room for much actual story. It feels like it’s over before it even starts. I usually like to read a comic book while I’m taking a dump, but I don’t think this one would last through a decent beer fart.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was one thing I actually really enjoyed about Avenging Spider-Man #1: the fact that it was so continuity-challenged. If that was a decision made on purpose, it means that Wells has embraced the old Marvel Team-Up philosophy of self-contained storytelling. And I like the idea of a comic book that I, or anyone, could just grab without having to know that Thor is dead or that Wolverine is the leader of a school or that Iron Man is shitfaced or any number of other things and just enjoy the story.

That said: next time, give us more story.