Spider-Verse continues and it has spun (hehe sorry) into a variety of tie-in issues. This week serves up a little clone action as three spider clones join forces to find out how to stop the big bad guys from cloning themselves. Is it good?
Scarlet Spiders #1 (Marvel Comics)
The three clones in question are Kaine from the 616, Jessica Drew from the Ultimate universe and Ben Reilly (the Spider-Man of his own dimension) and they’re on a planet built to make clones. Really who would be better for this job than this clone club?
Villain home worlds are supposed to be evil!
It’s immediately obvious that writer Mike Costa has taken to Jessica Drew as she’s the main protagonist of this little adventure. We are inside her head as she narrates the insanity of their mission, the differences between her and the other clones and other observations. It’s a nice touch that gives the book a heartfelt feel. It humanizes her and the other spiders which is important considering a clone is sometimes considered less than human.
The issue doesn’t hold too many surprises aside from some usually good guy characters ending up bad and the plot doesn’t get very far. We do get an interesting scene with one of the Inheritors as he thinks about Chaucer and the big reveal on the last page should titillate some of you Spider fans.
Yeah that is odd.
The art by Paco Diaz is good as he captures our Spider-People very well. They’re extremely bendy and fun to look at, that’s for sure. Jessica Drew is particularly arachnid-like in her poses. There are two double page spreads that are interesting as they aren’t big splash pages but filled with panels and a large background panel to hold it all together. The final cliffhanger page is a one page splash that’s not all that great to look at though as it’s more focused on revealing a face than anything.
Cool narration.
Is It Good?
A good start to this tie-in although it doesn’t progress the plot too far past a “let’s get our bearings” sort of way.
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