Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Spider-Man, Hulk, and Punisher walk into a jungle, yada yada yada, a Cosmic Cube is in the wild. The new outside-continuity series Spider-Man: Long Way Home is clearly a synergistic choice with the MCU, but also doing its own thing. Armed with writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Adam Kubert, its biggest strength is not playing by the rules.
Spider-Man: Long Way Home #2 opens on a suburban lawn, first with tropical birds up close, and then we pan out to see a classic car and a regular home. Hickman is telling us we’re not in the wild jungle anymore. We meet a bald man who is seen pictured with Frank, and Frank needs his help. Then we transition from this man, in a slick full-page spread that’s a fish-eye lens top-down angle in his living room, to a similar angle on Spider-Man in an S.H.I.E.L.D office. Two full-page splashes for a fairly simple transition show this book is about style first, and not about efficient storytelling.
From there, we get some much-needed context regarding Spider-Man, even if S.H.I.E.L.D. needing him seems like a bit of a stretch. Fans of Spider-Man will likely continue to feel annoyed since this short scene and a cliffhanger return for Spidey are all we get.
Just Frank and the Cosmic Cube, no biggie.
Credit: Marvel
The main focus of this issue is Punisher riding the rails and staying off the beaten path. He has the Cosmic Cube, and he’s using it in a clever way to keep himself hidden. Sporting a cut-off jean jacket and cool shades, Kubert makes him look quite cool in these scenes.
Meanwhile, Hulk is as frightening as Bruce Banner as he was the green Goliath. Cast in green from a computer screen with glasses that don’t show his eyes due to the green lenses, it’s clear Hulk in this story is not even close to a hero type. Or, at the very least, he’s a villain for now. His use in this issue is unnerving, as we see Banner is in control of the Hulk and likes the chaos and violence.
While the issue ends on a direct attack that’s gorgeously drawn, the framing is decompression 101 in comics. A double-page layout of Frank on a boat while Hulk tracks him isn’t the splashiest or most tantalizing of visuals. A full-page spread of Bruce exiting a taxi, while well drawn, isn’t going to exhilarate. There isn’t enough story in this issue to fill 22 pages, so Kubert stretches with the art. It’s certainly fine, especially if you love his art, but it’s blatantly dragging things out for the reader.
Spider-Man: Long Way Home #2 continues to impress thanks to Adam Kubert’s commanding artwork and Jonathan Hickman’s cinematic approach visually, but the story moves at a deliberate pace. The issue invests heavily in atmosphere, framing, and character positioning, particularly with Punisher and Bruce Banner, though Spider-Man himself remains surprisingly absent for long stretches. There are intriguing ideas at work, especially around the Cosmic Cube and Banner’s unsettling role, but readers may wish the narrative covered more ground before the final page.
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