Yost and Burnham (w) and Baldeon, Olliffe, Green, Pallot, and Olazaba (a) and Sotomayor and Loughridge (c)
Kaine's stuck facing off against Kraven, who is in typical recent-days Kraven mode; he still wants/needs the hunt but boy does he want to die. We get a bit of history as we hear how Kaine got involved in the life of the Kravinoffs and Kraven, disappointed in Kaine's first showing, says (over loudspeakers at the zoo he's brought Kaine to) that he wants to draw the animal out from Kaine before leaving him to deal with his daughter. To do it, his daughter has captured all of Kaine's friend and has told Kaine she's killed them (all except Aracely). Kaine viciously attacks her, ready to kill her for what she's done. Right as he's about to give up, though, he remembers the strong influences in his life and holds off. She tells him where Kraven is and Kaine quickly makes his way there to find that his friends aren't dead. Yet, anyway. Kraven wants to fight and he's holding Kaine's friends, ready to kill them should Kaine refuse the fight.There's a lot of history here which might bog down some readers who know the whole story backwards and forwards but let's not act like that wasn't a ridiculously confusing storyline when it happened, let alone a few years removed from it. The recap, then, is pretty useful and maybe more than a little necessary. It moves well and doesn't slow the pacing too much. The battle Kaine has been struggling with since the start of this series really comes full force here as he has to pull himself back right from the brink of murdering Ana Kraven. The Kravinoffs tend to bring out the worst in Spider-Men and this is no different. Solid issue and, though the set-up shouldn't be unfamiliar to people who have, you know, read a comic book before, there's a chance for very interesting resolution as it impacts both Kraven and Scarlet Spider. Plus, if this series truly is winding down, we're going to have to start learning about Aracely sooner rather than later, so be on the lookout for that any time now.
Superior Spider-Man Team-Up 3
Rodi (w) and Del Mundo (a and c)
We check in with Spider-Man as he works with the Mighty Avengers against Thanos' invading army. He's momentarily pulled away from the action when one of his spider-bots reports a surge of power in a nearby library. Spider-Man goes to check it out only to find that it's a medieval studies student who has been somehow transformed by a green mist into an electricity-based super-person. She loathes technology but suddenly finds herself thrust into it. Spider-Man doesn't really have time to sort her out but he's entranced by the idea of studying her. For the moment, he explains to her that she can likely travel via the electrical grid (like the other electricity-based super-people he's met) and tells her to meet him downtown. When he gets downtown, he realizes, thanks to messages she's broadcasting through all available electronics, that she doesn't know how to get out of the grid. She quickly learns a bit about the situation, though, as she then realizes the potential of the power she wields and begins destroying all the electronics nearby, promising to plunge the world back into the Middle Ages.Not a bad plot here and Spider-Man is written particularly well; condescending as ever and ready to leave a fight with Thanos to explore his own interests, Spider-Man is every bit the Spider-Man we've seen in Slott's book and elsewhere. The character, who names herself Fulmina at Spider-Man's insistence that she adopt a new name to replace Sylvia Prell, is perhaps a little overblown (does anyone really think the Middle Ages were a better time to live?) but she serves the story as well as she needs to. The art is pretty good and the colors are particularly interesting as they give everything a slightly faded feeling, like it's dusk or perhaps there's a bit of dust on our lens. Not sure how much of a lasting story we'll get out of this (or indeed, this entire book) but I'm not sure we're looking for big lasting stories here. This is strictly a team-up book; maybe it will crossover with other Spidey books at times but I'm pretty sure we're not in this for the meaningful stories. We're in it to learn about character and this does that pretty nicely. Solid entry to the young series (that feels not-so-young on the heels of Avenging Spider-Man).
Ultimate Spider-Man 27
Bendis (w) and Marquez (a) and Mounts w/ Ponsor (c)
Mostly a fight scene issue, which isn't bad for a book that has had its main character take a year off (though it was only, like, two issues in our world). A little bit of action was in the cards for this book and it comes here as Spider-Man has to pull out all the stops (many of which he doesn't remember because he's been prematurely retired for a year) to beat the energy absorber. It means that there's a whole lot of web-slinging in this issue, though not ever super successfully. Still, the banter here borders on, if not fully crosses the line into, excessive and it makes the characters all sound mostly the same. Remove names and gendered pronouns and read this script and you probably could not guess who was saying what at any given time, which is a worry for a book that, in its long run (with the volumes before this and up through this one), has wanted to make a real character out of its protagonist. I'm not an endorser of back-and-forth dialogue in comics, which this book obviously has (note the writer), but I feel I should qualify that by saying I'm fine with it used sparingly or with certain characters. If every character is using it and/or using it all the time, no one manages to sound particularly different and the book is slowed tremendously, which is the opposite feeling you're intending to get out of back-and-forth dialogue. It doesn't work used often on a page. No real surprises here.
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