Thursday, January 22, 2015

Scarlet Spiders #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Man, this issue gets dark quickly.

First, two things become clearer here.  The heroes of this world aren't necessarily working for Jennix willingly.  Although it's unclear how long Jennix has run this world, it seems possible that it's within the last generation, with the heroes remembering a world before Jennix.  That seems like something that could be important later, since the clones might inspire some of the heroes to rebel against Jennix if they give them the opening.  Moreover, Johnny's surprise over "Iron Man" walking in Spider-Man last issue wasn't because Peter is some sort of hero in this world; it's just because Jennix hadn't told him (the head of security) that Peter would be coming.  I actually like this revelation, since it makes you stop waiting to get more information on this world's Peter Parker and engage with the story directly.

As I said above, that story is d-a-r-k.  Ben and Kaine find the clones, but they realize that they can't go about killing all of them because it would take too much time.  So, they try to find the place that powers the stasis chambers, figuring that unplugging them will result in the bodies withering on the vine (so to speak).  Instead, they find the place where Jennix keeps his cloned failures.  They're both enraged, and Jennix arrives to exposit that he has never successfully been able to harvest his own Spider; the ones that we see here never had the "spark."  He's excited by the presence of two clones with said spark, setting up what should be a pretty epic battle of survival next issue.

Once again, Costa moves us efficiently from Point A to Point B.  Also again, I wish we had a little more time for characterization, and the narration is a little overwrought.  But, compared to other tie-in issues, we could've done a lot worse.

*** (three of five stars)

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