Spider-Man and the League of the Realms #3: One of the problems of being a Spider-Man fan is that Marvel often takes advantage of that fact during events to produce exactly this sort of mini-series. They know you'll buy it, and you do. More often than not, the author barely has a grip on Spider-Man's character or events occurring in his life, and you spend most of the series mad. (If I remember correctly, "Fear Itself: Spider-Man" was particularly abysmal.) This series wasn't quite so bad, but it certainly wasn't good. Peter is excessively upbeat here, like when Kurse appears to break Sir Ivory's back after he throws himself in its path to save Peter: Peter makes a bad joke about Ivory saving his back. To make matters worse, situations change panel from panel. Ivory seems paralyzed, then he's standing on his own, then he's lying on the ground at the very end. Similarly, Fernande is homicidal, then suicidal, then homicidal again. Ryan wants us to believe the troll member of the League convinced her to fight for what's beautiful or something like that. But, it's so trite that it's hard to believe that it works on Fernande, particularly since she rebuffed Spider-Man's earlier attempts to help her in this way. In other words, it's just a mess and very, very easily skippable unless you're really invested in Kurse's story.
War of the Realms: Journey into Mystery #5: Man, I'm going to miss this series. The combination of the McElroys and Araujo is definitely one that I'd seek out again, given the fun but also heartfelt story we got here. Ares finding himself in the embrace of the team after it turns out Laussa choreographed everything to build her own army was touching, as was Sebastian telling him about how Phobos would've done him proud when they were in the Secret Avengers together. I can't remember a team put together for an event that I've enjoyed more. At the very least, I hope Thori appears in Miles' book often, like Lockjaw in Kamala's!
Also Read: War of the Realms: War Scrolls #3
