Why Spider-Verse Sucks

 

With Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse arriving on Friday, I thought I'd review the comic book event that started the franchise. For any of you wondering why I didn't do this for the first movie, it was because it simply didn't cross my mind. Lackluster reasoning, I know, but enough of that and let's tell you why this comic sucks.

Spider-Verse was a 2014-2015 Marvel Comics storyline, that can be found in the 2014 volume of the comic series, The Amazing Spider-Man within issues #9-15. The story arc was written by Dan Slott and drawn by both Olivier Coipel and Giuseppe Camuncoli.

The story is Peter Parker thought it was just gonna be another day of being Spider-Man and stop some criminals. He quickly gets shocking news when other Spider-Men tell him they need his help to stop The Inheritors. Can Peter and his fellow Web Warriors stop them, or they doomed to be their food?

Reasons Why It Sucks

Reason #4: Too Many Tie-In Plugs

One thing that became incredibly annoying when reading the main storyline was also seeing a red box basically saying "Hey! Do want to know what happens in this adventure?! Well read this miniseries!" Just check this out, this happens in issue ten.

Then we have.

After that, we go to issue eleven, and guess what, another tie-in plug! This happens throughout the entire story and it's very annoying. Not too mention but some of these stories to fell necessary to read. Like what's the point of seeing Miles and Ultimate Spider-Man (the cartoon one, not the comic one) going a recruitment adventure? We're either A) Gonna see those characters die just as quickly as they were introduced, or B) They're gonna pushed to the background. Which brings me to my next point.

Reason #3: Too Many Characters

I mean it folks, there were just too many Spider-People crammed into this story. Like I said previously these characters either die just as quickly as they appear or they just get pushed to the background. So because of this, you really don't care which one dies. I mean, maybe if you're a hardcore Spider-Man fan maybe you care, but even then you'd have to admit, it didn't matter at the end. Because the only purpose that one specific character played, was to add to the bodycount. What should've happened in that we just stuck with a small team of Spider-People and then worked with that.

Reason #2: The Villains

The second worse thing were our villians, The Inheritors. These bad guys were boring! I mean it, they are as stereotypical as they get. Most of they dialogue is just "Hahahaha! We're going to feast of these Spider-People! Hahahaha! or "It's time to hunt! Oh how I love to hunt these little delicious meals! Hahahaha!" and if it's not meal talk is just them talking about how great they are, in the most standard way possible. I also noticed there's nothing separating one from the other. They all come off as the same character, but different clothing and gender. And other than Morlun (I'll get into the writing about him later), everyone else is pretty much forgettable.

AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON WHY SPIDER-VERSE SUCKS IS.....

THE WRITING!!!!

The writing for this story is just terrible. It's so inconsistent, that I wouldn't be surprised if a former Marvel employee came out and said Dan Slott was just making things up as he went all. Cause the story almost gives off that impression.

One bad thing is the characterization of Morlun. When he first appeared in the 1999 volume of Amazing Spider-Man and the storyline Coming Home (issues #30-35 if you were curious), he was pretty awesome. A decent villain in my opinion, but here, Dan writes him like your genetic bad guy, who gets into petty fights with his older brother, like a child. Way to give J. Michael Straczynski a giant middle finger there Danny boy.

And just to prove my point about the inconsistencies, get a load of these events.

So, let me see if I got this right. Daddy Inheritor can take on and straight up kill a version of Spider-Man with cosmic powers, without breaking a sweat mind you. But he can't beat Kaine (a clone of the main canon Spidey) who's only ability is he recently turned into a giant spider, to the point where he actually dies. How and why did nobody at Marvel call Dan out on this?! This isn't a slight mistake, this is just terrible writing.

Then there's the thing that was absolutely driving me crazy throughout the whole story, and that's Peter Parker (the real one, not an alternate) apparently forgot how to kill people like Morlun! What I mean is going back to the Coming Home storyline, Peter found a way to finally defeat Morlun. So did that bit of knowledge crossover to this story? NO! Before the final acts, Peter goes on and on about how he just doesn't know how to beat Morlun and his family. Again, Peter went through this, he even mentions fighting Morlun before and what happens to his body when he's actually beaten. So how come he doesn't realize it here? Because Dan Slott's writing is terrible. That's why. Either he didn't bother doing research, did very little research, or he did do his research and he deliberately chose to ignore certain events, just so his story can give the impression that there's actually stakes. I'm believing it's the last one, because like I wrote before, Peter mentioned these events. So Dan Slott must've purposely ignored somethings.

The Only Good Thing

There's really only one thing saving this story from me giving it my lowest rating, and that's Olivier Coipel's artwork and Giuseppe Camuncoli's artwork. Despite given a very terrible story to work, these two by no means slacked off. That's really the only reason to check out this story. Everything else sucked, but not their handiwork.

My final rating is, Awful!

So yeah, if you want to see good Spider-Verse stories, just checkout Ultimate Spider-Man and its The Spider-Verse multipart episodes and Return to the Spider-Verse multipart episodes. You can also watch Into the Spider-Verse or Spider-Man: No Way Home. Or just go watch the final two episodes of Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Those episodes came out in 1998, way before Dan had this idea, and they're also far superior than what he wrote.

Anyhow, that's all for now. Come back on Saturday, Jun 3rd, for my review of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.