Hey everyone! Welcome to my first written review on Spidey-dude.com since Methuselah was a small child. Normally I wouldn’t write such things, as I am usually a podcaster here, but I felt that it was warranted since today is the launch day of The Spectacular Spider-Men. Since it was announced last November, I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the book, and even did an episode of the Spideydude Experience, specifically to discuss the series and how it came about.
Spectacular Spider-Men #1
Written By: Greg Weisman
Pencils by: Humberto Ramos
Inks: Victor Olazaba
Colors: Edgar Delgado
Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover Art by: Humberto Ramos and Edgar Degado
Variant Cover Artists: Sean Galloway, David Marquez and Romulo Farjado Jr [Foil], David Nakayama, Todd Nauck and Rachelle Rosenberg [Homage], Dike Ruan and Marte Gracia.
Production: Gabriel Mata
Assistant Editor: Kaeden McGahey
Editor: Nick Lowe
Editor-In-Chief: C. B. Cebulski
Spider-Man Created by: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
All covers from Marvel.com.
2024 has been a wild year so far, if you’ve been reading the Spidey books. It sort of reminds me of the golden era of the 80s where you have your different flavors of book. Back then, you had three books: ASM, Web of Spider-Man, and Spectacular Spider-Man. Now, you have Amazing Spider-Man by Zeb Wells and Co. (Usually John Romita Jr., Patrick Gleason, and Ed McGuinness,) where it’s been pretty hot and cold with me, you have Ultimate Spider-Man by Johnathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto, which has been great, you have the upcoming Spider-Man: Shadow of the Green Goblin by J.M. DeMatteis and Michael Sta. Maria which is something that mines that rich past of Spider-Man’s yesteryear, and finally Miles Morales: Spider-Man with ASM alums Cody Ziglar (from the BEYOND era) and Vincentini (From the back half of Nick Spencers run in Vol 5). Along with Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Man & Spider-Boy. Today we add to that group with the new ongoing Spectacular Spider-Men. My point in bringing this all up is simple: there is a flavor of ice cream for everyone, and hopefully you can get enjoyment out of them all. I know that Spider-Man Twitter will do what social media commonly does and put people into tribal groups of what they like and what they hate, but I frankly tire of that type of thinking and am trying to take all of this in as it comes and enjoy the ride. Hopefully, you can too.
So that being said in the interest of full disclosure, I will be gushing about this book, and I do want to admit my bias here at the top. Greg Weisman has been a friend of this website since 2014 when we started Spectacular Radio, and he currently lends his time to Spec Radio’s sequel/prequel of Voices from the Eyrie: A Gargoyles Podcast. We have done interviews with Greg about this book and seperately with J.M. DeMatteis about the aforementioned Shadow of the Green Goblin and frankly, those discussions enhanced my brimming of excitement for these two projects. Hopefully those two have entrained you on our YouTube Channel, and I am looking forward to doing more. I am enjoying Ultimate as well, and feel that we are eating well when it comes to the variety of books published by Marvel.
I also think that this book is long overdue. Spider-Men, which brought the two together prior to Hickman’s Secret Wars ending the Ultimate Universe, was a massive hit. A book with the two of them and their growing friendship has been missing since then, and seeing as how much of a hit the Insommiac Games trifecta of Spider-Man games, Spider-Man (PS4), Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS4/PS5), and Spider-Man 2 (PS5), have really allowed the duo to have a relationship, not to mention the two Miles Morales Animated Movies, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse being academy award nominees, the licence to print money is there, and should be an easy sell. People like seeing Miles and Peter together, and seeing their friendship grow. For so long, it’s been the mentor/mentee role, and while that can work, it’s been largely unexplored and underdeveloped here. Now, fortunately, the Gang War thawed out their strained relationship that had occurred since the beginning of volume 6 and allowed them to have them be on the path to friendship.
Now with that lengthy preamble out of the way, let’s get into the issue itself.
THE RECAP:
Our issue opens with a GIANT Jackal-Man (uh oh) attack ESU, Miles is lamenting that this was supposed to be just them hanging as bros, but Spidey stuff gets in the way. Earlier, Peter is trying to convince miles that they should meet up and just hang out as friends. Every wednesday at 4 PM. We cut back to the present, and we continue to see our fight with the giant Jackal. Peter, suggesting that they should meet at the ESU coffee bean, go there. Peter is still thinking he’s in 1998 (Hi Ben, we miss you) and Miles gets it on the app. We bump into Sha Shan, who hasn’t been seen in years, and thanks to our interview with Greg, is a Weisman favorite, we’re also introduced to Cedric Harrison, a former neighbor of Miles’, Kenny, Aka Kong who makes his 616 debut, with Peter desperate to be a regular. (We are also introduced to Shelly, the girlfriend of Kenny and who Ced was flirting with) Back to the battle, Peter causally mentions Miles Warren’s name which causes Miles Morales to freak out, but Peter explains that Miles Warren is the Jackal. Then we also meet, or are reintroduced to, Dr. Warren, Raymond Aaron Warren, the brother of the Jackal, here to meet up with a Dr. Seymour Krepps, who is inventorying the old lab of Miles. We get a page of dialogue with the ESU theater department, and we also get a scene with two women who are getting together that go to ESU, Juliet and Anna, while again interspliced with the Jackal fight. After a page of Peter finally becoming a regular, and Peter being an overall dork, we get to the present day with the Jackal fight, where Peter and Miles put their heads together and finally use leverage to defeat the Jackal. Soon, they explore the lab of Miles and realise that this was a creature that was lurking, and once Krepps turned on the power, he activated the creature. They also discover a grizzly discovery: a charred skeleton. Cut to Ced, who earlier saw a wanted ad for a beta test for a “new Spectacular, Sensational Amazing and Ultimate entertainment software, call 212-555-funn!” actually call for more fun
ZACH’S MUSINGS:
Weisman and Ramos criuse in this issue, as they attempt to create a semi-bubble of ESU for Miles and Peter to interact with. There are some quips and jokes that are very meta at times, and Peter should be behaving like an adult. But frankly, he’s basically an overgrown kid. Miles, being the Gen Z, and Peter being the Milleinaeal, it’s a fun interplay of the dynamic that they create here. Familiar faces like Sha Shan, Dr. Warren, and Kenny are absolutely welcomed here, and the new characters that are introduced are fun additions as well. This very much felt like the pilot episode of the series, and I expect the two interlude scenes of the theatre performance (a Weisman staple) and the two women who appear to be more featured players here. They had a hercualean effort in trying to establish in a single issue the players that are featured here and seamlessly introduce newbies to play with in future issues.
So I saw some early reaction of the preview pages with some of the quips. I get it, there are some meta jokes. The one that actually got a chuckle out of me, was Peter and Miles trying to figure out what they should call one another, should they go by Broooklyn and Manhattan? Gargoyles fans unite! The other meta joke of Miles and Peter never aging was funny, though spoiled by the preview, and finally the joke of him trying to become a regular felt like a Peter Parker thing to do. Peter is jokey and somewhat unserious, and you sometimes need that in a buddy-cop comedy, which is kinda what this is. A giant Jackal hits me in the Clone Saga loving heart, and it felt like Ramos brought it here with the play. While some might criticize the jumping back and forth in this issue between the fight, it allowed the fun element to creep in. Peter trying so hard to become a regular in the Coffee Bean was funny and I’m glad it didn’t extend beyond this issue. I love Peter feeling like he can be goofy and have fun here. After years of him dealing with the ultra-serious issues surrounding ASM and the like, it’s nice to have a Peter who is more relaxed and able to be jokey and want to just be that friend to Miles. Even if Miles has to give him grief as he’s an overgrown child.
Ramos is also bringing his kinetic pace in this issue, and does extremely well in the fight scenes. However, if you’re not a fan of his, you probably wouldn’t like the art. Personally Ramos has grown on me immensely and has frankly grown into a legendary artist of this century on Spider-Man. The guy been at it for 20 plus years and he delivered in this issue.
Bottom line, Weisman and Ramos begin their run doing a fun, breezy, issue that should appeal to the masses in such a way that ignites a run, while bringing a fun mystery to the series. It’s been awhile since Greg’s written Peter and his Miles feels like the more grown-up Miles we’ve seen in recent volumes.
PS, hopefully your comic shop stocked a bunch of these and you can pick it up, I encourage you to pick up the book! On sale now! I will be talking more about it on a special episode of Spideydude Experience on YouTube tomorrow night, 9/8 Central. Join our Discord for more discussions!
POST SCRIPT: If you want to join our review staff, leave a line here!
Excelsior
Zach
