Scarlet Spiders #1
Writer- Mike Costa
Artist- Paco Diaz
Color Artist- Israel Silva
Another week, another Spider-Verse tie-in. At the end of the last chapter of Spider-Verse we saw multiple teams break off to try to accomplish different tasks. We got to see one group last week in Spider-Woman #1 and this week we’re seeing the clones of Peter Parker try to accomplish their task in the miniseries Scarlet Spiders. The clones are on what they describe as a suicide mission by going to the Inheritors home world in search of answers. I found it to be a fun read.
While I wouldn’t say that Kaine, Ben Reilly and the Ultimate Universe version of Jessica Drew are huge fan favorites, I would say that they have somewhat of a cult following. None more so than Ben which Marvel knows judging from the title of the book. So to see these three characters, who are personal favorites of mine, together working off of each other was really cool. The book does a great job of giving us insight into Jessica. Mike Costa Does something interesting with the narration here. The narration is not from Jessica’s perspective, rather it’s about her and that gives us a good idea of who this character is, what motivates her and what drives her forward. Since this is a three issue miniseries I suspect the next issue will be focused on one of the other two clones and the last issue will focus on the remaining one. It’s an interesting idea to have a narration viewed that way but for people unfamiliar with the characters I think it’s a great choice. If you’ve been reading all of Spider-Verse some of the things that you’ll see in the Inheritors home world won’t come as much of a surprise but I still found myself wondering more and more about the place. I hope in the two remaining issues we get to learn more about this particular universe and the characters who live in it.
The art in the book is something you notice right away. Paco Diaz draws very hyper defined muscular characters. It makes you realize how skintight these costumes are when you can see every muscle in the character has. It’s not a good or bad thing, just something I noticed. The facial work in this issue is something else worth noticing. With Jessica being a female clone of Peter, Diaz is able to capture Peter’s likeness in Jessica’s face. It may seem like a small thing but not many artists have been able to draw her that way.
VERDICT
Buy it. I really enjoyed this book, it feels like everything I want a miniseries to be. It’s fun, exciting and filled with characters that I always enjoy seeing more of. If you grew up on the Clone Saga in the 90s or have been a fan of the Ultimate Universe or just happen to like strange depictions of classic Marvel heroes then you should definitely give this book a read.
