The Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider Man Review

About three years ago, when I decided to get really back into comics, when Marvel Mania was pretty much where it was right now, which is extremely high, my first real port of call, the one I really wanted to read was  Matt fraction’s  Hawkeye series, which was fantastic. I know it got some criticism. I imagined it would. I read it in trade, which probably helped a lot. In that year or so, I really intensely read Marvel comics, like almost non-stop. To me, and I suspect to a lot of people, and this has been  They were fantastic. I feel it's a real undersold golden age of Marvel stuff is that time period where Marvel was just doing fantastic and it seemed like no series they could do would screw up. The new characters were fun and interesting and diverse.

I remember explicitly one scene where I was like, "There is no better than this. There is no point that could be better than this," and that was the one scene where  It was technically, I guess, an issue where there was a Christmas party . There was no action or anything. It was just undersold and everybody was having a good time. I was like ... As I've mentioned before, what I consider to be good writing, or particularly good character writing, is the characters seem to have lives outside of the story. Every Marvel character seemed to have a life outside of their story. They all seemed to exist.

It was after that it all went so, so, so wrong. I don't know exactly what happened. I mean, of course I do. I know exactly what the reason was. The reason was my most hated enemy and foe, the thing I dislike the most in comic book story telling, is the massive multiplayer crossover thing that seems to happen every year and always is late on schedule, goes on too long, and interrupts everybody's storylines and screws everything up. There was Secret Wars, which was popular but took too long, and then there was Civil War II, which was horrible and took forever.

But the movies were going strong. Some Marvel was still chugging along its film division, for a while definitively being better than its comics division. Brutal ironies. There was that. What did Spider-Man, Peter Parker, the former erstwhile star of the Marvel universe do now? Well, and despite what you might see previously written on this site, I do not, in fact, hate Dan Slott. In the unsung golden age of Marvel that I mentioned, I should bring up one of the ones that I particularly liked was his She-Hulk one. I do feel Slott had run out of ideas of what to do with Spider-Man because when you spend a good deal of time writing a different person than the supposed star of the series, that is not like great ... That usually indicates a man that is not interested particularly in doing the thing he's been doing for years anymore.

Of course, there was other ideas that didn't work out so well and then worked out particularly well with a different person taking over.

There was some good new additions to the cast.

What about Peter himself? Well, I've always had a love/hate relationship with Spider-Man. I realized why I do because I like the character and I like the conception of the character, but I always feel he's the easiest kind of dude to screw up on in a lot of ways because most, I feel, writers project so hard into him. He has a weird almost Superman-ish problem in that sometimes Superman writers don't let Superman be a character and he has to be this ideal for all humanity. It's almost a vague Jesus-y person in a lot of ways. That's the issue for Spider-Man, but with urban and their own personality interests.

The problem hits when Peter is not allowed to be a character of his own, and that, unfortunately, was what was dominating him for the past so many years. In fact, a different Spider-Man totally outshone him for a while. After Homecoming came out and I watched it and I examined it, I realized something about Peter and especially now with this new series. Oh boy, we're getting to the actual review of the thing I promised to review? Peter is a star. Peter Parker deserves his own comic book series because Peter Parker has and always will be a great character. An everyman, although side note, we desperately do need more diverse everyman characters. I'm just saying Peter is a great one of those, who is given great power and wants to do what he can to help the world but is stuck, but is human in a realistic and personable way.

peter parker the spectacular spider man

That's why he always remains popular. No matter what, Spider-Man will, I feel, remain popular because kids ... Like Batman in a lot of ways, Spider-Man can always be there for you, but he needs a good writer. I didn't think ... I remember when I first heard about this thing, and I'm always late to everything because I don't really keep up with the news on these regards, and oh my god. Is there not a more perfect match between subject and creative force than Chip Zdarsky writing Spider-Man?

Chip Zdarsky is essentially what Spider-Man (if he also was comic writer/artist)  would be if he was a real-world person. Oh my god. The second I heard about this, I knew they had found an absolutely perfect writer and the series did not disappoint. Brief overview for new readers coming into this world of Spider-Man. By casually mentioning a few things that went on in Peter's life, then pretty much ignoring, except for a few things. It kind of hints at the fact that the biggest significant new contribution to Spider-Man's mythology  is one of’s Mark Wade was the one who I always thought should have been given Spider-Man. Until, they mentioned Chip Zdarsky.

Until Chip Zdarsky name was brought up, and just like his collaborators on sex criminals, Matt Fraction, Matt Fraction, Chip Zdarsky is blessed with an amazing lightness tone , is goofy and brilliant, and builds likable character, unlikeable character almost immediately.

The plot is, I'm up for it, I'm following it but so the plot, the additions I love, so the plot is essentially started by, and spoiler alert for the second issue of this, pretty much the end of the first issue. It started by when Spider man's sister comes to visit him.

That's right, from that graphic novel that I didn't read, but I want to now. It's Theresa Parker, is back in the picture. And for people who've only, who may or may not be related, Peter and Theresa certainly do have the chemistry, the fun chemistry of a brother and sister, which is good.

I don't know, I mean new family members are like soap opera one o one but super heroes are, share a lot of elements with soap operas in a lot of ways. I think most people liked Theresa and the graphic novel where she originated from was popular.

I don't think anybody, I certainly don't have an objection to it. You know you gotta kind of spice up the cast every once in a while, also there is Peter’s  new romantic interest who I like, who's a stand up comedian. I misspoke there, it's not Peter Parker's new romantic interest, it's Spider man's new romantic interest.

Which leads to one of the funniest skits ever where Spider man literally dose stand up and the people are not into it (been there). So the plot is, I'm not 100% fan, although I don't mind it here because they seem to be handling it intelligently.

I'm not 100% fan when superheroes try hookup, like the concept of superheroes to real world politics, because it's such an inherently fanciful idea, the second you try and make it realistic, you always run into a little bit of an issue.

Whatever. No work can be perfect. 100% perfect. Forget that, cause that's not fun. But ultimately this is, and it tracks Peter's position to stop what turns out to be a plot by the tinkerer.

I don't want to get like more into it than that, I want to talk about the relationships because, In the end it's the relationships that make any story worth its while.

They've got some great ones cooking here. Besides, Peter and Theresa who have a great back and forth relationship, even though I dread, I'm not the hugest fan of the shop reveal, "Oh my gosh, I have a long lost sister" I like it.

If she does turn out to be his actually be his sister, or half sister, or cousin, or family member, or clone, oh please don't let her be a clone.

It would be okay if she was a clone but, they do clone stuff way too much and I'm a little sick of that plot point actually in Spider man, but anyways, that would be fantastic. They have the great natural back and forth like siblings do have.

The thing about only children is, I feel there's always a weird thing with only children and children who have siblings, it's like kids who have siblings always think like, gosh wouldn't it be great to be an only child, you wouldn't have to do all this crap and kids like me who was an only child goes, says, boy I'd love, I always kind of thought it'd be really great to have a brother or sister. 

I always wanted that kind of relationship where it's like that close familiar relationship where you're close to somebody and they get you as a person and they care about you.  I've always wondered about that in a person, like a peer you know? Anyways, a little too real on my part I guess. But let's talk about a few other people! Johnny Storm is in this and I always personally like it in Spider man stories when he has a close friend in the superhero community.

Either daredevil, and or, Johnny Storm are the two most obvious in my re-read and I've been reading the original spider man stuff lately, I dropped off for a while long time for reasons, and that's a nice call, the fact that Johnny Storm was the first superhero that Peter met, and they have a good back and forth.

I feel like I'm repeating that a lot but one of Zdarsky's strengths as a writer is he's very good at this back and forth stuff, and surprisingly he can get serious and almost always that works off.

I know that Zdarsky is not his real name, but, I think of that as him, writes very believable back and forth, and he has a strength in characters who can just be in rooms together talking a lot like his sex criminals collaborator Matt Fraction.

But the stories he writes usually are much lighter in tone and goofier. Have I mentioned I'm a big fan of Chip Zdarsky and Matt Fraction.

I think I brought that up right? Anyway, I guess the big secondary spoiler, maybe reading this to learn about this kind of thing or not, spoiler spoiler even, more spoilers than spoilage's and you know what spoiled cabbages and stuff like that are coming up is J Jonah Jameson and they fact that Peter tells Jonah that he's Spider man.

Which is a big emotional moment, and one of my favorite secondary characters, in a way matures and also runs a blog, way matures.

So after losing his, not being mayor anymore and not being publisher of the Daily, almost wrote the Daily Planet, I meant the Daily Bugle, Jonah has joined the illustrious and very very successful and hip, and hip, don't forget hip, world of online blogging.

Like most bloggers, he's obsessed just with his traffic numbers and nothing else, I certainly don't know that feeling. Staying up late at night, worrying over. Up late at night, wondering what the figures present me tomorrow. Oh, no. Anyway, so particularly long moment, Peter, who acts in a way that shows that Peter is one of the most truly human in the Marvel Universe. in the south too. Let's admit it, and let's say for real something about Jonah. Jonah is weirdly the real paternal father figure in Peter's life. I know that sounds odd that they always kind of  but if you think about it, Jonah has always been the older male figure that has tried in some way to help Peter. He's been there with him in more ways than Jonah would admit. Jonah was always, in a lot of ways, protective of Peter. It's not a good relationship. It's always been this kind of paternal relationship. Some events happen. I don't want to share the specifics of it because I want you to read the thing, but let's be honest.

If you know me by accident if you're the one person from India and the one person from Finland that seemed to read this site a lot, first Hi. How's it going? I am really appreciative of you two. I don't know who you are, but I really am appreciative. Then you've read this already and you loved it as much as I do. I loved the series so much, I've re-read all of the available issues like a couple of times.

Anyways, I feel in a lot of ways that Jonah of this is one of the hearts of the series, and one of the great arks that Karpinski has really plotted and made use of the character in a way that he hasn't been used in a long way, because he's still both hilariously a cranky old sleaze who several times goes like, "Ah, that's a great story." Cranky old sleazy journalist and JJJ a deeply tragic figure. That's fantastic, man.

So what of crisis crossovers? Why don't they work and how can they work? Why am I bringing that up in the middle of this review? Well, what do you know, there's an alien invasion that happens. I'm not going to tell you how. It's a superhero series and you know. You need a big event, and invasions are good enough. Several superheros come through together to help fight it off. While I was reading this, I had a revaluation. This is a crisis crossover. There is a crisis going on, and there's a crossover, and there's several superheros. But, I don't hate it like I usually do.

I guess the point I wanted to bring up in this series, and I kind of included it in an artless way, but I'm just going to power through that. The real problem, and why I keep going back to this seen, and why this series proves to me that I was right ... That's in a Christmas party where all the superheros get together, is that this point crisis crossovers are essentially pointless. It was interesting a few years ago the original Secret Warriors with the crisis crossovers in it, it was interesting. But the thing is the Marvel Universe and DC Universe are essentially established worlds now and superheros pop in and out of each other all the time. It's not exciting anymore to see that. It's in a way good that it's not exciting anymore, because I don't have problems with shared universes in comics. I think they're fun. I like the idea. There's always another hero to tell another story. Although, you know, Robert Altman, whatever, make another comic book adaptation. I think he'd appreciate that idea, you know.

What this proves to me, and the fact that Storm, whose a very good supporting character in this comic, proves to me is that this feels like a world now. It feels like a real fantastical insane crazy wonderful world. The only thing that crisis crossovers can achieve now is to disestablish other people's stories, ruin character development. The reason why series seem to go downwind after every crisis crossover is because they have to spend the next ten issues justifying the character, getting them back to where they were in their story, and then continuing the story. And with continuous crisis crossovers, the never get back to telling their own stories because that's the truth of it, man.

With this I realized what the issue was. This tells the whole of the Marvel Universe coming together, and doing good themselves, and everybody keeping in character. It's great that we have Chip Zdarsky or Steve because this proves a perfectly match writer and character can work wonders with each other. And that's good. So, for the first time in a while, I feel confident about the Marvel Universe, and the way it's headed. Of course, they could always screw this up, and they probably will at some point. For a while, the water is calm. The ship has not sprung a leak, and everything is still.