Spider-Man's Tangled Web #1 TPB
Jan. 12th, 2007 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catalyst2I can't say that I read much Spider-Man stuff - just doesn't interest me usually but I grabbed this one from the library on a whim - and I am really glad that I did.
The first (three-issue) story starts weakly - yet another bully from Peter's childhood resents him (or rather Spider-Man) and his success and takes revenge - but this guy's got the power to do it. The guy can dissolve into many, many spiders (the "Thousand" of the title) and dissolves people from the inside out, taking over their persona at the same time. Usual combat and chase occur except that there is a great ending - the most casual demise of any antagonist ever, I think! Overall, a good story.
I really liked the second (single-issue) story - Greg Rucka's "Severance Package" - and, coincidentally Spider-Man only appears in one single panel of the entire story. The story itself is conventional - a baddie screws up and his boss calls him onto the office to take the consequences. What was great was that this used every cliche of that story, turned it on its head and gave us a very sympathetic protagonist who cares for his family and stands by his principles, for better or for worse. Even nicer is the ending - Kingpin (that's the guy's boss) acts with honour and compassion, instead of the utter mayhem and chaos most writers would have done. Overall, an excellent story of the highest quality.
The third (two-issue) story is just "Flowers for Algernon" adapted to a new recipient - Rhino. Not usually the one for a love story, nor particularly any story with insight, here Rhino becomes a genius and then .... but you know the FfA story any way! Good story, if a little unoriginal because it really does follow Ffa very closely - now, if it had added a new twist, that would have been a story!
The first (three-issue) story starts weakly - yet another bully from Peter's childhood resents him (or rather Spider-Man) and his success and takes revenge - but this guy's got the power to do it. The guy can dissolve into many, many spiders (the "Thousand" of the title) and dissolves people from the inside out, taking over their persona at the same time. Usual combat and chase occur except that there is a great ending - the most casual demise of any antagonist ever, I think! Overall, a good story.
I really liked the second (single-issue) story - Greg Rucka's "Severance Package" - and, coincidentally Spider-Man only appears in one single panel of the entire story. The story itself is conventional - a baddie screws up and his boss calls him onto the office to take the consequences. What was great was that this used every cliche of that story, turned it on its head and gave us a very sympathetic protagonist who cares for his family and stands by his principles, for better or for worse. Even nicer is the ending - Kingpin (that's the guy's boss) acts with honour and compassion, instead of the utter mayhem and chaos most writers would have done. Overall, an excellent story of the highest quality.
The third (two-issue) story is just "Flowers for Algernon" adapted to a new recipient - Rhino. Not usually the one for a love story, nor particularly any story with insight, here Rhino becomes a genius and then .... but you know the FfA story any way! Good story, if a little unoriginal because it really does follow Ffa very closely - now, if it had added a new twist, that would have been a story!
