"Spider-Man/Deadpool: Isn't it Bromantic?"

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Spider-Man/ Deadpool: Isn’t it Bromantic?” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Peter Parker has the proportionate speed, strength and agility of a spider, adhesive fingertips and toes, and a precognitive awareness of danger. He is the CEO of Parker Industries and the superhero the Amazing Spider-Man.

            Wade Wilson has a healing factor that allows him to recover from almost any wound. He has a succubus wife and is the wisecracking merc with a mouth Deadpool.
            Spider-Man and Deadpool first met when Deadpool supervillain Quentin Beck/Mysterio were hired to discredit politician Jack McPherson. This first meeting led to Deadpool turning on his clients and teaming up with Spider-Man, but it did not exactly make them friends.

Deadpool had just become a member of the superhero team the Avengers, a team Spider-Man was on, but due to his principles, he was unable to accept Deadpool’s appointment to the team and decided to leave the Avengers. Deadpool wanted to learn to be a true superhero, and he thought the best example to learn these skills from was Spider-Man. Deadpool orchestrated a team-up, hoping to win Spider-Man’s trust, but failed, but refused to give up. Of course, Deadpool had to make money on the side somehow, so he continued his mercenary business. His next target was Peter Parker. Deadpool had been given the false impression that Peter Parker was a top-shelf scum bag. Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Miles Morales/Spider-Man and Deadpool inadvertently teamed up to fight the supervillain Mysterio, but the fight left the villain severely injured and in a coma, but Deadpool’s efforts to save the villain’s life made Peter Parker see the merc in a new light and decided to give him a chance. Deadpool showed Spider-Man a day in his life, and a friendship began. And then, after a bro’s night out, Deadpool offed Peter Parker. Deadpool hoped to view Parker’s torture in the underworld, but Parker never arrived. Fearing a mistake was made, Deadpool had his demoness wife Shiklah restore Parker to life, just so Deadpool could unalive him again, but once again Parker never arrived in the underworld, leading Deadpool to realized he had been played and that Peter Parker really wasn’t a bad guy. Parker was, however, trapped with Mysterio in the villain’s near-death state. Deadpool pulled strings with Shiklah to get into Mysterio’s head to rescue Parker, who had been approached by the demon Mephisto. Meanwhile, Patient Zero, the man behind the target on Peter Parker, had impersonated Parker to steal data from Parker Industries. Spider-Man and Deadpool teamed up to fight Patient Zero, but the villain managed to escape. After the fight, Deadpool discovered that his disfigurement that came from the treatment that gave him his powers had been cured and that he was no longer unpleasant to look at. After his escape, Patient Zero performed an experiment on a young woman using the data he stole from Parker Industries, and blood samples from both Spider-Man and Deadpool.

            Deadpool’s lack of disfigurement caused disinterest from his demoness wife. Spider-Man and Deadpool continued their team-ups, fighting the Hateful Hexad following Spider-Man’s “no kill rule,” but the woman Patient Zero experimented on, now displaying the powers of both heroes, violently took out the villain team, left the crime scene, and made Spider-Man and Deadpool look like the culprits. Spider-Man dubbed this villainess “Itsy-Bitsy.” After another encounter with Patient Zero and Itsy-Bitsy, Spider-Man and Deadpool retreated to Weirdworld to lick their wounds, where they hate to save the pocket dimension from a creature called Sl’ur’boroth. Spider-Man then decided that the only way to stop Itsy-Bitsy for the last time was to end her life, a line Deadpool refused to let his newfound friend cross. Deadpool brought Spider-Man to X-Man Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, hoping the mutant priest could talk Spider-Man out of this drastic decision, but this talk did not accomplish what Deadpool desired, but did lead to Deadpool discovering Patient Zero’s true identity, his reason for hating Spider-Man and Deadpool, and why he had to stop Spider-Man from ending the life of Itsy-Bitsy. The two heroes and the monster created from their DNA fought, and the threat of Itsy-Bitsy was ended for the time being.

            The Salmon Stunt Man arrived in New York City to tell Deadpool that Hollywood was making a movie about him, and even wanted him to be in it. He got Spider-Man to join in on the movie by making him an associate producer. However, the fight scenes between the Salmon Stunt Man and Deadpool were attempts to end Deadpool’s life.

            Deadpool took part in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, playing against world-famous magician Penn Jillette. The two made a bet that if Deadpool lost the Penn, then Deadpool would have to switch places with Teller, Penn’s partner in his magic act, for a week. Deadpool lost this bet and had to be Teller in the act for a week, while the real Teller secretly teamed up with Spider-Man to fight a villainess calling herself Tarot, whose powers came from a magical deck of tarot cards.

            On Christmas Eve, Roman God Saturn came to Earth, disgusted with how Christmas had ruined his holiday of Saturnalia. Deadpool held an Avengers Christmas party, but did not invite Spider-Man, a party that Deadpool ended up getting himself kicked out of. Spider-Man and Deadpool decided to spend the rest of Christmas Eve together, when they ran across Saturn, who had gone on a rampage. To end the carnage, Deadpool decided to show Saturn an enjoyable time and prove that Christmas is just like Saturnalia and that his holiday really hadn’t been ruined.

            A coven of prospective young witches kidnapped Deadpool in an attempt to summon Shiklah, Deadpool’s heartmate, but instead summoned Spider-Man to their school, just in time to fight a monster that arrived to wreak havoc on Toronto.

            Okay, so we’ve got the plot out of the way, time for my own personal thoughts. First off, I have to say, I loved this book. I thought the writing was brilliant. And the humor was great. Honestly, I originally would not have thought of putting the two of them together teaming up in one book. On the one hand, we have Spider-Man, the purest superhero in the Marvel Universe, a through and through goody-two-shoes. Then we have Deadpool, who literally kills people for a living, completely remorselessly. The two are complete opposites. Their principles are different. They have nothing in common, other than the fact that while they do their thing, they crack jokes. They’re literally oil and water, they shouldn’t mix. And yet they got put together in this book and the writers made it work. I never thought that would happen. And I never thought this could work as an ongoing series. As a six issue limited series, maybe. A little onetime team up, fight the bad guys, win, go their separate ways. But this series lasted for several years. I just couldn’t believe it. Personally, I loved the ‘Itsy-Bitsy” story arc, I just enjoyed seeing the conflict in Spider-Man, how he was willing to violate everything he believed in and how the immoral Deadpool actually did all he could to keep his new friend from crossing a line and doing something he could never take back. I just thought that was so brilliant. I thought the retro issue was clever, a fantastic addition to the book, I like how they jokingly said they had written it back in the 1960s but never published it. It’s obvious that’s not true, but it was still a great joke all the same. And the Penn and Teller issue was hilarious, I loved how they actually got Penn Jillette to write a comic book, I just thought that was genius. And I’m always partial to a good holiday special, and I thought that “The Spider-Man/Deadpool Ho-Ho-Holiday Special!” was fantastic. And the artwork in this book was excellent throughout the whole book, it was just consistently outstanding, which is extremely rare in a Modern Era Epic Collection, I usually find at least one artist to complain about. I won’t even complain about the retro issue. All-in-all, I just thought this book was stellar. Well done.

            Next, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I know that I have people who know what I mean, but I know some of you may never have read one of my reviews before and don’t know what I mean, so therefore I will explain myself. When I say accessibility, I mean just how easy it is to pick up and read this book, particularly to people who are not regular readers of the Marvel Comics. So, I will say that there is difficulty with accessibility. This comes from a specific period where Peter Parker had his own tech company, which did not last for a super long time, so that does cause a conflict on being able to just accept the content of this book. Also, this is from a time where Deadpool was a member of the Avengers and had a demoness wife, which also wasn’t a long-term storyline. So, some of the character development moments are a little difficult to grasp for people who have never read the comics, as nothing like this has ever happened in the movies or cartoons or video games (as far as I know), so the context from other forms of media just isn’t there. Also, there is an issue from a crossover event called “Monsters Unleashed,” and this graphic novel only contains the Spider-Man/Deadpool issue, so it’s taken out of context, and the is little foreground to it and no true closure to the story either. So, despite this book being Vol. 1, despite this starting with issue #1, there is a lot of background knowledge required from the time period to truly understand the full story, like just why exactly Patient Zero was able to convince Deadpool that Peter Parker was a scumbag, because that directly pertained to Parker Industries, and that’s just one example, there are many in this book. I really don’t feel that this is an entry level graphic novel for people who have never read a Marvel Comic book before, or even that it’s a good graphic novel for people who have read Marvel comics before but didn’t read them in the early- to mid-2010s. I just feel like this book is highly inaccessible for new readers who are just walking into a bookstore and seeing this book on the shelf and thinking to themselves “Oh, ‘Spider-Man/Deadpool?’ Cool! I’m buying this!” I just feel it’s not the right fit.

            Okay, now that I’ve officially warned off about 97% of my readers, let’s get down to the practical details, my numeric score. Some of you already know the drill, but I have to say it again anyway because I do have people reading right now who have never read one of my reviews before, so it just must be done. I score on a simple scale. I go through one to ten. One means this is utter trash and should not be read at all; ten means this book is pure gold and if you meet the requirements needed to read this book then by all means you should read it. Now, of course, this is a graphic novel, so when I score, I must take both story and art into consideration when I render my judgement. Now, my regular readers know that I’m not in the business of handing out tens for no reason. So, could this book actually be getting a ten? I mean, the story was great! The art was great! Is it a ten…? No. I must score this book as a nine. There’s just some little thing holding me back. I can’t quite tell you what it is, but this book just doesn’t get a ten, sorry to say. Still, a nine is really darn good. It’s just not quite perfection. I can’t put this on the internet and say it’s a ten, then look back after Vol. 3 comes out and say “Why the heck did I give this book a ten? It wasn’t perfect!” (Vol. 2 just came out two days prior to my writing this review, I got this book almost a year ago, I just didn’t review it previously because I didn’t have a laptop at the time I last read this book, just so you know, I just reread this book as a refresher, and you can expect a review of Vol. 2 sometime in the next three weeks.) I really, really wish I could give it a ten, I loved it so much, but it’s just got something that’s not quite ten material.

            Anyway, let’s move on to my recommendation. As much as I loved this book, it is extremely hard to recommend. As I stated before, the accessibility level is pretty low. However, if you are familiar with Spider-Man and Deadpool in the Marvel Comics circa the early- to mid-2010s, I highly recommend this book. It was fun, funny, well written, beautifully illustrated and all around enjoyable, and I feel like any Spider-Man or Deadpool fans would find it worth the read. I mean, even if you haven’t read comics before and read this review and want to read it now, I’m not telling you not to read it, that’s all up to you, I know some people are intuitive, I mean, people start reading comics at any point every day, I just don’t recommend this as a first Marvel graphic novel, but hey, if you want, by all means, go for it, I’m not stopping you. Honestly, I can’t tell you what to do, you don’t have to listen to me, everything written on this website is all just my opinion, I’m not telling you what to think or feel, you can agree or disagree with me about anything you want, I really don’t mind, that’s the beauty of being a human being, we all have our own opinions on anything, you don’t have to listen to me, I’m just saying how I personally feel. So, I guess what I’m saying is I do recommend it, but I do give warning.

            Anyway, I’ve been blathering on for quite a while, so I think we’re getting to a point where we should start wrapping things up. So, I have written dozens of reviews just like this one, and you can keep on expecting more. Like I said, you can expect another review sometime within the next three weeks of Vol. 2 of “Spider-Man/Deadpool” and there will be plenty more after that, so just keep coming back for more Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection reviews. I’ve also written short stories, poems, essays, articles, editorials, and all other kinds of content on this website, so if you’re into that kind of thing, be sure to keep browsing, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of other things to like on timcubbin.blogspot.com and there’s not an end in sight. So, I’ll say farewell for now, and until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Venom: Shiver"

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Venom: Shiver” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Edward “Eddie” Brock was bonded with an alien parasitic organism called a symbiote. Together, they were the supervillain named Venom. Venom frequently fought Peter Parker/Spider-Man, who priorly hosted the same symbiote. During one such fight, Spider-Man was losing, and the Fantastic Four (Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Susan Storm-Richards/Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ben Grimm/The Thing) came to his aid and were able to defeat Venom and separate Eddie from the symbiote. During the fight, Venom lost his tongue and a civilian stole it, but an enigmatic scientific agency called The Ararat Corporation, comprised of clones all named Bob, Vic and Frankie stole the tongue from him to try to replicate the Venom symbiote. Meanwhile, Reed Richards continued to study the original Venom symbiote using a self-replicating robotic species he discovered during one of the Fantastic Four’s adventures into deep space. The new Venom symbiote, unlike the original, did not like to keep it’s hosts alive for any length of time and would kill them very quickly. The government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. took both Eddie Brock and the original Venom symbiote to the Vault, a prison for supervillains. The new symbiote was sent to the Ararat Corporation’s Arctic Research Facility in Northern Canada, where Bob unleashed the symbiote upon the scientists there. The symbiote went on a rampage killing all but one scientist. Meanwhile, Eddie Brock and the original symbiote escaped from the Vault. S.H.I.E.L.D. used Reed’s Nanobots to create an agent to go after Venom and sent him to the Arctic.

            United States Army communications specialist Patricia Robertson was sent on an errand to the Ararat Corporation’s Arctic Research Facility with her sled dogs. She found the surviving scientist, who was in shock, and brought him back to U.S. Radar Station “Christmastown.” Colonel Malone figured that the slaughter at the Research Facility was done by a polar bear and brushed it off. The Nanobot agent found the Research Facility as well and decided to follow Robertson to Christmastown. Robertson’s dog Ivan was found near death and brought inside Christmastown for treatment. Unbeknownst to all the military personnel, the symbiote was attached to Ivan and was now inside the base. It then jumped to Malone. The Nanobot agent arrived at the base, and tried to destroy the symbiote, then after failing to destroy the symbiote and save Malone, he tied up Robertson and specialist Jackson, but the symbiote had moved on to Jackson. The symbiote then tried to destroy the Nanobot agent but failed. Robertson was able to escape and found the scientist, who told Robertson the story of the symbiote, which had now killed everyone on the base but Robertson, but as it turned out, the symbiote was in the scientist. The symbiote then took possession of a dog and fled the base. The Nanobot agent then incapacitated Roberston and took her from the base as well.

            Ararat agents Vic and Frankie arrived in Canada searching for the symbiote, a fact that the Nanobot agent noticed and informed S.H.I.E.L.D. of. X-Men member Logan/Wolverine arrived on the scene and fought Venom. The Nanobot agent incapacitated Frankie, while Vic went after Robertson. The Nanobot agent then saw that the symbiote was about to jump onto Wolverine, so the Nanobot agent attempted to kill Wolverine to prevent this, since Wolverine had a healing factor that would sustain the symbiote, eliminating the need for the symbiote to continuously switch hosts. Frankie tried to entice the symbiote to join with her, but the Nanobot agent informed the symbiote Frankie had been cybernetically enhanced with the ability to control the symbiote and prevent it from escaping. The symbiote rejected them all, escaping in a civilian. Vic and Frankie then abducted Robertson and tried to blow up Logan and the Nanobot agent. Both survived and Robertson was able to escape. The symbiote then found Logan and bonded with him, while the Nanobot agent found Robertson, incapacitated her, and cybernetically enhanced her like Vic and Frankie. The Nanobot agent was able to force the symbiote out of Logan and onto Robertson.

            Robertson was able to escape to Manhattan with S.H.I.E.L.D. going after her. Spider-Man found her, thinking she was Eddie, then the original Venom found Robertson. The two Venoms fought until S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived. Eddie webbed up S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury and escaped, leaving Spider-Man to fight Robertson. Bob arrived with a clearance code forcing Fury to stand down on the Venom case. Eddie and Robertson fought again until the Nanobot agent arrived. Eddie fled, and the Nanobot agent counseled Robertson, then caused a blackout in New York City, and brought Robertson to Reed Richards to lure Eddie to the Baxter Building to contain the Venom symbiotes for the last time.

            Okay, so now it’s time for the Tim Cubbin part of the review. So, we’re going to start with my thoughts on the graphic novel. I thought it was enjoyable. It wasn’t a great book, but it wasn’t horrible either. I guess you could say it was just okay. The story was interesting enough. I will say that the story was originally written out of order, with one of the later stories taking place at the start of the narrative, but for this review, I wrote it chronologically, for context purposes. I liked the story with Wolverine. Wolverine fighting Venom was awesome. I thought it was interesting how the Ararat Corporation was able to clone the Venom symbiote from a piece of his tongue. It was almost comedic. And the art was fantastic. It was stylized, which can be dangerous, but in this case, I feel like it worked out right. I’ve reviewed graphic novels before where I’ve complained about stylized artwork, but this stylized artwork gets no complaints from me. But there was a lot I disliked. I disliked how in the first story, almost all the characters were expendable and not fleshed out. I felt like I just didn’t get to know these characters before they were killed off, so I just couldn’t feel for them. I also felt cheated that most of this book did not have Eddie Brock as Venom. I was really hoping for an Eddie story, and I was highly disappointed that I didn’t get it. It would have made the Venom versus Wolverine fight even more epic if it were Logan who fought Eddie instead of just a random no-name character in the symbiote. Still, for what it was, I found the book to be decent.

            Next, we’re going to talk about accessibility. Now, my previous readers will know what I mean by that, but for you newbs, I’ll explain. By accessibility, I mean how easy it is to pick up and read this book, particularly if you are someone with little to no prior knowledge about Venom. I have to say, I found this book to be accessible. First off, this is Vol. 1 of the series of Venom Modern Era Epic Collections. Second, the series collected in this book starts at #1. Third, all eighteen consecutive issues in this book are one series. Fourth, there are no crossovers or tie-ins and no events going on at the time. Fifth, it doesn’t directly continue from any previous storylines. I think that if a person were to be in a bookstore and see this on a shelf and think it was interesting, yet know nothing about the character, they’d be able to just pick it up and read it and understand it. If you have knowledge of Venom from the “Venom” movies or Marvel cartoons or video games, I feel like you’d be able to understand this book fine. They provide good background on the character of Venom and I don’t feel like they cause a major contradiction in the portrayal of the character, but I will say I haven’t seen every Marvel animated series or played every video game, so I can’t confirm that with a certainty, but from what I do know, I don’t think they’ll poison your conception of the character too badly, unless you’ve only played “Spider-Man 2” and have no other experience with Venom, that Venom is nothing like Venom from the comics, but I feel like otherwise, you’re good. If at any point in time you’ve read Marvel Comics from the main Marvel Universe and read any stories with Venom in them, you’ll have no problem understanding this book at all, this fits in fine with the continuity. This is a good jump on point. If you’re looking into starting to read Marvel comics and are looking for a good place to start, I feel like this is a good place for you to pick.

            Okay, now we’re going to get into the important part: my numeric score. I score on a basic scale, one to ten. One is the worst, meaning this is a steaming pile of garbage, ten means this is amazing, and every page should be framed and hung up all over your living space. You can guess this isn’t a ten or a one, and that it falls somewhere in-between. If you guessed that, you’d be correct. So, I have two things to take into consideration when scoring a graphic novel: story and art. So, I said the story was slightly disappointing, but the artwork was fantastic. So, I am going to have to score it at… seven! It was good enough that I can give it a high score.

            Next, we’re going to talk about my recommendation, if I personally recommend it and to whom I recommend it. Yes, this book does get my personal recommendation. And I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of the character of Venom. If you’re a fan of Venom, I’m telling you that you should make every effort to read this book. I feel like if you are reading this review and are liking what you are reading, I think you should go out and get your hands on this book. And if you are reading this and personally know someone who is a fan of Venom, tell them about this book so that they can read this, because I totally feel like this book is worth it.

            Okay, I feel like I’ve gone on long enough, you have better things to do with your time than reading my drivel, so I’m going to send you on your merry way now. I will tell you that I have written dozens of reviews on this site, so there’s plenty to read. I post regularly, so there’s usually new content available frequently. I have another review planned, expect it in the next week or so. I’ve also written short stories, poetry, articles, essays, editorials, and all other kinds of content on this blog. If you want to leave me a comment or a reply or something, feel free to do so, and you’re welcome to leave a Tweet if you’re reading this on X or a comment if you’re reading this on Facebook, or just communicate with me however you feel like, that would be great, I’d love to hear from you. No one has ever sent me a reply, I would love for you to be the first. So, keep coming back for more because there will be more, and I say to you until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!