"Spider-Girl: Keeping the Faith"

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Spider-Girl: Keeping the Faith” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            May “Mayday” Parker/Spider-Girl is the daughter of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson-Parker. She has the proportional speed, strength and agility of a spider, adhesive fingertips and toes, and a unique precognitive awareness of danger called “Spider-Sense.” She fights crime in the legacy of her father.

            May got a tip from ex-boyfriend and fellow superhero Jack “JJ” Jameson/Buzz that the supervillain Doctor Jade might be back in the game. Jack was living with his grandfather J. Jonah Jameson in the absence of his parents, who were in Europe due to Jack’s mother’s lecture tour. Jonah informed Jack that Jack’s parents would be coming for a visit, but Jack was not happy about this prospect because he figured his parents would jet off again right away. May had just quit her high school basketball team due to the expulsion of Nancy Lu, a student and teammate who was outed as a mutant and May thought this treatment was unfair. This put her at odds with her former crush Brad Miller, who turned out to be anti-mutant and her best friend Davida Kirby, who outed this student as a mutant. May was worried about Jack’s erratic behavior and placed her father’s “Spider-Tracer” on Jack so she could keep track of his location and see what he was up to and to get a lead on Doctor Jade. Another of May’s former crushes Normie Osborn was recovering in the hospital, watched over by his girlfriend Brenda Drago/Raptor, another superhero. Buzz tried to bust one of Doctor Jade’s operations and was almost captured in the process, but Spider-Girl was able to swing to his rescue, a fact that only made Buzz angry at Spider-Girl.

            May needed to recover the Spider-Tracer from Jack and invited herself over to his house to study, which was also an effort to evade Brad. John and Ashley Jameson were there arguing with Jonah. John and Ashley wanted Jack to come back to Europe with them, which Jonah was not happy about, but the choice was left to Jack. Meanwhile, Peter and Mary Jane had their hands full with their new baby Benjamin “Benjy.” John Jameson was abducted while getting his gear from the airport, which led to Ashley Jameson confessing to Jack that John and Ashley weren’t really on a lecture tour, they were treating patients who had been mutated by a rogue genetic engineer. Jack swore to prevent his parents’ work from being exploited. Meanwhile, May turned to her ally Darkdevil to look for John Jameson. Spider-Girl was signaled by a man calling himself Chesbro who served as an envoy for the crime boss the Black Tarantula, who agreed to give Spider-Girl John’s location in exchange for a favor, an offer Spider-Girl accepted. Spider-Girl found Doctor Jade and her ally Carolyn Trainer, the new Doctor Octopus, already in conflict with Buzz. The evil Doctors were able to mutate John into the Man-Wolf. Spider-Girl fought with Doctor Jade, Doctor Octopus and Man-Wolf to try to help Buzz save his father. Following this fight, the Black Tarantula contacted Spider-Girl.

            Spider-Girl teamed up with Avenger J2 to fight invisible monsters. Jack discovered the Spider-Tracer and he and his handler Richie decided to use it to try to learn Spider-Girl’s secret identity. They followed it to the Midtown South Police Station and falsely assumed Spider-Girl was a cop. May learned of the Spider Shoppe, a store devoted to Spider-Girl memorabilia. Spider-Girl and J2 turned to Doc Magus, Sorcerer Supreme, to combat the invisible monsters, believing them to be magic based.

            Mary Jane hand washed May’s Spider-Girl costume while May was at school. May was contacted by Chesbro, who informed May that Lady Octopus was attempting to recruit allies, including Handsome Richie Valentine, a member of the Canis crime family. Canis was in jail for taking down Wilson Fisk/Kingpin. Chesbro also informed May that Normie was in trouble. May was in a rush to be Spider-Girl and put her costume in the dryer. She swung to the hospital to check on Normie, who seemed to be okay, while Brenda informed Spider-Girl that Brenda was preparing to talk about engagement with Normie. Spider-Girl then went to Valentine Motors, where she battled Lady Octopus again. During this battle, Spider-Girl’s costume began to rip. When Brenda spoke of marriage with Normie, Normie instead decided to end their relationship. Following this fight, Spider-Girl was again contacted by Chesbro.

            Fellow student Christopher Jarkoer was majorly crushing on May. He was trying to ask her out when May thought she saw a sign of Lady Octopus. She swung in as Spider-Girl, only to discover it was a cat burglar calling himself Claw. As they fought, Claw hit on Spider-Girl. Agent Weadon, who oversaw a team led by former mercenary Kaine and including Raptor, was contacted by authorities who believed Spider-Girl was fighting Lady Octopus, and the team went in to bust up the fight. Chesbro informed Spider-Girl to look in on Normie and discovered that the reason Normie wouldn’t marry Brenda was because he was already “married” to Élan DeJunae.

            May went to watch a high school basketball game. While this game was on, Canis was being transferred from Riker’s Island to the courthouse. Lady Octopus busted up this transfer and freed Canis. Spider-Girl was contacted by Chesbro, who informed her of Canis’ escape. Spider-Girl swung in and fought Lady Octopus and Canis but was unable to prevent this escape and had to be rescued by Darkdevil.

            Spider-Girl received support from Black Tarantula, including training from Elektra Natchios and a strike force headed by two women called April and June. Kodiak, an agent of Canis, went after Handsome Richie Valentine for ignoring promises to Canis. Spider-Girl swung to his rescue in her new black costume, which she bought to replace her tattered red and blue.

            May’s new costume scared Mary Jane, who was reminded of Venom, a supervillain who had a similar appearance. Canis and Lady Octopus planned a crime summit so Canis could stake his claim as the new undisputed Kingpin of Crime. Kaine and Darkdevil instructed May to contact them if she saw Élan, who was the daughter of a major European crime boss. May busted up another of Canis’ agents trying to establish Canis as the Kingpin of Crime, and June was injured in the fight. Black Tarantula provided May with a whole closetful of Spider-Girl costumes, both red and blue, and black.

            Black Tarantula prepared for the inevitability that Spider-Girl would turn against him after Lady Octopus and Canis were apprehended. Kaine contacted Spider-Girl to inform her Kaine had orders to bring in Black Tarantula dead or alive. Canis attempted to start his crime summit, only to realize that he had been double-crossed by Lady Octopus and that the actual crime summit to establish the Kingpin of Crime was being held in a different location by Black Tarantula. Spider-Girl called in assistance to apprehend Canis, then went after Lady Octopus and Black Tarantula. Kaine’s team was called in as well and instructed to treat Spider-Girl as hostile. Meanwhile, Élan revealed to Normie that she was a member of the Order of the Goblin, a cult dedicated to Normie’s grandfather Norman Osborn/Green Goblin. Spider-Girl returned to her red and blue and attempted to call Normie, but Élan had Normie tied up.

            Élan planned to use the Goblin Serum on Normie to turn him into a true Goblin. May considered a romantic relationship with Chris. While with Raptor, Spider-Girl received a phone call from Élan, who told her she had Normie. Spider-Girl and Raptor rushed to Normie’s aid to fight the Goblin Queen. During the fight, Spider-Girl was injured.

            Kevin Hartman was a student at Midtown High School who was bullied. He turned to Carlton T. Hackmutter/Dragon King, former custodial engineer, now mutated supervillain, in an attempt to get revenge on his bullies. Courtney Duran, May’s best friend, encouraged May to repair her friendship with Davida. Davida and May stumbled upon Dragon King, but May was forced to resolve the conflict without changing to Spider-Girl in order to protect her secret identity. Courtney’s boyfriend Moose Manfield had been acting odd for a while, and he finally opened up to May about exactly what was going on in his life that was bothering him so much.

            Spider-Girl fought supervillain Allison Dillon/Aftershock, the daughter of one of Spider-Man’s villains, Max Dillon/Electro. Normie and Brenda actually got engaged. Electro turned himself into the Avengers and asked to speak to Spider-Man. He was unable to touch his daughter due to different frequencies in their electrical auras that caused physical pain upon contact. He didn’t want his daughter going down the same path he went down and ending up in jail like he did. Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, the Avengers and Electro confronted Aftershock to try to convince her to end her criminal ways.

            May invited Chris to Normie and Brenda’s engagement party. The Goblin Queen crashed the party and threw the Venom symbiote at Normie, turning Normie into Venom. The Fantastic Five tried to fight Venom but were impeded by the Goblin Queen. Reilly Tyne/Darkdevil and Spider-Girl swung in to fight, but Darkdevil was severely wounded by Venom, and the villains were able to escape. Spider-Girl brought Darkdevil to the Avengers, who called in Doc Magus and Doctor Strange to try to save him. May’s “Uncle” Phil Urich/Green Goblin flew in to fight Venom and the Goblin Queen, and May donned her black costume again.

            Okay, so we’ve had a very thorough synopsis of the book where I tried to leave out as many spoilers as I could. So, since I’ve rattled on for so long, I’m going to try to make my parts a little briefer, so I don’t totally waste your valuable time, and also, I have been working on composing this post for over two hours now and am getting ready to move on. So, the first thing you’re wondering is did I enjoy this book. I can absolutely confirm that I did, in fact, enjoy this book. However, I will say this is not exactly what I expected. First let’s talk about what I enjoyed. I found the stories to be of excellent quality and highly entertaining. I felt like the high school drama, the family life, and the superhero struggles were all in good balance and made for an enjoyable read. I found myself invested in and caring about the characters and what happened to them and what they were going through. I liked how they utilized new characters inspired by older characters from previous comics. I will say that I must complain about the artwork slightly. There’s something about the shape of the characters’ heads that bothers me in almost every issue in this graphic novel. I want to like the artwork, and I mostly do, but the heads are just a little wonky and off-putting in my opinion. Now, when I say this is not what I was expecting, I say this because of the cover. On the cover, May is wearing her black costume. This intrigued me before I purchased this book, leading me to believe May was going to get the Venom symbiote. Her not getting the symbiote in this book was a disappointment, but I was still able to enjoy the book for what it was.

            Next, we’re going to talk about accessibility. Now when I say this, I mean how easy it is to get into this book, especially if you know little or nothing about Spider-Girl or Marvel Comics. I will tell you that the accessibility rating of this book in my opinion is low. It does draw on a lot of history from Spider-Girl and her universe. What doesn’t help is that this is Vol. 5 and the only other Spider-Girl Modern Era Epic Collection available at the moment is Vol. 1, so at this exact point in time of my composing this post, there is a lot of Spider-Girl history unpublished in Modern Era Epic Collection format. I will tell you there is a lot that left even me, a twenty-three year Marvel veteran, lost because I’ve never actually read Spider-Girl before and these Modern Era Epic Collections are my first times experiencing her stories. So, if I was lost, there’s a chance you might be lost if you don’t know anything about Marvel Comics. In other words, if you’re looking to get into Marvel Comics, this is not the right place to start.

            Now, we’re getting to the most important part of the review: my numeric score. I work on a very simple scale. I rank my reviews on a scale of one to ten. One means this is trash and should be burned, ten means this is outstanding. Now, this book was really good, but like I said, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, and I feel like it detracted from my enjoyment of this book slightly, and the artwork did have a mild displeasing look here and there. So, I do have to give it a high score, but I do have to take a little away. So, since I absolutely must do this, I’m going to score this book at… eight. For what it was, it was really good, but the artwork just had to take off a point, and the story just wasn’t total perfection, so I do have to deduct another point there, but otherwise, I really found it to be an enjoyable read.

            Next, we’re going to talk about if I actually give my own personal recommendation of this book to you, my readers, and regardless of if I actually personally recommend it, to whom do I recommend this book. So as far as giving it my personal recommendation, I give it a resounding yes, this book is highly recommended by One Tim Cubbin. However, it does come with a caveat. As I said, this book does have accessibility problems, and I can’t recommend it to just everyone who reads this review. However, if you are a fan of Mayday Parker from any point in Marvel Comics history, this book comes highly recommended by me, I’m telling you that you should read this, I think you will find it extremely enjoyable. And if you do want to read this book with no Marvel knowledge at all, I mean, hey, that’s your choice, that is all up to you, I can’t stop you, I just don’t recommend you do that. But if you do read this book, please feel free to leave some kind of comment, I’d love to hear your opinion, too. I’ve never actually gotten a response from a reader before and I would love for you to be the first, that would actually be really cool.

            Okay, so I feel like it’s time to say goodbye for now. I’ve rambled on for quite some time, and if you’re still here, you are honestly THE BEST! I will tell you that I post on a very frequent basis, you can expect another post sometime within the next four weeks, probably sooner than that. I have written over one hundred posts, including dozens of book reviews just like this one, and you can expect plenty more to keep coming. I literally buy every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection that comes out as soon as I’m able to get it, so there’s going to be plenty of content keeping on coming to this blog. I’ve also written short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there’s plenty more to read. I’ve written a bunch of things called B’ings if you want to totally waste some time. Just keep looking at timcubbin.blogspot.com and keep coming back for more, I’ll be here. And so, I say to you until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Captain America: Death of the Dream"

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Captain America: Death of the Dream” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Soviet general Aleksander Lukin and the Nazi villain Johann Schmidt/Red Skull had been sharing a body due to Lukin murdering the Skull and his use of the Red Skull’s device the Cosmic Cube. Steve Rogers/Captain America and his S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison/secret girlfriend Sharon Carter/Agent 13 arrived in London in an attempt to bring down Lukin at his company Kronas’ London Headquarters Opening Gala. The met up with British superheroes Joseph Chapman/Union Jack and Jacqueline Falsworth/Spitfire to achieve this goal. Meanwhile, Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier planned to assassinate Lukin, while villains Brock Rumlow/Crossbones and the Red Skull’s daughter Synthia Schmidt/Sin planned to attack the Gala. Cap and the British heroes snuck onto a Kronas ship and battled the Skull’s minions the Master Race. The Skull has planted a bomb on the ship planned it out to implicate Cap and Union Jack in the explosion. Sharon got clearance for Cap and Union Jack to investigate the Master Race with S.H.I.E.L.D. All parties converged on the Gala, where the Skull activated his sleeper robot to cause mass destruction on London and the Kronas Building. The heroes and the Winter Soldier teamed up to battle the robot, and Crossbones and Sin’s attempt to assassinate Lukin was thwarted, and the villains escaped, and Red Skull revealed his association with Lukin to the pair of villains to plan a new attack on Captain America.

            The Superhuman Registration Act was enacted after a battle between superhumans caused the deaths of hundreds in Stamford, Connecticut, requiring all heroes to register their identities and submit to training and oversight. Heroes such as Tony Stark/Iron Man saw this as a natural evolution of the role of superheroes in society. Captain America was called to hunt down heroes who defied the law, but he refused and became Public Enemy #1, leading the anti-registration resistance, while Iron Man led the pro-registration front. Maria Hill, the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. became aware of Sharon’s relationship with Steve and attempted to use it to capture Cap, but Sharon misled S.H.I.E.L.D. and allowed Steve to escape. Hill submitted Sharon to counseling with S.H.I.E.L.D. psychiatrist Doctor Benjamin, who had been killed and replaced by mind-controlling villain Doctor Faustus, who was working with the Red Skull to condition Sharon and several other S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents to his cause. Former S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury went underground, and his absence was covered by a Life Model Decoy, a robot replica programmed to replace Fury. Fury asked the Winter Soldier to break into a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility to hack into a Fury L.M.D. to give Fury access to S.H.I.E.L.D. information. The Red Skull paid a visit to Latverian Dictator and supervillain Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom to upgrade his sleeper robot which had been destroyed during the battle in London. Maria Hill tasked Sharon into the force dedicated to finding the real Nick Fury. Cap infiltrated a Hydra base, where he was almost apprehended by S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents tasked with bringing Cap in, but Sharon helped him escape. The Red Skull formed an alliance with evil genius Arnim Zola in an attack on Captain America.

            The Winter Soldier, now free from his conditioning, spent his first Christmas back in the world. Nick Fury learned the unregistered superhero team the Young Avengers were about to attack a Hydra base he had been spying on, the teenage heroes thinking it was one of Tony Stark’s secret factories, and asked the Winter Soldier to protect both his source of information and the young heroes who were about to bite off more than they could chew. After the battle, the Winter Soldier visited the grave of Jack Monroe/Nomad, a hero the Winter Soldier had killed while he had been programmed as a weapon by Lukin, where he was tailed by the Young Avengers, who learned the Winter Soldier’s true identity. The Winter Soldier recalled the last Christmas he remembered, from 1944, and met up with Namor, who was present for this same Christmas to learn of the life of fellow war hero Thomas Raymond/Toro.

            Cap realized that the Superhuman Civil War was causing more harm than good and surrendered to Iron Man, ending the War. As Cap was being brought in for his arraignment, Crossbones fired a shot at Cap. During the commotion, someone snuck in and fired three more shots at close range at Cap. Cap’s former superhero partner Sam Wilson/Falcon and the Winter Soldier were able to apprehend Crossbones. Though he was rushed to the hospital, Steve Rogers did not survive.

            James Howlett/Logan/Wolverine was not convinced that the assassinated body belonged to the actual Steve Rogers, so he had Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, cast a spell so he and Matt Murdock/Daredevil could sneak aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier to examine the body. Wolverine and Daredevil took a detour to interrogate Crossbones to learn the identity of the actual killer of Steve Rogers, only to find out that Crossbones knew nothing, and Wolverine confirmed Rogers’ death. The Mighty Avengers fought to stop supervillain Tiger Shark from using the Horn of Gabriel to destroy a top-secret nuclear warhead installation while the New Avengers met for a game of poker. Peter Parker/Spider-Man was having a tough time dealing with his grief and got into a fight with Wolverine. The newly revealed returned from the dead hero Clint Barton/Hawkeye called for Iron Man’s attention at the destroyed Avengers Mansion. Iron Man knocked him out and revealed that he was going to keep Captain America’s actual shield and donate a fake one to the Smithsonian and bury a fake one in Rogers’ coffin, then asked Clint to pick up Cap’s shield and be the new Captain America, but Clint insisted there is no Captain America without Steve Rogers. Iron Man and Clint teamed up with the Young Avengers, one of whom called herself “Hawkeye,” to fight supervillain Firebrand. Clint donned the Captain America costume and took up the shield to stop the threat, then Iron Man asked Clint to apprehend the young unregistered heroes, but Clint allowed them to escape and gave the shield back to Iron Man. Peter Parker went to the cemetery to visit the graves of his deceased parents and Uncle Ben, where he ran into Aleksei Sytsevich/Rhino, who was there to visit his mother, and mistakenly got into a fight with the supervillain. A funeral was held for Steve Rogers, but the body buried in Arlington Cemetery didn’t actually belong to Steve Rogers, and Tony Stark thought of the perfect place and person to ensure Steve’s body rested in peace forever.

            Sharon in her grief quit S.H.I.E.L.D. The Winter Soldier learned S.H.I.E.L.D. was moving Cap’s actual shield, and tailed it, only to learn it was being moved by his former lover Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. The two fought, and the Winter Soldier made off with the shield. Natasha revealed to Tony Stark that Stark was the Winter Soldier’s next target, and Sharon and Falcon took it upon themselves to secretly protect Stark. Sin formed her own team of supervillains, the Serpent Squad. Tony Stark received a letter from Steve Rogers. Sin and the Serpent Squad learned of Crossbones’ transfer to supervillain prison the Raft and disguised themselves as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and broke him out. The Winter Soldier went after Lukin but was defeated by Sin and Crossbones and held hostage by Doctor Faustus. Falcon and Black Widow went to talk to Sharon, but Sharon took them out. Tony Stark tried to contact Black Widow after deducing Sharon was under the control of Doctor Faustus, but this attempt failed, and Iron Man was forced into action.

            Okay, some of you may remember from three years ago that I wrote a review of the prose novel “The Death of Captain America” by Larry Hama if you’ve been with me for that long. If not and you’re reading this post, please feel free to check that one out. Anyway, this is not a graphic novel with the exact same content, and I was actually very secretive in my previous review, so the reviews are nothing alike and this one is full of spoilers that my previous review did not have, but there are a few details I chose to leave out in order to surprise you. I’ve gotten a lot more thorough in my reviews over the past few years, so my style is quite different than it used to be. Anyway, I will say that I highly enjoyed this book. Yes, it was extremely depressing, and surprising that they would kill off so major a hero as Captain America, but I felt like the writing was well done. I enjoyed the whole concept of Lukin and Red Skull sharing a body. Some of you may know I am partial to Civil War, so reading the Captain America Civil War issues again was enjoyable. Winter Kills had an interesting concept. Fallen Son was particularly entertaining to me, seeing all the ways the Marvel characters reacted to Captain America’s death, especially seeing how hard Spider-Man took it and the rage it caused in him, and Iron Man trying to reason with Clint, saying if there can be a Hawkeye without Clint Barton, there can be a Captain America without Steve Rogers. And I loved all the big plot twists with Sharon, I never saw any of them coming. I loved the artwork in this book, I thought it was all superb. I will say, however, that this book did end in the middle of the storyline and left so much hanging, so that was disappointing, but I’m getting used to Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections doing that at this point, I’ve noticed several of the volumes have done that. The inclusion of “Twenty-First Century Blitz” and “Fallen Son” prevented this volume from being able to contain the complete storyline, which is a little unfortunate, but I found those stories to be highly enjoyable, so that fact is forgivable. But overall, I found the experience of reading this book to be a pleasant one and I hope for another volume, which Marvel better do as this left so much in the ar.

            Okay, now we’re moving on to accessibility. Bear with me if you know what I mean by this because there are some people here who have never read a Tim Cubbin review before. So, when I say accessibility, I mean if you can know little or nothing about Captain America and read and understand this book. I found this book to have a huge accessibility flaw. Now I have to tell you, this book is a Vol. 2 and reading Vol. 1 really helps understand this book, but what makes this book have especially low accessibility is the fact that this takes place before, during, and after Civil War, and knowing Civil War is absolutely essential to understanding this book. So, if you’ve never read a Marvel Comic Book before, I’m expressly saying this is not a book for you. Yes, the book does give a brief summary of the events of Civil War, but a paragraph can only do so much. And no, I’m not talking about the film “Captain America: Civil War,” that will not prepare you to read this book, the storyline and characterizations are completely different. I honestly think that this book is highly inaccessible if you’ve never read Civil War, and if you know nothing about Marvel’s Civil War, this book is just going to be so difficult to get into and properly understand.

            Okay, I’ve gone on for long enough, you’re probably getting antsy and want to move on with your life, so I’m just going to move on and get to the single most important part of a Tim Cubbin review: the numeric score. Now, some of you know the drill by now, but I know some of you are newbs who need an explanation, so I’m going to give you one. I score on an extremely basic scale, a solid one to ten. One means this is a stinky pile of trash that should never have been printed, ten means this is one of the best graphic novels I have ever read. Now, if you’ve read one of my reviews before, you know I’m not in the business of handing out tens. I give this book extremely high praise. However, there are some things holding me back from scoring this book higher. It’s not perfect, and it has flaws. I can’t quite put my finger on all of these reasons, but I feel like I must give some point deductions. Now, as this is a graphic novel, I must take both story and art into consideration when I give my score. The story was particularly good, and the art was excellent, but there were just a few hiccups here and there. So, taking everything, putting it in the blender, and turning out the score in the mix, I must give this book a score of… eight! I have my reasons for not being able to give this book a higher score, but I just can’t quite put them exactly into words, I don’t know why.

            Okay, we’re going to move on now to my recommendation. This is just a simple matter of do I personally recommend this book, and regardless of that, to whom do I recommend this book. As far as my personal recommendation goes, yes, I do personally recommend this book. However, I will say that if you want to read this book, read Civil War #1-7 first. If you’re a fan of Steve Rogers, this book is going to be difficult for you, but I think there’s so much you’d enjoy from these last moments and the aftermath of his untimely passing. There are many plot twists and shockers, I left a few things out for you to discover when you read it, like exactly who pulled the trigger. I would particularly recommend this book to any fan of the Winter Soldier, he has some really good story arcs in this book, especially Winter Kills. I recommend this book to anyone who read Civil War and enjoyed it, this had good tie-in and follow-up story arcs.

            Okay, I think I’ve gone on for way too long at this point, I’ve kept you for a while and you want to go on with your life, you have more important things to do, and quite frankly, I’ve been at this for over three and a half hours, I need to move on with my life. Anyway, as usual, I will tell you I have literally written dozens of reviews just like this one, you can browse through the archives and see if there’s anything else here you like. If you want, you can check out my review of “The Death of Captain America” by Larry Hama for comparison purposes, although that review is extremely vague. I’ll be back with you in less than a month for another new Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection review, and I might have something else to sneak in in in the meantime between, so keep an eye out. I post on a very frequent basis, so there’s often more to see. I make it my mission to collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection released, so you can always expect lots of content here. I’ve also written short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there’s plenty more to see, keep on browsing. And I will sign off now, and simply finish with a few more words. They are Tim Cubbin… out!

"Daredevil: Out"

 

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

            Mobster Sammy Silke led a group of Wilson Fisk/Kingpin’s men into attempting to end the life of the Kingpin. Thinking he had succeeded and hoping to get away with it, he went to the cops and offered a confession and something big in exchange for immunity. The something big he offered was the true identity of the vigilante superhero of New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen: blind attorney Matthew Murdock. This information was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who investigated Matt’s background and considered if it was a possibility. Although instructed to keep this information contained, Agent Driver disobeyed orders and went to the tabloid the Daily Globe and sold out Matt’s secret identity as Daredevil. Matt’s law partner and confidante Franklin “Foggy” Nelson met to discuss Matt’s options on how to proceed. Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich and former Daily Bugle photographer Peter Parker tried to cover up Matt’s identity by telling Daily Bugle Editor in Chief J. Jonah Jameson they knew Daredevil’s true identity but wouldn’t reveal it because Daredevil gave Ben exclusive stories for the Daily Bugle and exposing Daredevil would mean losing information. Matt’s life became a nightmare as he was hounded by reporters who followed him, trying to find proof that he was Daredevil. Matt was conflicted on whether he wanted to reveal to the world if he was Daredevil or not. He came close to doing it but changed his mind. Supervillain Mister Hyde came to Matt’s house and attacked, and Daredevil had to team up with Spider-Man to take him down. Matt had to hire fellow superheroes Luke Cage and Jessica Jones to act as his bodyguards in public. Matt made his decision to tell the press that the reports that he was Daredevil were untrue, and he sued Rosenthal Publications, the owners and publishers of the Daily Globe, for $400 million. Following this, Matt decided to lay low and not be Daredevil. His ex-girlfriend, fellow superhero and S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow attempted to bring Daredevil back into action. Matt had dinner with Vanessa Fisk, wife of the Kingpin, who revealed to Matt who sold him out to the press. Natasha went to another of Matt’s ex-girlfriends, Elektra Natchios, who also tried to bring Daredevil out of retirement. Matt met with Uri Rosenthal to try to settle the suit out of court and get an apology retraction printed, but this meeting failed for Matt. Matt then swung back into action as Daredevil.

            A gang of street thugs attempted to rob a pawn shop. As they were doing so, a police officer caught them and met an unfortunate ending. “Retired” superhero Hector Ayala/White Tiger arrived at the crime scene, but the street thugs were able to escape and when the officer’s backup arrived, White Tiger was in a guilty-looking position and was arrested for the heinous crime. Street level superheroes Luke Cage and Danny Rand/Iron Fist, who were friends with White Tiger, went to Matt and asked him to represent Hector. Matt and Foggy met with Hector and agreed to take his case. Hector’s wife was unable to handle the situation and wanted a divorce, but Matt was able to convince her to hold off until after the trial, afraid of what the lack of support from his spouse would have as an impact on Hector’s performance in court. The prosecution tried to dispute that Hector’s mystic amulet gave him powers, and even went so far as to suggest that he could fire a gun without pulling a trigger, as his fingerprints were not on the gun. Matt called in several superheroes for the defense, including Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic and Doctor Stephen Strange, to explain Hector’s abilities. Matt called Hector to the stand, but Hector lost control and erupted during the cross-examination. After both sides made their cases, the jury deliberated. The process was quick, and the verdict led to nothing short of a great tragedy.

            Blind woman Milla Donovan was crossing the street when she was right in front of a truck. Fortunately, Daredevil was there to save her. This led Milla to have a crush on the superhero. Crime boss Leland Owlsley/Owl started a racket on Mutant Growth Hormone, a street drug that temporarily gives its user superpowers. He also intended to incriminate Daredevil with a video camera to record their altercation, but this attempt failed. Milla figured out that Matt was Daredevil based on voice comparison. The two agreed to go on a date. Uri Rosenthal met with an unfortunate demise. Matt and Luke Cage had a falling out over Matt’s hypocrisy. Matt became a suspect in the ending of Rosenthal. His house was searched, and he was brought in for questioning, but he was released. Wilson Fisk returned to the United States, recovered from his near demise. The FBI closed in on the Owl, and Daredevil arrived to assist in the aid of his takedown.

            Wilson Fisk brought rehabilitated pyrokinetic and telekinetic supervillain Mary Walker/Typhoid Mary out of her hypnotic state and back to her evil self. He then started trying to rebuild his criminal empire. Matt and Milla agreed to another date, but on their way to their destination, Typhoid Mary attacked them. With the help of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, Matt was able to defeat Typhoid Mary but was injured. Kingpin hired assassin Bullseye to take down Daredevil. Milla almost became collateral damage, but Daredevil was able to defeat Bullseye. Matt then knew that he had to take the fight to Wilson Fisk to establish the ground rules of being Kingpin of Hell’s Kitchen.

            Okay, so now that we have the plot thoroughly analyzed, let’s talk about my opinions of this graphic novel. I will say that this was not exactly what I was expecting. After reading the end of the previous Volume, I formulated an idea of what this Volume was going to be, and this was not it. I was expecting a whole trial of Matt Murdock as Daredevil and maybe an attempt at getting him disbarred. Now, I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I found this book to be highly entertaining as it was. I enjoyed the whole concept of Matt trying to pick up the pieces of his life after being outed and trying to cover it up by saying he wasn’t Daredevil. I especially enjoyed the Daily Bugle scene where Ben Urich and Peter Parker covered for Matt and Ben wondering how Peter knew, I thought that little scene was great. The trial of the White Tiger totally threw me. That ending to that storyline was something I did not see coming, and I will not spoil it for you in this post, but to me, it was totally unexpected. I enjoyed the character of Milla Donovan, shipping Matt with another blind person makes perfect sense, I don’t know why the writers didn’t think of this sooner. And I thought the Typhoid Mary and Bullseye fights were great. And I will tell you, the ending was brutal, but I won’t give any details, you’ll have to read it for yourself. I thought these stories were very well written, Brian Michael Bendis is one of my favorite comic book writers, and he did not disappoint me in this book. However, I am not a fan of the artwork of Alex Maleev, sadly to say. The art in this book was mostly just not visually appealing to me. Really there was only one issue with art that I truly appreciated and two others that I found acceptable, but mostly it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

            Next, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I know some of you have read me say this multiple times (and if you have, you are THE BEST!), but I have to say it again for the new people who have never read a Tim Cubbin review before. Accessibility, for the purposes of these reviews, is how easy it is to get into this book, especially if you know little or nothing at all about Daredevil or Marvel Comics. Now, I find this interesting, because even though this book is marketed as Vol. 3 and picks up directly after the previous Volume, I still think it’s easily accessible to new readers. This book only has issues from one series, all consecutively, and there are no ongoing events that take place at the same time as the issues in this book, so there are no crossovers. Reading it, I honestly felt like it doesn’t draw a lot of knowledge from other Marvel stories that deeply. Yes, it helps to know the lore, but I think that this is actually a good jump on point for a new reader. If you’ve somehow never heard of Daredevil and are reading this review and think that you want to read this, I honestly don’t think that there is a hindrance there. Or if you know about Daredevil from other Marvel media, the same applies, this honestly doesn’t deviate from those concepts a lot. If you’ve ever read Daredevil comics at any point in Marvel history, you are well prepared to read this graphic novel. I am surprised at how easily accessible I found this book to be, but I think if you’re looking to get into Marvel Comics and want an enjoyable book to start with, this is actually a fairly good choice.

            Okay, you’ve come here to know just how good I thought this book was, not to read about how easy it is to read, so let’s get to the key point of my review: the numeric score. Some of you know the drill already, but some of you are new to the game, so I must explain my scoring system. I score media based on a scale of one to ten. One means that this media was total trash and should not even be looked at in a bookstore shelf. Ten means that this book is so good it shouldn’t be on a bookstore shelf because every copy should be sold out. Now, of course, I said I loved the story, and that means the score is probably going to be higher, but we have the problem of the art. This is a GRAPHIC novel, and I have to take both the story and the artwork into consideration when I give the book a score. I can’t give it a super high score because the art was just a disappointment. So, I think that an appropriate score for this book would be… (drumroll please) seven. Though it was not artistically appealing to me, the story was, so I can give it a higher score.

            Next up is my recommendation. This of course means do I personally recommend this book and regardless of if it has my personal recommendation or not to whom do I recommend this book? The answer to the first question is a resounding yes, I personally recommend this book. To answer my second question, I start by saying if you’re reading this review and are interested in reading this book now, I’m telling you to try to make every effort you can to read this book as soon as possible. If you’re a fan of Daredevil from any form of Marvel media, TV shows, movies, video games, comic books, this book is definitely for you. Matt has faced many challenges over the years, but this one is quite different and makes for a very compelling read, and I totally think it’s worth it.

            Okay, I’ve gone on for long enough now, I think it’s time we wrapped this up and you can go about doing whatever else you’d rather be doing than spending time reading this review that I have now been working on for almost three hours. So, I just have a few more things to say first. This review is but one of dozens of reviews I have written. If you liked this one, there are plenty more. Feel free to search for my review of the previous Volume in the series “Daredevil: Underboss” if you want more Daredevil stories. I have so many more reviews planned in store for you, so you can keep coming back for more. You can expect another review coming up sometime within the next two weeks. I’ve also written short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials. I’ve written a bunch of things called B’ings, if you want to completely waste your time you can read those. I post on a very regular basis, I literally collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection, so there’s always going to be plenty of more content on the horizon. And I will leave you now with just a few more words. They are Tim Cubbin… out!

 

"Spider-Man/Deadpool: 'Til Death Do Us..."

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Spider-Man/Deadpool: ’Til Death Do Us…” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Wade Wilson/Deadpool’s wife Shiklah is Queen of the Monster Metropolis located beneath the city of Manhattan in New York. One monster, Farcus, wandered into the subway tunnels and was killed by a group of humans. Shiklah, in her rage, claimed Manhattan as the new capital of the monsters on Earth and ordered the humans to vacate Manhattan. Blade the vampire slayer arrived in Manhattan to combat the monsters and teamed up with Deadpool. Blade told Deadpool they needed the help of Camper Van Helsing, the last of a line of vampire slayers. Camper had been working as an R&D engineer at Parker Industries, but Peter Parker/Spider-Man fired her for her continued absences from work. Camper had been obsessed with Versus, an MMORPG she was extremely gifted at and always played as Deadpool. When the monster invasion began, Peter donned his Spider-Man costume at Parker Industries. Shiklah deceived Spider-Man and gained access to Parker Industries’ R&D vault, where she learned of Camper’s sleep-inducing device, the Sandman, which Shiklah then used on Spider-Man and instructed Camper to make it’s effect radius wide enough to work on all of New York City, but Camper tricked Shiklah and decreased it’s effect to zero. Deadpool arrived at Parker Industries, where he, Spider-Man, and Camper made their escape to Camper’s apartment so she could use a stake that could track specific monsters, and in this case, the monster they needed was Dracula. The Mercs for Money (Domino, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Machine Man, Gorilla-Man, Hit-Monkey and Masacre) decided to sneak into Shiklah’s base dressed up in disguise as monsters. This plan went awry when Gorilla-Man fell under Shiklah’s sway, but the team was able to convince Gorilla-Man on his humanity. Meanwhile, Spider-Man, Deadpool and Camper found Dracula, and made a deal with him: if he lost to Camper at Versus, he had to come to New York to fight Shiklah. Dracula lost. Shiklah had Morbius the Living Vampire modify the Sandman and activated it, putting every human in New York City to sleep. Spider-Man, Deadpool, Camper and Dracula arrived in New York City, where Dracula united the vampires against the other monsters. Dracula and Shiklah came face to face, and Dracula proposed to Shiklah, and Shiklah accepted. The two were wedded by the Hell Lord Mephisto. Spider-Man and the Mercs for Money battled Dracula and the monster army, while Deadpool compromised Shiklah’s integrity to end the monster invasion of New York City.

            Valeria Colon, widow of Ferraro Colon, came to Peter Parker and asked him to find the negatives of photographs he took of Spider-Man’s first fight with the supervillain the Vulture, a fight that caused the death of her husband, hoping those photos would give her some closure. Peter knew the negatives, if they still existed, would be locked in the archives of the Daily Bugle in New Jersey, so he decided to go as Spider-Man. Spider-Man found Deadpool and told him they should be more serious and to stop cracking jokes all the time and that it was insensitive. To Spider-Man’s surprise, Ms. Colon had also hired Deadpool to get the negatives as well. When the two arrived at the warehouse, they were attacked by the supervillain Slapstick, who had been hired by the mobster known as El Tenor to steal the negatives as well. The three temporarily teamed up against the underlings, but Slapstick double-crossed Spider-Man and Deadpool, but El Tenor double-crossed Slapstick. Spider-Man and Deadpool then had to find El Tenor and recover the negatives while Slapstick had to bargain for his life.

            Spider-Man, Nathan Skreemie, Thornton Blackball, Prof. Seymour Crippen, and Dorothy woke up in Arcade’s Murderworld, designed like a board game, and forced to fight for their lives. Spider-Man’s companions, aside from Dorothy, were all unsavory people. Arcade had invited supervillain the Stinger to Murderworld, but Deadpool stole his invitation. Deadpool arrived in Murderworld, where Arcade told Deadpool he was dying and wanted to leave Murderworld to Deadpool, all Deadpool had to do was help Arcade kill Spider-Man. Deadpool refused, and Arcade revealed he had been lying and dropped Deadpool into the game. The group were forced to struggle through Murderworld to save their lives and had to face off with a leveled-up Arcade to escape Murderworld.

            Parker Industries collapsed, S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, and Deadpool killed Agent Phil Coulson and became a wanted man, even by Spider-Man. Deadpool was seen on television selling S.H.I.E.L.D. technology, and Peter turned to his friend Barbara “Bobbi” Moorse/Mockingbird, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent for held finding Deadpool to bring him to justice. Deadpool was based on a stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier with Kate Waynesboro, Hellcow, Screwball, Clay Quartermain and Branch, Manphibian, and super sharks Deborah and Bruce. Spider-Man found the Helicarrier, and he and Deadpool landed in Tabula Rasa where they ran into former X-Man Paige Guthrie/Husk. The three discovered a fake Deadpool and it was supervillain the Chameleon. Deadpool’s team came to the rescue, but Chameleon got his hands on a file about Project Doppelganger.

            Deadpool and his team decided to get their hands on more S.H.I.E.L.D. tech and broke into an old S.H.I.E.L.D. facility called Area 14. Spider-Man arrived and battled Deadpool, but Deadpool escaped with a haul of S.H.I.E.L.D. tech. The Chameleon snuck in and stole a piece of tech that would power up Project Doppelganger, a collection of Life Model Decoys of superheroes and villains. He commandeered a Life Model Decoy of Kraven the Hunter to battle Spider-Man, Deadpool and his team. Chameleon then began an auction on the Life Model Decoys he had stolen. Spider-Man and Cindy Moon/Silk battled a Life Model Decoy of the Hulk, then the two confronted Deadpool, Clay Quartermain and Branch, and Deborah and Bruce. Chameleon then attempted to blow them all up. The group survived. They joined up with Mockingbird, only to be assaulted by an army of Life Model Decoys.

            In the far future, Peter Parker was an old man. He had retired from being Spider-Man after he was nearly cut in half and stitched back together, and he and Wade Wilson were in the same retirement home. Wade had been keeping Peter alive with transfusions of his regenerative blood, a fact Peter was unaware of. After Wade orchestrated a string of robberies in the retirement home, Peter got the fire back in him and decided to be Spider-Man again. Spider-Man and Deadpool escaped from the retirement home and went after a Life Model Decoy of Deadpool. They defeated it, but accidentally activated an army of Deadpool Life Model Decoys. Spider-Man and Deadpool teamed up with the Fantastic Four to battle the Deadpool Life Model Decoys, and Wade decided to travel to the past to fix it.

            Okay, so now that we have the scenario out of the way, let’s get to my part of the review. First off, I will say that I thought that this was a relatively enjoyable book. There was a lot to like about it. The book was a lot of fun to read for me. I thought the titular story was great. I loved how Camper Van Helsing roped Dracula into helping the heroes by beating him at a video game. I thought that was just brilliant. I liked the twist of El Tenor’s identity in the “No Laughing Matter” storyline. I thought that was interesting. The Murderworld storyline was good. “Arms Race” was interesting, I loved the telepathic sharks Bruce and Deborah. “Area 14” was good. “Oldies” was well written, I liked Old Man Parker and Old Man Wilson and the future Fantastic Four, I thought they were engaging. Overall, I thought the writing was decent. As for the art, I thought it was exemplary. I found it to be pleasurable to look at and a visual treat. It made reading a lot more enjoyable to have such great artwork at the points when the story fell a little flat, which happened here and there, but on the plus side, that was not a consistency. I enjoyed having the Chameleon as a villain, having a big-name Spider-Man villain in this series made the stakes a little higher, and I thought that was a good thing. And the assortment of Monsters Underground were familiar faces, and I thought that was entertaining. But there were points where the story did fall a little flat, I hate to say. This volume wasn’t as good as I was hoping, and it was not as good as the first volume, but I guess it could be I had high expectations, and I just didn’t quite get what I wanted and that was a little disappointing and that did detract from my enjoyment factor. I also must complain about how they mixed in the “Oldies” and “Area 14” storylines together in a mishmash that made little sense and got a little confusing.

            Next, we’re going to discuss accessibility. I’ve explained this dozens of times, but I’ll do it again because I know some of you have never read one of my reviews before, so I must explain again. When I say accessibility, I mean how easy it is to pick up this book and read it, even if you know little or nothing about Spider-Man and Deadpool. I feel like the accessibility level for this book is a little low. One of the main reasons I say this is for the titular storyline being a crossover between three series, “Spider-Man/Deadpool,” “Deadpool,” and “Deadpool and the Mercs for Money.” The Mercs for Money are characters that are obscure, some of them even I know relatively little about. Also, there’s reference to other series here and there, like Deadpool killing Agent Coulson, which happened outside this series, and Parker Industries, which changes status in the Marvel Universe outside of this book from a big tech business to being completely shut down, and no explanation is given in this book for it other than a few lines which really don’t do much. Also, there are a few other obscure characters used in this book, like Clay Quartermain and Husk. However, I will say this doesn’t draw too much from the previous volume of the series. I think you could read this book without reading the first volume. So, I will tell you that if you know about Shiklah and the Mercs for Money, you could read this book without reading the first volume and probably not feel like you missed anything. Other than that, there were no events that directly tied-in around this time. But if you’ve never read a Marvel Comic book before, I don’t suggest this book as a starting point as backgrounds on the characters are not given, so if you don’t know they characters, you will probably not get what is going on with them.

            Okay, I’ve gone on long enough, you’re probably getting bored now and just want me to get to the point, so I think I’ll do that. The main point of all my reviews is my score. I give my reviews a numeric score on a scale of one to ten. One means this is a steaming pile of garbage and should be avoided at all costs, ten means this is pure gold and needs to be read. My regular readers know I’m not in the habit of handing out tens to graphic novels unless they’re sheer perfection, and I’m not sure if that’s ever actually happened with a graphic novel before. Now, of course, you can tell this book is not at the top or bottom of either spectrum based just on all of what I’ve said. This book is particularly hard for me to score. But, of course, I’m obligated to do so, so I’ll have to do it. So, of course, I must take everything into consideration when I score a graphic novel, story, and art. So, taking everything into account, and judging it all together and churning out a score, I give it… a seven. The story was okay, but the art was great, so that really boosted the score there.

            Next, we’re going to talk about if I give my recommendation or not. Now, that’s a definite yes. I’d recommend it to any fans of the Spider-Man or Deadpool comics from the 2010s in particular, but I’d recommend it to just any Spider-Man or Deadpool reader. If you’ve never read a Marvel Comic book before, I don’t recommend this as a starting point, however. Still, if you’ve read this review and want to read this book, I think you should go for it, there really should be little stopping you other than not knowing who the Mercs for Money are.

            Okay, I think I’ve said about all I really need to say at this point. So, I’ll wrap up in just a few more sentences. First off, timcubbin.blogspot.com has dozens of reviews of books, so you can check all those out. I post on a very frequent basis. I should have a new review in the next three days, so be sure to check that out. I also have written several short stories, some poetry, a bunch of editorials, some articles and essays, all kinds of content on this site, so if you liked this post, please feel free to keep browsing. Keep coming back for more because I will be posting more. And I say to you, until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"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!