The follow-up event to Dan Slott’s epic Spider-Verse gets underway. Christos Gage’s Spider-Geddon bursts out of the gate slinging plenty of webs.
***SPOILERS LIE AHEAD***
The multiverse of Spider-Men, and specifically Miles Morales, has been getting a lot of attention lately. Between the stupendous PS4 game, the upcoming Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse movie, and various Spidey titles, it’s as good a time as any to dive back into the world of multidimensional web-slingers.
We open up with our beloved Miles taking care of The Vulturions before getting dragged into the main conflict. It may be an unpopular opinion but Brian Michael Bendis leaving Marvel is going to end up being the best thing to happen to Miles Morales. He’s about to hit home with a whole new audience of non-regular comic book readers.
Miles got stale with Bendis after so long, the transition into the 616 was not a smooth or entertaining one. With new talent giving him a fresh voice on an upcoming series and new mediums to be exposed in, it’s going to be a leveling-up for the younger Spider-Man. It was a wise choice to give him the lead role in Spider-Geddon.
Otto Octavius is still playing hero, claiming San Francisco as his territory. Despite his superior efforts at fighting crime and preserving his well-being, Otto ends up being to blame for the return of the villainous family of Inheritors. Morlun and his crew claw their way back by way of Doc Ock’s back-up clone bodies. It’s a bit of a stretch but whatever, it gets the ball rolling!
Morlun and his spider-totem-feasting family members were an extremely fun and menacing group of villains throughout Dan Slott’s Spider-Verse. Their resurrection comes with plenty of arrogant and creepy dialogue about feeding on all of our favorite alternative Spider-People.
There’s another universe spanning war beginning, and it takes no time at all to claim a few fan-favorite victims. Spider-Man Noir and Spider-UK are the first totems that Spider-Geddon claims. Noir may have a lot of fans but clearing the deck for new Spideys is what we’re here for.
This issue focuses primarily on characters we’re familiar with from the previous arcs. Christos Gage is a very talented creator, we should be getting some more interesting takes on the Spidey mythos the deeper we dive into this story. The Edge Of Spider-Geddon tie-ins already gave us a look at some of what is in store–weirder and less safe than Slott’s characters for sure.
Spider-Geddon #1’s setup feels more like a video game plot than its predecessor. The build-up to Spider-Verse was massive and slow-burning. Things are a bit more fast paced this time around, but it works. The focus here seems to be on getting right to the fun rather than justifying it, which is an advantage that Gage has in his sequel.
Christos Gage slides perfectly into the tone and voice of this large cast of characters. We’re here to have dumb comic book fun and Gage is fully aware of that. Octavia Otto is a wonderful new addition to the Spider-Man continuity, hopefully she has a bigger role going forward.
I appreciate that this time around we’re including people close to the Spider-Family in their respective universes and not just actual Spider-People. Branching out into the multiverse of Octavius’ can only provide great moments.
Jorge Molina gets us started right with his pencils and inks. All of the various Spider-People look great and the Inheritors are the perfect amount of menacing and hungry. There’s plenty of action in this first issue, and Molina makes sure it all packs a major punch.
Colorist David Curiel delivers beautifully balanced and fleshed out pages. With so many similarly designed web-slingers running around, we never once have trouble deciphering who is who or what’s happening. Letterer Travis Lanham does gorgeous work accenting the action with lettering choices and properly exaggerating the Inheritors.
Spider-Geddon gets started in the right way, with an emphasis on fun. What could’ve easily been a cheap sequel nobody needed will end up being a joyride through the multiverse of Spider-People. It’s a good time to be a fan of any Spider-Man (except Noir and UK).
