This should be a massive story that feels like House of M in its scope and consequences, instead with this issue we just get a simple ‘What If?’ tale which is well crafted but feels much too familiar. Here we see what happens when Peter Parker’s origin story does not include being bitten by a radioactive spider.
Young Peter arrives at the classic lab school trip with Flash Thompson’s bullying preventing him from being bitten. Peter excels at academics but is bullied worse than ever with Flash ruining graduation and the science fair in spite of Peter’s best attempts to fight back.
The art for the first third of the book is solid but a bit traditional by Ron Lim. Then as the book proceeds and Rafael De Latorre takes over the style becomes much more modern. It’s a jarring transition as it’s not clear if this is meant to be a classic retelling or something truly dynamic and different. Peter heads to college where he meets up with Carolyn Trainer and plays around with drone technology. He uses a drone to track a battle between Hyperion and a villain only to witness the store where Aunt May was shopping get destroyed in the battle. Aunt May dies, Uncle Ben crumples and Peter becomes the bread-winner and heads to the Bugle to use his drones to take pictures.
A year later Uncle Ben reminds Peter of who he is and that ‘You don’t have to have great power to do great things’. Peter meets up with Hyperion who is used to him chasing after heroes for photos. Hyperion takes down an Annihilation force and an Ultron-lite Hank Pym, name drops other heroes turned villain and leaves. Peter then must defend the Bugle staff against an Annihilation straggler bug MacGyver style. Of course he is infected in the course of the fight giving him a spider like transformation all over again.
This issue is meant to portray the fact that Peter can be a hero even without powers but it just doesn’t tell us anything we haven’t seen before. The complete lack of originality is disappointing in a world where absolutely anything can happen.
It would have been more interesting to see Peter go through some more extreme personality changes as a result of losing Aunt May and being continually bullied and looked down on. Instead we see a fairly well adjusted hero emerge in spite of the totally new circumstances. The characters and art all work as we’d expect without any genuine surprises beyond Peter’s final transformation.
Writing: 2.5 of 5 stars
Art: 3.0 of 5 stars
Colors: 3.0 of 5 stars
Overall: 2.7 of 5 stars
Writer: Marc Bernardin
Art: Rafael De Latorre and Ron Lim
Inker: Scott Hanna
Colors: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Author Profile
- M.R. Jafri was born and raised in Niagara Falls New York and now lives with his family in Detroit Michigan. He's a talkative introvert and argumentative geek. His loves include Star Wars, Star Trek, Superheroes, Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Transformers, GI Joe, Films, Comics, TV Shows, Action Figures and Twizzlers.
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