Written by: Dan Slott
Art by: Olivier Coipel
Publisher: Marvel
Marvel is bringing their event stories to complete excess. There are multiple a year, and sometimes a couple at a time. Spider-Verse is one completely dedicated to obviously the Spider-Man character. I don’t care about how the story is presented as long as it’s of good quality; this is not the case with this event. It suffers from the same problems other tales of this sort fall into: namely, the slew of tie-ins that leave the reader of just the main story confused.
Amazing Spider-Man #11 presents us with the lead up to the climax. The remaining Spider-Men are rallying up to save their kind from the nefarious Inheritors. The nexus of the story is a debate between Peter Parker and Doctor Octopus in another but the same Peter’s body (comics are confusing, kids) about who should lead the team. All while different teams of Spider-Men are off trying to stop different members of the opposing side.
Dan Slott continues his lengthy writing duties on the series. He does a good job of managing the different personalities of the different Spider heroes, while also making them still appear to be Web Slingers. His humor is rather hit-and-miss. He has a few funny quips between his juvenile jokes. The stand out of the issue is when Slott pokes fun at the mythos of other interpretations of the character.
The main problem with the issue is that the interesting parts of the story are featured in other comics. The other Spider-Men teams are going on fascinating assassination mission or recruiting a hilariously unexpected character. It forces the reader to look elsewhere for the better parts. It almost feels like an advertisement for the other Spider-Man comics with just a few pages given to the other stories. The debate between the Peter’s isn’t too interesting, so it inevitably ends in an action sequence that has an obvious result. The Inheritors aren’t too interesting, we know they are all bad and hungry for the heroes. But, that’s all we get. They all feel interchangeable. When we do get time with them, it’s just exhausting. We are constantly presented with how evil they are, but never why should we care for them or their situation.
Olivier Coipel handles the art, and it is incredible. His dark detail gives the perfect tone to the situation, but it’s not overly dark where it’s not suitable for the title. The environment of the Inheritors is gothic and bleak which portrays them in a more sinister light than Slott is able to. He reworks different characters from different art styles and makes them fit in this interpretation. He also does a phenomenal job of recreating the world of the 60’s era cartoon, which is humorous and stunning. The introduction of the different styles of some characters can be a little jarring at first, but the reader will get quickly acclimatized.
Amazing Spider-Man #11 falls victim to the pitfalls of an event by having other comics be ancillary material to understand and get the full scope of the story. The supplementary material seems to be much more interesting than the main story. The phenomenal art can’t save this book from being just an okay read.
