Review- AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: EDGE OF SPIDER-VERSE

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: EDGE OF SPIDER-VERSE (Marvel, First Printing, 2015; Softcover)

Collects Edge Of Spider-Verse #1-5 (cover dates November- December, 2014)

Writers: David Hine, Fabrice Saplosky, Jason Latour, Dustin Weaver, Clay McLeod Chapman, and Gerard Way

Artists: Richard Isanove, Robbi Rodriguez, Dustin Weaver, Elia Bonetti, and Jake Wyatt

Colorists: Rico Renzi, Dustin Weaver, Garry Brown, and Ian Herring

Boy, talk about selling folks a false bill of goods. Branded to sucker fans of Amazing Spider-Man into plunking down their hard-earned money, these What If...? stories on steroids are not worthy of your money, only your contempt. Cynicism kills any artform dead, and this is as cynical as it gets.

This crop of writers give us five doppelgangers that disappoint in five different ways. This lazy “elseworlds” thinking is creatively bankrupt. It's as if they are so bored with Spider-Man that they feel there are no fresh angles to be explored, and so the writers feel the need to do “mash ups” to make things more interesting. The same writers who feel it is a good idea to explore these elements are the same kind who decry excessive continuity. The irony here is that a real working knowledge of said continuity is required to understand what is supposedly so clever about what they are doing.

Spider-Man Noir (issue 1) doesn't work for a number of reasons. While all of these multiverse Spider-people/things have divergent and disparate elements, this one fails miserably because it takes place in 1939, decades before Peter Parker or any of the other characters here even existed. Even Fabrice Saplosky's brilliant artwork couldn't save this. The funny thing is that if Marvel had made this it's own thing and not a Spider-Man retread it would be an enjoyable ripoff of Sandman Mystery Theatre. As it stands it is a retread and a ripoff.

Artwork by Fabrice Saplosky.

Spider-Gwen took the world by storm, and for the life of me I cannot understand why. You don't get it old man, she is like Spider-Man, but a girl. She was bitten by the spider instead of Peter. That's all well and good, except for the fact that Gwen Stacy was not present during the demonstration where Peter Parker was bitten by the spider, nor did she even know Peter until his freshman year of college. Thanks to the movies and Ultimate Spider-Man, there is an alarming number of folks who accept this continuity gaffe as canon. This is a weak concept by even weaker creators.

#3's The Spider-Man is interesting, but this is a waste of time for those of us who have read House Of M: Spider-Man. #4's I Walked With A Spider was a cynical, dark view of the Spider-Man mythos. It is a creeper version of a Spider-Man that stalks his neighbor. Last and most certainly least is #5's SP//DR written by that My Chemical Romance loser, Gerard Way. This story sucks as bad as his band does.

I borrowed this from the library, so at least it didn't cost me anything to read. I still want my money back. I wouldn't recommend buying this book unless you hate your money. Fortunately my son opted out of reading this one with me, as Spider-Man wasn't in it and he wasn't interested in these characters. I should have followed his advice.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 1 out of 5.

The OCD zone- I find library copies to be fascinating studies of durability in the workmanship and materials of these collected editions.

Paper stock: Coated stock with a slight sheen.

Binding: Perfect bound trade paperback.

Cardstock cover notes: Laminated cardstock cover.