Review: Scarlet Spiders #1 The Widow

Story By: Mike Costa

Released 11.26.14 Mark Bagley variant

Artist: Paco Diaz

 

            Cover Art: David Nakayama

Publisher: Marvel Comics

 

Cover Price: $3.99

Here we are again with another Spider-Verse tie-in issue, where more AU and regular Spider's are given the chance to shine. One of the most anticipated story lines since the wider Spider-Verse issues were unveiled, was the Scarlet Spider's mini series mainly due to the resurrection of a fan favorite that hadn't been seen in a Spider-Man book since the final days of the clone saga. Ben Reilly.

The premise of the mini series arc is that following the events of Amazing Spider-Man #10, that Ben Kaone, and the ultimate universe's Peter Parker's female clone Jessica Drew, use the dimension crossing portal back to a Home world of the inheritors where it's thought Morlun and his family are creating clones of themselves. 

Although I'm not too familiar  with Mike Costa's previous work,( mainly due to him previously writing TransFormers for IDW) i did find his idea and portrayal of the characters interesting. One of the faucets would seem to be the telling of the story from three differing perspectives giving each Spider a fleshed out feel. It's not a formula that's used to much and it kinda works in this instance and with this particular tale, as it gives the reader greater opportunity to feel affinity with a character that they may not have much previous knowledge of.

What lets the issue down is the art of Paco Diaz, it's fairly inconsistent for my liking and in parts the characters don't resemble each other that much which is a problem as they are Clones of Peter Parker, but don't really look like Peter Parker. so of it took me out of the story that Costa was conveying, hopefully this was gown to time constraints and the art picks up as the series goes along.

The story itself picks up immediately on the other side of the portal we saw the three protaganists jump through in Amazing Spider-Man #10 where they find themselves in a world that's quite advanced from a technological standpoint. This first Issue of the mini is told from the perspective of Jessica Drew (Ultimate Black Widow) hence the title of the book. explaning the events of the issue as she see's them Kaine, seems a bit quite but the characterization of Ben Reilly so far comes across as a very young Peter Parker who's constantly making light of every situation, which feels a bit forced and hopefully Costa will feel more comfortable with the characters as the series foes on.

The team find themselves inside what appears to be a cloning facility or rather a resting area for Clones when they are confronted by this world's Iron-Man Ben Reilly tries to convince Torny Stark to assist the three Spider's in their mission. However he is stunned to find out that Jennix is in charge of this world and has acquired Iron Man's assistance. 

Kaine subdues Stark before he can implement his plan to take the three to Jennix, The Spider's then formulate a plan to enter the Jennix complex by Ben donning the Iron Man suit and pretend Kaine and Jessica are prisoners.

It's a slow paced story based more on espionage given the nature of the mission, but with the way the issue ends i feel we can expect to see action packed issues in this arc's future. whether or not any Spider's make it out remains to be seen. 

The overall score for this Issue I feel is a solid 6.5. The pacing let it down slightly as did some characterization and the art by Diaz. I was slightly disappointed given it's billing as the return of Ben Reilly. 

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