Marvel Knights Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #1 (of 5) Review

Prepare yourself for one of the most trippy Spider-Man stories you will ever read! Old Pete’s got 99 problems… And they’re all thanks to Madame Web! If you’ve been missing the true Peter Parker, here he is, trapped and drugged in a haunted house!  Featuring MORBIUS, MAN-WOLF, FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER, and more!

MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN (VOLUME 2), ISSUE #1

“99 Problems” Part One

Written By:  Matt Kindt

Pencils By:  Marco Rudy

Colors By:  Val Staples

THE PLOT: Peter Parker finds himself taking several photography jobs to make ends meet, due to the fact that Jolly Jonah currently has enough Spider-Man photos. Pete’s really struggling, the gas in his apartment has been shut off for around a month and he’s getting tired of taking cold showers. Looking for photo opportunities, he finds a “Photographer Wanted” ad that leads him to a large, creepy house. Peter’s spider-sense goes off, and once he’s inside he sees the original Madame Web surrounded by robotic little girls begging Peter to help them. Web tells Peter that the “wheel has been set in motion”, and that he must solve the riddle of the 99 problems, a riddle attempted by many others from the Sphinx to Albert Einstein. One of the little robotic girls explodes, knocking Peter down into a trap door and burning away his clothes, to reveal his Spider-Man suit. After avoiding a death trap, Spider-Man runs into Jack O’ Lantern who poisons him with his Jack O’ Lantern gas. Spidey continues to stagger onward, but is suddenly bitten from behind by both Man-Wolf and Morbius. He brutally takes them both down without knowing it, and makes his way further through the halls of the mansion. As time goes on, the panels become more distorted and hard to follow, representing Spidey’s poisoned point of view. Peter feels trapped in his own mind, feeling like he will suffocate, and he wants to escape so he can fix his mistakes, thinking of Uncle Ben’s death. At this point he runs into the enormous Frankenstein’s Monster, who seems to have the upper hand in their battle until Spidey forces his foot into the monster’s stitches, tearing off his arm. He continues walking through the darkness, turning on the light in his spider-belt. Spider-Man hears someone else begging for help, and finds that it is the Beetle, who seems to be seriously injured and is buried in the little begging robotic girls. Suddenly Arcade makes his presence known, telling Spider-Man that he is not the one in charge, only a facilitator for a client, and if he were in charge, the house would be MUCH more lethal. Arcade tells Spidey that this is all a big game in which Peter will face 99 of the most vile villains, and that if Spidey deviates from the game, a bomb will go off at an undisclosed location full of civilians. Spider-Man takes the pill Arcade offers him, and blacks out. He then awakes on a passenger plane with three other costumed villains on board, assuming there will be no free pretzels during the flight.

MY THOUGHTS: Well this was different. I couldn’t wrap up the plot with a “long story short” because that is just impossible to do with this comic. This issue was really an experiment of different storytelling techniques, it’s not an average issue of Spider-Man. The panel layouts were extremely creative and artistic on every single page. Sometimes this worked for the story and sometimes it didn’t. My favorite pages were the pages where Morbius and Man-Wolf attack Peter, that art was beautiful. Although other times the pages became muddied and confused, causing me to have to look over it a few times to completely understand what was going on. Peter was poisoned and drugged a few times throughout this, so I guess that would cause my speech bubbles to flip backwards, too. As unusual and trippy as this issue was, man, it was great to have Peter back. Mainly for that first page, hearing Pete talk about his money problems and the cold showers, I ate that up. What was frustrating sometimes were his narration boxes throughout the issue. At some points I kind of wanted to just have the artwork and have Peter be silent, because we can clearly see how confused he is. We don’t need the exhaustingly repetitive narration of “Where—What—What’s going on… Man-Wolf?! Oh, he’s down, okay—What—Where—“. We get it. He doesn’t know what’s going on. But to be honest I liked this completely weird story. It’s one of those stories where absolutely nothing is going to make sense until the story is over. Not everyone is going to like that, I’m sure this issue is somewhat polarizing for people. I found myself really enjoying it, though. I liked how creepy the little girl robots were, and I look forward to seeing what the hell those things are. Something I love in a story is a real sense of danger, of impending doom. That feeling is tangible in this issue, especially when Spidey finds the battered Beetle  begging for help.

Something I will say about it though is that I hoped at some point in the issue, the confusion would let up. I liked Spider-Man being disoriented, but it’s not a ton of fun reading an entire issue that way. Every time I turned the page I had to go through, like, a three step plan to understand what was going on in the panels and that honestly gets a little tiring. Like I said before, we’re not going to completely understand what’s going on for a few more parts, but I thought Madame Web’s dialogue was somewhat cringe-worthy. It’s a widely-known trope when your psychic or pre-informed character utters exposition that doesn’t help the protagonist at all, and then throws him/her into a situation. That’s how Madame Web rolls, I understand this, but I didn’t like it. Saying things like “the wheel is set in motion” and speaking cryptically about the “riddle of the 99 problems”, what is that supposed to mean to either Spider-Man or the reader? I wanted something to make sense on one of these pages. Also, Spider-Man looked like the MTV show model in some panels. Not that that would be a gripe, but… It’s worth noting. I’ve got 99 problems and they’re all storytelling clarity.

You know what, though? I applaud Matt Kindt and Marco Rudy for trying something so completely different. This may not be the type of Spidey story I’m used to reading, but I enjoyed it and I look forward to the next issue for several reasons. One reason would be that I love me some real Peter Parker, and another would be that I am genuinely interested in where this story is going. Spider-Man is going to take on 99 of the most vile of villains? I think that sounds somewhat awesome, I don’t know about you. And that COVER! Wow! That is one of my favorite Spidey covers I have seen in a very long time. So in other words, 99 Problems Part 2: Count me in.

PROS: Amazing cover, I love seeing Peter again, interesting story to say the least, 99 vile villains sounds pretty cool.

CONS: Unclear story pages, unneeded narration, clunky Madame Web dialogue.

GRADE: B. This was a pretty good issue, but, as with all issues, it had its problems. I can’t wait to see where it goes and I think this creative team shows some real promise. Please comment guys, I am VERY interested in what you guys thought of this one. Thanks Web-Heads!