COVER BY: Jason Levesque
WRITER: Brian Reed, Chris Yost and Roger Stern
PENCILS: Michael Ryan, Nick Dragotta and Ron Frenz
The great loves of Peter Parker’s life. Gwen Stacy, Felicia Hardy, Mary Jane Watson-Parker and…Carlie Cooper?!?!
The Basics
This book is a one-shot featuring three stories, each focusing on a different love interest of Peter Parker. Three different creative teams are on each story. We get a tale taking place at some unknown point in the past where Black Cat and Spider-Man team-up against a wannabe sorcerer who curses Peter in an interesting way. We see Carlie Cooper look back on a night she and Gwen spent together as children. The last story is about Mary Jane’s current status quo.
What everyone is talking about
The Gwen and Carlie Cooper story has gotten alot of attention online. Lots of fans have felt it unnecessary to shoehorn (their words not mine) Gwen into Carlie’s history. What everyone SHOULD be talking about is Roger Stern and Ron Frenz reuniting for a story. Shame that it hasn’t gotten more attention.
The Creators
Chris Yost is currently known for his recently completed run on “Red Robin”. I was very hot/cold on his “Red Robin” run so I wasn’t sure what to expect here. He was able to write good Spider-Man humor which is very hard to do these days. He gets Spider-Man’s world real well, with the possible exception of Black Cat. Brian Reed’s story was an interesting concept but the way he pulled off showing the differences between Gwen and Carlie was poor. That story was the weakest of the three. Roger Stern has always been able to write engaging Spider-Man stories and that hasn’t changed here. He was able to get inside Mary Jane’s head in a convincing way.
The Good
* As mentioned before, you get a Stern/Frenz reunion.
* We get to see Mary Jane’s life outside of Peter. Her own independent thoughts, dreams and goals.
* The Black Cat story could have very easily been hooky and annoying. It delivered the goods though.
The Bad
* Some really poor editing in here. The recap page has a few continuity errors that inside content downright contradicts.
* Has Yost read any Black Cat stories between 1980 and 2005?
* Ever since Carlie Cooper appeared, fans have compared her to Gwen because Carlie is a shy science geek. I personally think some of the Gwen comparisons are exaggerated. It’s speculated that Brian Reed used this opportunity to show us how different Gwen and Carlie are. How did he do it? By having Gwen say the exact opposite of almost everything Carlie said throughout the story. It was really annoying.
The Final Word
If you’re a die-hard fan this is a fun book. If you’re on a budget skip it. Nothing really important.
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im acutally kinda warming to the idea that MJ and peter were not married and just decided to cool their heels for a while.
@Spider-girl- Um…I have heard of man boobs before but no way does she look like a boy.
It’s really nice that they are letting junior high kids from the special class draw the covers to books like this. What? These are professional artists? Really? WHy is that boy wearing a skirt? What? It’s a girl named Carlie? Are you sure it isn’t Hillary Swank from boys Don’t Cry, the Brandon Tina story?
@JGC – Carlie “Copper”…I like that…not sure if it is a typo or not, but she seems to be the only forensic cop in town.
As for her being a “love” of Peter Parker? Two failed dates, two lunch dates and they are in “love”? Betty Brant and Debra Whitman are much higher on the list than Carlie…throw Carlie on the scrapheap of failed\forced characters like Poochie on the Simpsons. The ironic thing is, Poochie was designed to make fun of forced characters, while Marvel sees Carlie as a legitmate new “love”…blecchh…
Yeah, I havent read a new Spider-Man comic since “Sins Past” and I thought that was Betty… “Carlie Cooper” huh? How are the fans supposed to care about this; we know it’s not going anywhere…
Didn’t pick this up, probably not even going to bother. I still dislike Carlie Cooper… I mean really, I can’t stand that character.
You know what is a fun game? Take this comic around to anyone who knows anything about Spidey but hasn’t read it in a few years a laugh when they ask “Who the hell is the chick with the glasses?” or feel dead inside if they think she’s Betty Brant…
The Gwen/Carlie story was short and did nothing but piss me the hell off. And the MJ story was what, 2-3 pages? They might as well as made it a Black Cat one-shot and used the few pages they did gave the other three for some more masked sex or something else that kid have equally pissed me off as trying to say that Gwen & Relationship Sue were BFF-Lolis…
@ E. Wilson: Actually, my initial reaction was “Velma????? O_o” 😛
What did you think of the art, Bertone?
That’s coming..
Bertone, I thought you were going to review American Son… I got punk’d, didn’t I?
This cover looks like it came from Deviant Art.
This wasn’t as awful as I was expecting due to the pathetic cover art, but it was nothing special either. My favorite story was the MJ story. The continuity blips throughout the whole thing though were awful. Where was the editor on this?
Holy! I thought it was Betty Brant until I read this review. I saw the issue at my LCS but didn’t pick it up. Betty Brant is waaaaaaaay more a “great” love than Carlie Copper!
Okay, am I the only one who thought Carlie on the cover was a badly-drawn Betty Brant?
I liked it, the Black Cat story in particular was really funny. Thank god the interior art wasn’t as craptacular as the cover was! Seriously, is that style meant to appeal to female readers? “Well, women tend to like more Indie books and Indie books tend to have really crappy art, so lets make it look very flat and amateurish!”
He also revealed his secret identity to her. It’s a brand new day…
Peter and Mary Jane nearly married? What a load of crap.
@DF,
Yes I believe so. Stern hasn’t done many Spidey stories since the late 90’s.
Was the Revenge of the Green Goblin mini the last time Stern/Frenz did a Spidey story together?
I haven’t read this yet, but i picked it up, i assumed that was Betty Brant on the cover, not Carlie Cooper…hmmm….she’s a little out of her league there…
Well, I guess it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be! If Carlie did not have a skirt on on the cover I would have thought she were a boy…