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Posts: 1903
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Review
Synopsis:
Spider-Man Reign by Kaare Andrews is sort of like the Spider-Man version of the Dark Knight Returns. However, in DKR, Bruce Wayne, though old, is still a hardcore and capable person. Peter Parker in Reign is so old that he is a fragile weakling who breaks his arm when he is knocked over in the opening issue of this four part mini series. Mary Jane has passed away from radiation poisoning (from Peter) and Peter is now a mostly insane dillusional old man who gets mad as he argues with a Mary Jane who is as I mentioned, long since dead. The book, also like DKR uses news broadcasts frequently. It chronicles the return of Spider-Man due partly to J. Jonah Jameson finding out who he is and begging him, and partly to Peter's own insanity. He can still put up a fight against the police task force which has lowered itself to more of a henchmen status than a help. Think of the Fingermen in V for Vendetta and you'll get the picture. All of this police brutality and whatnot is mainly due to the corrupt governor of New York who, as part of what seems to be a power trip plans on enclosing the whole city into a giant protective bubble utopia, no one in or out. This is to clebrate the ten years without the terrible Spider-Man.
The heroes that end up rallying around Spidey are the street thugs into graffiti and whatnot who are hoping to fight the power. They are led by J.J. Jameson who has since quit his job at the paper. The protesters are very similar to the thugs turned rebels Bat-Men in The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Eventually, thanks to a certain Alien Symbiote controlling the governor (or is it the mayor?), the city is on the verge of being destroyed. Spidey has to fight old foes working for the governor like the Sandman. When spidey seems beaten there's an odd part where Doc Ock takes him to Mary Janes grave and pulls up her rotted body. I can't even try to explain what happens but Spidey is revamped and heads out to stop the bubble from encompassing the city and letting evil reign.
Art:
The art is sort of a blend of 3D computer generated buildings and coloring, and old school pencils. The background is often made up of what look like real pictures of ciy, a technique I've seen in small preportions before, and I feel is largely overused here. Howveer, it does give the book a unique feel and there were a fair amount of cool panels. The covers were pretty sweet though slightly decieving about Peter's age.
Consensus:
This is pretty weird stuff overall. It has a couple of good moments and twists, but not enough to sustain the book and legtimize reading it. It borrows from a lot of things I've seen before that are actually much better and more thought out than this. Reign has some interesting ideas that just don't come together for me. It never really felt like this book took off and Peter was so old I couldn't rap my mind around how in the beginning he breaks his arm falling down, but then he can fight put on the tights and be strong and slick, no questions asked. It wasn't completely terrible but it had many parts I didn't understand like the Doc Ock/MJ grave scene that tended to just weigh down the story. This is a bummer for me because I bought the Trade Paperback before I'd read it.
Score:
A Foul Ball (had potential but didn't execute)
2 out of 5
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__________________"You...complete me."
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