By Zeb Wells (writer), Chris Bachalo (pencils), Tim Townsend (inks), Antonio Fabela (colors)
I flipped through this book at my local comic shop today before paying for it and my initial thought was, “No Wolverine?! This is gonna suck!” Now why would I think such a thing? Well, if you read my review of issue #555, I thought the Zeb Wells’ interaction between Spidey and Wolverine was the best thing going for the book. And with no Wolvie in this issue, we’d be stuck in a lot of mediocrity. In this case, I was wrong, and I couldn’t be happier.
Zeb Wells’ second installment of his three issue storyline is superb and stands as one of the best Brand New Day stories since Dan Slott’s opening run. Wells completely nails every facet of this story giving a fair amount of time to each of the supporting cast, timing the pace to perfection, providing a new, formidable foe, and tossing in an excellent twist at the end. Just forget about the critisms I had last issue, it’s all a distant memory as far as I’m concerned. This is simply a classic Spidey story in every sense. And I didn’t even miss Wolverine!
Storytelling wise, Chris Bachalo keeps the muddiness to a minimum, allowing the eye to follow the story with ease. And other than a few, odd panel choices, the art stays consistent with his effort from last issue. We get more of the snow white borderless panels/pages, which I’m liking more and more, but there’s some composition anomalies that left me scratching my head. In particular, we get one shot of Spider-Man’s back in which he looks completely bloated. He’s not stuffed with newspaper either, he just looks like Santa Claus! Ah well, you can’t win them all.
Spidey fans will be very pleased with this issue. Everyone else? Pick it up along with #555. I think you’ll be surprised. (Grade: A-)
– J. Montes