Secret Wars: Spider-Verse #1 - Review

Written by Mike Costa. Art by Andre Araujo and Rochelle Rosenberg
Published by Marvel Comics: May 20th, 2015.
Rating: 3.75/5

Spider-Verse (the original one) is one of my favorite stories in the past few years. So, naturally, if Marvel was going to use it's previous events as titles for it's various side stories, Spider-Verse was a logical place to go.
comic book events of all time. So, yeah, I was going to buy this book from the moment it was announced. Looking back, the various spiders that showed up from across the Multiverse seems like a pretty clear test run for Secret Wars. So many examples of the same basic superhero, boiled down and applied to different characters. It was brilliant and it was

With Dan Slott covering the "Last Days of Silver Surfer" and "Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows" runs for Secret Wars, Marvel turned to Mike Costa (writer of Spider-Verse's "Scarlett Spiders" books) to give us a tale following a team made up the most popular Spiders to come out of the event. Billy Braddock aka Spider-UK, Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl), Paviitr Prabhakar (Spider-Man India), Spider-Man Noir (who doesn't appear in this issue except as a photo), Peter Porker the Amazing Spider-Ham, and, easily the most popular new spider, Spider-Gwen. Sound like an awesome team? You're damn right.

The story really focuses in on Spider-Gwen, who since Spider-Verse has had her own very successful solo book. What I really latched on to in this book, like many in this week's wave of Secret Wars titles is how it's providing us just a few more details into what it's like to be a resident of Battleworld. Though we're not sure exactly which realm this is in (my money's on Arachnia), it's definitely a convergence of Spider-themed characters.

The bigger reveal is that most of the people of this world appear to have had their memories wiped, though no entirely. This is absolutely our Gwen Stacy, but she doesn't remember anything about the stories we've seen her in. Not the original Spider-Verse, not her recent battles with Lt. Castle, not the Vulture, not even her band The Mary Janes. Tunes slowly seep through her subconcious, so we know those memories are buried in there, the question will be what it takes for those to come out.

We also run into Pavittr, who has a similar memory loss, though as a scientist, he's trying to figure out why he has vague memories of these people. Paviitr and Gwen show an interesting flip from their emotional places in Spider-Verse. Paviitr was originally seen facing an existential crisis because of how he felt like a pale shadow of Peter Parker-616, whereas Gwen was confident and sure of herself in battle. Fighting was something she knew and she was able to act along that. Here their roles are somewhat reverse. Paviitr is at home when he's studying something, trying to reason out the science, but outside of kicking some butts Gwen doesn't know what to do with herself. Add to that the fact that the universe mashup results in her visiting her own grave and it's definitely her turn for an existential crisis.

It was nice seeing Anya and Spider-UK still swinging about together, since we didn't know what happened to them after Spider-Verse, other than that they were traveling together to help right the Inheritors wrongs (also an interesting addition that Spider-UK doesn't have spider-senses, which I hadn't realized before)

The ending has a nice twist, although since Peter Porker is on the cover, it's not really that big of surprise. Gwen discovering that Mayor Osborn has deemed this Spider-Team the Sinister Six, which is an awesome little snippet. Just more evidence of the fun the writers can have with these books.

As for the art, its nice. It's simple in a good way, not overpowering the characters or what's going on in the scene.

Overall, the book was really only as strong as the characters. I was excited to see each and every one of them again, and that made it fun to read. That being said, the story here was a little inconsistant at best. It seemed more like just a series of cool encounters and reminders of who these characters are and where they are mentally on Battleworld as opposed to a cohesive story. That said, you can tell Costa is building something and there was enough here that I will definitely be back for issue #2.

Also: there's a mini at the back where we get to see Spider-Ham in a tale "Pig in the City" (because of course). It's cute story, in which, at one point, Peter is a food photographer and blogger. Yes, they went there.... because they could. While I give main story 3.5, this story I would give 4.5/5, which is why the rating at the top has that insane 3.75/5.


What did you think? Which Spider were you most excited to see return in here?