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A review by roxanamalinachirila
Amazing Spider-Man: Edge of Spider-Verse by David Hine
4.0
3.5 stars, rounded up.
I can really relate to Spider-Man right now - reading American comics is like taking a leap into the unknown and figuring out how to swing it on the way down. Or maybe it's like life: you drop in in the middle of things, try to piece everything together from the clues you have, and you don't know exactly where you're headed and how everything fits.
What I'm trying to say is that I watched the amazingly awesome movie "Into the Spider-Verse" and I decided I wanted more of Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Gwen and Miles Morales, but I had no idea where to start. Spider-Man Noir is harder to get, so I went for Spider-Gwen, and Wikipedia and Google landed me here.
"Edge of Spider-Verse" was surprisingly fun. Maybe I had bad luck with comics before, or at least with their translations, so my expectations were quite low. Anyway, this is a collection of five stories of alternate interpretations of Spider-Man, all starting from the same premise of man and spider, and ending in a very different place.
Spider-Man Noir is a crime fighter in a pulp/noir 1930s world. The villain is a stage magician who kidnaps one of his former love interests and dares him to come get her, preparing an elaborate trap to capture and kill him. The trap works, and Spider-Man is about to get killed live in front of the audience in a thrilling scene. It's quite delightful! Also, yay! Spider-Man Noir!
Spider-Gwen is... well, I was kind of hoping this would be the beginning of her story, but it feels like it's continued from somewhere else (AARGH, MARVEL, WHERE THE HECK DOES IT ALL BEGIN?!). Anyway, Gwen Stacy is Spider-Woman and people don't love her. At all. She's blamed for the death of Peter Parker, her best friend, and she's trying to prove she's not evil and to figure out her place in the world. Unfortunately, that's a pretty hard thing to do.
The Spider-Man, Aaron Aikman is a scientist from the future who injected himself with spider DNA to become a superhero. He fights next-level tech super-villains, but doesn't realize how grave the situation is until a whole army of supernatural creatures make their way into the world via his tech. It sounds very exciting, but somehow... it's not.
Patton Parnell is... seriously messed up. While every other spider-person here followed the idea of Spider-Man as a force for good, this alternate version of Peter Parker becomes a monstrous villain. As a young man with a fascination for science, with little empathy and a lot of abuse from his uncle Ted, Patton's reaction to becoming Spider-Man is to start indiscriminately killing animals and imprisoning people for food. I think every part of it is a villain cliche, but it works quite well in antithesis with the normal Spider-Man story.
SP//dr is as mecha as it gets and it will seem familiar to fans of mecha manga, Pacific Rim and other stories within the genre. Penni Parker is a teenage girl who is the only one compatible with a robot suit which she can access via telepathy with a spider, and she's needed by her country to save the day.
All in all, while not mind-blowing in its entirety, it's a good volume, and I think it works even if (or maybe especially if) you're new to the comics (as I am).
I can really relate to Spider-Man right now - reading American comics is like taking a leap into the unknown and figuring out how to swing it on the way down. Or maybe it's like life: you drop in in the middle of things, try to piece everything together from the clues you have, and you don't know exactly where you're headed and how everything fits.
What I'm trying to say is that I watched the amazingly awesome movie "Into the Spider-Verse" and I decided I wanted more of Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Gwen and Miles Morales, but I had no idea where to start. Spider-Man Noir is harder to get, so I went for Spider-Gwen, and Wikipedia and Google landed me here.
"Edge of Spider-Verse" was surprisingly fun. Maybe I had bad luck with comics before, or at least with their translations, so my expectations were quite low. Anyway, this is a collection of five stories of alternate interpretations of Spider-Man, all starting from the same premise of man and spider, and ending in a very different place.
Spider-Man Noir is a crime fighter in a pulp/noir 1930s world. The villain is a stage magician who kidnaps one of his former love interests and dares him to come get her, preparing an elaborate trap to capture and kill him. The trap works, and Spider-Man is about to get killed live in front of the audience in a thrilling scene. It's quite delightful! Also, yay! Spider-Man Noir!
Spider-Gwen is... well, I was kind of hoping this would be the beginning of her story, but it feels like it's continued from somewhere else (AARGH, MARVEL, WHERE THE HECK DOES IT ALL BEGIN?!). Anyway, Gwen Stacy is Spider-Woman and people don't love her. At all. She's blamed for the death of Peter Parker, her best friend, and she's trying to prove she's not evil and to figure out her place in the world. Unfortunately, that's a pretty hard thing to do.
The Spider-Man, Aaron Aikman is a scientist from the future who injected himself with spider DNA to become a superhero. He fights next-level tech super-villains, but doesn't realize how grave the situation is until a whole army of supernatural creatures make their way into the world via his tech. It sounds very exciting, but somehow... it's not.
Patton Parnell is... seriously messed up. While every other spider-person here followed the idea of Spider-Man as a force for good, this alternate version of Peter Parker becomes a monstrous villain. As a young man with a fascination for science, with little empathy and a lot of abuse from his uncle Ted, Patton's reaction to becoming Spider-Man is to start indiscriminately killing animals and imprisoning people for food. I think every part of it is a villain cliche, but it works quite well in antithesis with the normal Spider-Man story.
SP//dr is as mecha as it gets and it will seem familiar to fans of mecha manga, Pacific Rim and other stories within the genre. Penni Parker is a teenage girl who is the only one compatible with a robot suit which she can access via telepathy with a spider, and she's needed by her country to save the day.
All in all, while not mind-blowing in its entirety, it's a good volume, and I think it works even if (or maybe especially if) you're new to the comics (as I am).