The Power of Three (Marvel Spidey and His Amazing Friends) (Little Golden Book)

Product Information

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND BRIEF POLITICS, IF THE LATTER UPSETS YOU DON’T READ THE BOOK EITHER.

I’m not sure what timeline/world this series is set in but it’s the modern day (smartphones, etc.) yet people still think Iron Man is Tony Stark’s bodyguard! Best not to dwell on it - it’s its own thing. Of course we all know that part - but what would've happened if Peter Parker, a.k.a. The Amazing Spider-Man, had realistically aged throughout the ensuing decades (like we readers have *cough cough*) yet still maintained the burden of the "with great power comes great responsibility" angle? Oh, I will say, the art is badass. The action is really cool, reminiscent of Nightwing from Scott McDaniel, but more colorful and 10% more Looney Tunes. Also, a lesson in self-worth. Dude, I have SUPER low self-esteem, as evidenced by the fact that I have to prove to the faceless internet that I'm not a racist asshole even though I'm like 100% sure. I also routinely eat things off the floor because I feel like I dropped them and there's a price to be paid. And even I don't think kissing porcelain is the answer here. Life Story is such a fun idea for an imprint, and I already love how different the two stories are to come out of it. Zdarsky crafts a beautiful and touching story that is just one giant love letter to anything and everything related to Spider-Man, with events like The Clone Saga, Kraven’s Last Hunt, and Superior Spider-Man all showing up throughout Peter’s life. The six issues with Spider-Man are just fantastic and one of the best Spidey minis ever. Now the annual is a little different, with it showing the life of JJJ behind bars after he funded the Scorpion to kill Spider-Man. It’s a really interesting character study that has an amazing ending, rounding this collection out to be one of the best Spider-Man stories anyone can buy.Había oído y leído cosas muy buenas de este cómic desde que se publicó en EEUU pero cuando finalmente lo he leído me ha resultado una decepción. No me malinterpretéis, no es un mal cómic ni mucho menos, pero cuando hay tanta gente que le da un bombo desmesurado a un cómic mainstream como se le ha dado a este yo al menos espero algo que sorprenda, y en mi caso al menos sorpresas pocas.

I wanted to love this. I have several friends who enjoyed it and a lot of people say it’s a must-read for Spider-Man fans and to those friends, as always, I’m glad others enjoyed it even if I hated it but I honestly can’t see why they liked it. You know that big thing some people complain about comic characters, that they never really age, and nothing really evolves much cause of timeline restraints. Well Chip is given the opportunity to start Peter's life in the 60's and through the decades age him and have the world around him change. In other words, we grow with Peter through his teen years to an old man. The ending is painfully bad. So many terrible ideas and lines of bad dialogue crammed into that last issue with a slightly stupid in general way of wrapping it up. The art is also great, with legendary Spider-Man artist Mark Bagley showing exactly why he has been the go-to Spidey artist for years. The dude is consistent and on time, which are two of the most important aspects for a comic artist to have. The variant covers by Zdarsky are also great in how well they set the mood for each issue. In Spidey, the Spider-Man stuff works, the Parker stuff feels like an afterthought. Robbie Thompson nails it with the Spidey stuff, less nails it with the Parker stuff. Maybe staples it or something. What's less than a nail but still okay?My Thoughts: While I definitely would not consider myself a scholar in the Spider-Man lore (or Marvel in general), I am familiar enough with the character through movie/TV adaptations and a handful of random comics here and there to have a sufficiently good idea of the universe. As a result, I was easily able to get into this comic along with the fact that it was a stand-alone series and a bloody bodacious one at that. I'm quoting myself, which is the definition of being up my own ass. But I didn't want to do that math again. In Spidey, Parker is in love with Gwen Stacy, he has to find a job taking pictures for the Bugle. The Peter Parker stuff couldn't be more by-the-(comic)book.

This book is surprisingly boring. I mean I get that it’s a more serious story but can’t you still make it exciting? I shouldn’t feel like a superhero comic is dragging at a slow pace. Spidey covers Peter Parker's first days as a super hero. This coincides with his freshman year of high school. During this time, Parker is the best friend of Harry Osborn, the number one target of school bully Flash Thompson and he might be the love interest of one Gwen Stacy- if he can get the courage to ask her out sometime. But above all- this story is about the troubles Parker has balancing being a superhero with responsibilities as a student and teenager. In this continuity where we see Peter age throughout this miniseries, it adds new wrinkles towards known stories from the original Clone Saga, Kraven's Last Hunt, to Civil War, and these deviations work because they inform the various life directions that our hero goes through. Many of Peter's relationships are still there from his romances with both Gwen and Mary Jane, to his rogues gallery, all of which evolve throughout the issues. What is most interesting is the dynamics that we wouldn't expect, such as his friendship with Reed Richards and his dislike towards Tony Stark who becomes a recurring antagonist. Sin embargo, me ha decepcionado. Probablemente el mayor hándicap, haya sido el dibujo. Se que Bagley es un clásico de los 90´s, un dibujante veterano de Spiderman de largo recorrido, pero el dibujo me sacaba de la historia una y otra vez. Los rostros se me hacían demasiado toscos, y las expresiones, exacerbadas hasta lo infinito. No lo sé, es un tipo de dibujo, deudor del pasado, en el que me cuesta muchísimo entrar.The story is pretty bad. So I thought it really had potential to be cool but Zdarsky is simply a bad writer IMO. The main problem with this plot might be that Zdarsky changes things that honestly have NOTHING to do with Spider-Man aging so it’s even stupid in a “what if” scenario. It's the Peter Parker Portions that are a bit of a snooze, and damn if they don't tread a lot of familiar ground. Flash Thompson is his antagonist, and Parker could mop the floor with him but doesn't because he feels like getting his head dunked in the toilet is the only way to keep his secret identity secret. I find it interesting that we so often consider Spider-Man a teen superhero and for his age to be at the core of who that character is. He graduated high school in issue #28 of Amazing Spider-Man (also the first appearance of the Molten Man, True Believers!), which came out in September of 1965. 51 years and over 700 issues ago. To put it in perspective, Peter Parker spent less than 4% of his Amazing Spider-Man run attending high school. That’s the thinking behind Spidey: retelling classic Spider-Man but in a modern comics style to a 21st century audience for whom this will all be brand new. And for those new readers, this is a great place to start reading Spider-Man comics, though for someone like me who’s read/watched the Spidey origin a hundred times already, this was just ok. This series screams Stan Lee. It's so similar in feel to that of Lee and Ditko's run on Spider-Man, it's scary. Yet, I didn't feel that any of these stories had been told over and over to the point of being stale. Plus, I didn't have any problem with Gwen being a fellow classmate and not a college co-ed unlike some Marvel traditionalists.

I tried, okay? I wanted to love this... but no... I really should have known better than to try another Chip Zdarsky book...A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed an issue of Spidey Super Stories. It was a series that ran in the 70s based on the live-action exploits of Spider-Man from the PBS series The Electric Company. In that issue, the web-slinger battled the terrifying Lizard.