#spider-force

Once upon a time Stan Lee said every issue is someone’s first. The idea being that you should only presume prior knowledge on the readers’ parts up to a point and otherwise fill them in on the important details of their characters and the ongoing story so that any reader, new, old, or lapsed, could enjoy any issue.

Come the 2000s this way of doing things got abandoned. At best you’d get a recap page that would fill you in on the plot but little else.

I mention all this because I only skimmed Kaine’s Scarlet Spider book and whilst I collected it I barely skimmed Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider, I plan on reading both more thoroughly at some point in the future. I merely heard about some things regarding Jessica Drew’s solo title and my knowledge of Ashley Barton only stretches as far as her terrible and confusing debut in Old Man Logan and the knowledge she was among Otto’s more violent recruits in Spider-Verse.

What I’m saying is I’m not as familiar with all these characters as I could be. My Kaine knowledge rests chiefly in his 1990s and MC2 appearances with a little more stretching into BND and beyond. And he’s the character I’m most interested in this series for and who I know the most about.*

So please forgive me if in what I say going onwards is incorrect because of my lack of knowledge. In fact please enlighten me. I may for example see a problem where in truth there isn’t one had I read X issue of Spider Woman or not see a problem when there is one if only I’d more closely followed Y issue of Scarlet Spider.

However this itself presents an inherent problem with this book, and indeed more modern comics as a whole.

It took prior knowledge for granted.

I’m trying to recall a single instance in this issue where it was even mentioned that Kaine was the clone of Peter Parker, or any of his history with Ben Reilly. And I can’t. I can’t recall any of that stuff. Equally I can’t recall any instance of when Kaine and Jessica Drew ever shared a conversation with one another or why Jessica Drew would be a good recruit for this mission.

From the name, solicits, recap page and general tone of the book the vibe conveyed is that this is a title that is kind of the Spider Suicide Squad. A series cut from the cloth of the hard edged 1980s and 1990s action movies and comics but with spider powers in place of machine guns and knives.

The recruitment of Jessica Drew indeed is somewhat reminiscent of a dozen action films where the bad ass retired soldier has a family and is asked to come out of retirement.

This isn’t a knock against the issue. That’s what it’s trying to be, what it was made out to be, and in isolation it lives up to that.

These are Doc Ock’s more militant, more violent, more harder edged recruits and they certainly feel that way.

They’re slightly sarcastic. They’re more direct. They’re more cynical. They’re more practical and pragmatic. They aren’t that heroic. They aren’t that polite. They aren’t softball.

‘Spider-Force’ even as a name recalls the quintessentially 1990s title X-Force and all those other comics with ‘Force’ in their name.

I suppose when looked at through that lens the comic not filling you in too much isn’t a problem.

This is a hard edged taskforce with a suicide mission that’s necessary for the success of the war. That’s all the story demands you know, so details like Kaine being a clone, or Ashley being a criminal gang leader, isn’t terribly relevant.

Or at least not relevant...to the plot.

From a character POV the reader is left in the dark as to why exactly any of these characters would be good fits for this mission. Everyone seems ‘tough’ sure, but is that it?

Like I know why Jess, Kaine and Ashley are good fits for this mission because I have prior knowledge from older stories. But even then I wasn’t 100% sure if Jessica Drew really did have espionage training or not because her backstory has been retconned and she was a Skrull for awhile there. The story doesn’t clarify that.

The issue in the recap page (which isn’t even part of the real story so you lose some points there) claims this is a team assembled who isn’t afraid to die. But we see little of this from any of the characters. Putting aside how pretty much every Spider-Hero isn’t afraid to die regardless of being hard edged or not, the story shows the characters shocked and ticked off when Kaine reveals they’ve signed up for a suicide mission.

Not a mission that may result in their deaths, but something where the plan was for them to succeed but not return.

Or at least...I think that’s the case.

It’s confusing.

The recap page says this is about a team not afraid to die. Okay.

Then later Kaine blows their escape route stranding them there, implying this is a suicide run. Okay.

But on the same page he says they succeed OR they die. Umm....I’m lost.

Was the idea if they fail they can’t have the option of retreat?

Why didn’t Kaine tell them that upfront?

If they had to be tricked to serve the mission that undermines the recap page’s claim this is about a team who’s not afraid to die isn’t it?

I mean if that’s what the recap page tells you you imagine the idea behind the issue in recruiting the other members is that they’re knowing going after people not afraid to die. But if you have to trick them...then they would be afraid to die. Jessica specifically IS afraid to die because it’d mean losing her son.

Her motivation is also janky. She claims it’s important her son see her being a hero. Okay but from the artwork the baby looks way too young to remember anything so that doesn’t make sense. It would’ve been more logical to drop that aspect and focussed instead upon just the idea that if Jessica doesn’t help fight then then every spider totem including her helpless son would be at risk. Which IS in the story but isn’t given as her primary motivation.

Going back to Kaine I really do not know if being that manipulative is in character for him. It seems like a very Doc Ock move, so in that sense him being in Otto’s faction adds up.

But I dunno if it’s in character. Kaine had this policy in the Clone Saga of not killing indiscriminately and of killing only people who’re bad. From what I’ve read he evolved to minimize whom he kills in general. So the idea he’d be willing to sacrifice the lives of innocent heroes (including a mother and teenager) in such a coldly calculated way raises an eyebrow from me. Maybe it is in character and I don’t realize. I’ll admit my initial reaction to that was interest as it shows a what Peter could have become/could be if his nurture was different.

Another nitpick with Kaine by the way, his scars seemed awefully...tame. I thought in Clone Conspiracy the idea was his scars if not his clone degeneration as a whole had returned (I only skimmed that story too for the record). If that’s the case then shouldn’t he look as messed up as he did in the Clone Saga? Artistic licence was a thing but even when he looked the least ugly it was much uglier than this.

Other problems included the continual reference to Charlie as Ashley’s grandfather. It was to the point where I looked on Marvelwiki because I was sure that couldn’t be the case. Sure enough it wasn’t. I get what Priest was doing, he’s a version of Peter Parker, therefore is technically a version of Ashley’s grandpa but...it’s just confusing. And that’s confusing for me who knows who Ashley Barton is, god forbid you pick this up having not read Old Man Logan.

Another point of confusion was the baffling reference to Earth-3145 (a.k.a. the home of the cowardly Uncle Ben from Spider-Verse)  as ‘home’. I don’t get it. Home to who? The Inheritors? That wasn’t the impression I got at all it seemed to be called home in reference to most of the Spider Heroes but...it isn’t. It’s not their home. It’s a version of New York but...did Ashley Barton even come from a version of NYC? I don’t recall but I have a feeling she didn’t.

Now there are positives to be had here.

For starters the pacing was very good, a lot happened and I even thought briefly it was extra sized but it wasn’t.

Charlie seems an intriguing character and a basic yet effective way of setting up the scenario through a character who, like us, isn’t entirely in the know.

And the artwork is mostly really lovely.