DISCLAIMER: I wrote this review immediately after reading this comic for the first time without reading other reviews in depth. It’s entirely possible my opinion may change on further reading or discussion, but for now, here’s my first impressions.

I’m honestly a little surprised this issue is getting some positive reviews. Frankly I thought it was awful.

First off, there’s Chris  Bachalo’s art. Now I’m not a fan of Bachalo. I don’t hate his artwork but I don’t exactly like it either. Here, however, the problems for me lie in the layouts of the book. Everything feels disjointed, and the book doesn’t flow well from one panel or page to the next. It actually makes the book somewhat hard to follow for me, as I’m trying to place when these events are occurring in relation to each other.

The writing doesn’t help in this regard, either. We have the Bendis thing of people basically standing around talking for the entire issue, which I don’t dislike. There are issues like that which I fully enjoy. But in those issues, the characters are actually talking about something. There is some good character interaction like Spider-Woman talking with Ms Marvel and then Hawkeye, or Noh-Varr introducing his girlfriend to the Red Hulk. But aside from the aforementioned examples, none of the dialogue advances the story, or even makes me want to keep reading.

Of course, I’m a huge Spider-Man fan so I have to mention one thing about him in this book. He throws up in his mask because Red Hulk and Noh-Varr eat some eggs, shells and all. Sure it’s gross, and I would expect Spidey to make some quip about how gross it is, but to actually depict his vomitting in his own mask seems odd to me, considering some of the gross things he’s endured over the years. I’m not sure if this was Bendis or Bachalo, but if it was simply Spidey making a joke about heaving in his mask, it’d be fine.

Overall, nothing really happens in this issue. There are a few good bits, but it’s a chore to slog through the rest of the dialogue and disjointed panels. In fact, the best part of this book was when they basically recreated a scene from Fear Itself #1 so you’d be better off just going and reading that book again.

Excelsior!

-Matt Thorne
AKA The Merry Marvelite