THE SPIDER review

(Reviewed by Melody Werner)

The Spider is a comic book series published by Dynamite Entertainment starring a venerated pulp noir vigilante of the same name, and ran between 2012 and 2014. Written by David Liss and having two artists throughout its run (Colton Worley and Ivan Rodriguez), with a who's who of talented pulp masters such as Francisco Francavilla lending their artistry for the covers. It has 18 issues and one annual--with the annual having a completely different creative team. And it's badass.

The art is consistently really good. I preferred Worley's art, but Rodriguez did a solid job for the rest of the issues so I can't complain too much. When Worley was on it, the panel layouts were magnificent--stylish, yet you can still easily understand what's going on. The action is without fail top-notch as well, and doesn't really get old.

One of the strengths of the series is the plot; surprising for a pulp series where the narratives can be formulaic. Every issue has something big happening, something cool happening, something furthering the plot, or furthering The Spider's quest to end crime. And oddly enough, there are some really cool plot twists that actually caught me off. Some fake-outs here and there to screw with you too.

While none of the supporting characters are what I'd classify as complex, they're all very likeable and have great personalities. But the true star is easily The Spider himself. He's a total badass, yet he has depth. He's not perfect, and he has plenty of blemishes--for one, he's a huge alcoholic. Unfortunately, he can be annoying when he's whining about his romantic interest--an old flame who's married to one of his old friends. However, he doesn't mope too much, because this is modern pulp fiction, and he gets past the bitchery and jumps straight to the good stuff (not to say that drama, romance, etc. cannot be handled well in comics--I don't mean to sound ComicsGate esque--I just prefer that books who do such things well try their hand at them, as opposed to something which works best as unfettered trying and failing. It just bogs this one down). It's always been something I've liked about pulp characters. While drama has its place in modern comics, I love being able to read something that cuts all of the bullshit and gives us a non-stop ride of awesomeness. It's a nice change of pace and throwbacks that aren't entirely wallowing in the olden days can be fun.

The dialogue is on-point. Sure, there are some typos here and there (maybe one every couple of issues, not that big of a deal), but that doesn't mean it's poorly written. Every line makes sense with their character. When it's supposed to be badass, it's badass. When it's supposed to be funny, it gets a chuckle.

If I had to level a criticism at The Spider, it'd be that it does repeat some things too much. The Spider's romance is a basic damsel in distress cliché and every time he comes in to save her, he broods for a bit. Not that bad, but in the later issues, they also try to force the point that he's a drinker--multiple times even in the same issue. Yes, thank you, we'd already established that in issue one. If you had to bring it up for noobs during syndication, I would assume they could tell rather quickly, and it's not that important. I never did do a "top 10 comics I read in 2016", but this series was certainly one of them. The Spider is a total blast of a series and definitely worth checking out. The Spider gets a 9/10.

Awesome

Summary:
Tons of fun to read, between its great plot, little to no bullshit, top-notch art, pitch perfect action, solid characters, and a stellar main character. Though it does have a few things holding it back, it's a damn good series, no doubt.