THE SPIDER KING review

(Review by Melody Werner)
The Spider King is a 4 issue sci-fi/fantasy miniseries recently published by IDW. Written by Josh Vann and illustrated by Simone D'Armini, it's a mash-up between an alien invasion and viking story. Though it's mostly vikings with sci-fi weapons, it's a strange but effective blend. Like macaroni and cheese that's doused in A1 sauce (FIGHT ME ON IT, HATERS--on second thought, I am a touch brittle. SO FIGHT ME ON IT AND GO TO JAIL FOR MANSLAUGHTER, BLOODYDAMN PRICKDICKS). It was initially funded on Kickstarter and released previously, but it got the full miniseries treatment from IDW who evidently saw major potential in it. And you know what? They were right. This series is killer.


At first, I wasn't really in love with D'Armini's aesthetic. I liked the art well enough, but wasn't blown away. It felt a bit visually busy and I kinda had to squint to notice a few things here and there. However, over the course of the mini, I found myself really warming up to it, especially in a couple pages where it shifts to a stained glass perspective, and in those pages it's extremely visually striking and cerebral. The style's a bit cartoony, but it really works because there's a humorous streak running through this all, and it matches the art style perfectly. There's also plenty of gore and fantastic, eldritch character designs for all my fellow sadists out there. The human and item designs are also very striking too. I do feel that the alien designs could've done with being much less humanoid; for the same reasons I criticized alien designs in Star Wars and Rocket before, and continue to levy similar critiques at other media with aliens who don't look particularly alien. They just look like weird humans and little green men, or Greys to an extent. The main alien is eldritch and alien enough, but the rest kinda left me thinking their designs were uninspired. The color-work by Adrian Bloch are a lot of flats, but it is in no way a visually "flat" series when it comes to colors. It's a very vibrant title with lush colors abound; by no means grim and grey. Which really suits the other elements of the book. As far as lettering (which is by Nic J. Shaw) and things like that go: it's pretty great and reads seamlessly, except for one minor bubble where there's an accented word--but the letter of that word with said accent is in a completely different font, because I assume the main font didn't have the proper accented letter. That was a bit jarring. Otherwise though, it's very stylish looking in areas like that, and the series logo is especially fantastic if that's something you can dig.


The Spider King is Josh Vann's debut comic, but reading it, you wouldn't really have guessed that if you go by some of the stigma about debut tales. At least, I probably wouldn't have, had I not gone in knowing it was a debut. I say this because it's such a very tightly paced, fun, interesting, and savvy comic which would wrangle with other pulpy books adeptly. The narrative is compelling, and shockingly well-paced for a miniseries. Usually, with a lot of these smaller series, I feel that the plots risk feeling rushed and underdeveloped. This isn't. At least, not mostly anyway (I'll go into my two pacing related gripes in the next paragraphs). The dialogue is tight and well written. The characters can be a bit generic, but they're well-defined and likable enough. I particularly enjoy the fact that the male and female leads are not romantically involved (at least, not yet, and I hope that if they do get romantic later on that there will be a build up in their chemistry before that). It succinctly weaves together sci-fi and fantasy without feeling like one of them's just there as window dressing. The vikings are ill-prepared for facing alien weapons and even when they do get some alien kit, they don't know how to use it and they don't know what everything actually is. That makes complete sense and I'd love to see that as a continued element in future issues. I don't think there's much natural character development over the course of the 4 issues, but that may be the miniseries constraints seeping in. Hrolf goes from being a cowardly warrior to being a pretty stone cold kinda guy, but I didn't really feel that. The conclusion is very satisfying.


Here are a few of my bigger gripes: 1) *(this is semi-spoilery, so skip to the second point if you want to avoid any and all foreknowledge)* there are a few pseudo-comedic relief characters in this comic who are there for no other reason than to die. Now, I'm totally fine with that, but they didn't get enough screen time for their deaths to really leave any discernible impact. I just didn't care, so when they died it was just like "Okay, the fodder is out of the way now." Well, not really. The first one died before the other, and I said to myself: "Okay, so maybe this other one is going to have to deal with his best friend dying right in front of him and grow into a legitima--" and then he died :P Feels like a missed opportunity.


2) I don't know how the continuing series is going to work. So, what basically happened, I guess, is that this miniseries did well enough that they're going to continue with the series. However, the story as is could've ended at #4 and been a solid stopping point. And as much as I like this series and will definitely like to see where this team goes with it, I don't know how they'll be able to deliver a better antagonist than the one here. Because this one had personal ties to the main character and really made sense as a villain. I don't know how the rest of the story is going to be able to build up greater baddies that people will care about nearly as much as The Spider King. He felt like he should've been the final bad guy. This isn't necessarily a problem with the miniseries itself, but it does have a bearing on the continuing story which I do reserve excitement for because of this. They may have blew their wad too early.


The Spider King is a cracking fun debut. I'd be cautiously optimistic of the continuing series after this mini, but if you just want a really awesome sci-fi/fantasy mac & cheese with A1 style (YEAH, I SAID IT AGAIN), you can do far worse than this miniseries. I highly recommend it if you think the blend sounds interesting. This is a book that's good enough I'll look into getting a physical TPB whenever that comes out. It's a shelf-worthy title. The Spider King gets a 9/10.

Awesome

Summary:
An excellent little sci-fi/fantasy miniseries with fantastic visuals, writing, and clashing of genres/themes. It's extremely entertaining if you like a bit of a bloody viking vs. aliens story. It has a few hitches, and I have no clue how well the series is going to continue past this point with continuously interesting tales, but the first four issues are so great that my hesitation may be misplaced.

(Originally posted: 5/11/2018)

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