The Spectacular Spider-Men took an unexpected turn by having Peter Parker and Miles Morales living what appears to be their dream lives. For Peter that was being married to and having kids with Gwen Stacy. While for Miles it was dating Kamala Khan and being able to focus on his school work. This dream scenario was all thanks to the machinations of villains Arcade and Mentallo. Can the Spider-Men figure out they’ve fallen into the villains plot. Let’s find out with The Spectacular Spider-Men #4.
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer: Greg Weisman
Artist: Humberto Ramos
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Colorist: Edgar Delgado
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MEN #4 SOLICITATION
“The world comes crashing down around Peter and Miles. Someone has just ticked off the wrong Spider-Men. The gloves have come off, and people are going to get hurt.” – Marvel Comics
REVIEW
The story in The Spectacular Spider-Men is one that appears to be too overcomplicated to work. But it speaks to Greg Weisman and Humberto Ramos that this story ends up working. It is all thanks to the heart that they bring to what this story represents for Peter Parker and Miles Morales.
Continuing the focus of the previous issue, The Spectacular Spider-Men #4 does a great job at examining Peter and Miles deepest wishes. Its not just simply being in positive and strong relationships with Gwen Stacy and Kamala Khan, respectively. That is certainly the thing that our attention is drawn to because Peter and Miles love life has been a key part of their character arcs throughout their solo series. The chemistry Peter and Gwen as well as Miles and Kamala share spoke to how they view these two as stable partners.
These stable relationships act as a vehicle for the deeper desire they both have. That is to finding a balance in their lives. Specifically having personal successes to go along with a stable, deep relationship. We see that with the mentions of Peter winning a Pulitzer Prize and Miles passing his tests. The dialogue was in the flow of the conversation Peter and Miles share with their significant others but spoke to what these lives brought to life meant to both of them.
It gave an otherwise complicated villain plot to use our heroes desires against them some real heart. It made how Arcade and Metallo weren’t able to get what they wanted out of Peter and Miles to be a funny turn of events. This played into how ultimately outside of being Spider-Man both Peter and Miles are normal guys. They aren’t like Tony Stark with larger than life lives outside being heroes.
Having this unexpected fault in their plans made how both Peter and Miles discovered they were in worlds created by Arcade and Mentallo be a natural progression of the story. Their plain lives led to them, with help from Miles’ clone Shift, break out of their world. At the same time because they spent to much time in these worlds it has distorted their view of what’s real. It led to how we ended up getting a Spider-Man vs Spider-Man story towards the end work in context of the story direction.
The big reveal that Hammerhead was the one who hired Arcade and Mentallo was a solid hook to wonder where this story will ultimately lead to. Weisman and Ramos certainly brought back the mafia boss vibe back to Hammerhead’s character. It’s a presentation that Hammerhead hasn’t had in a while and hopefully leads to bigger plans for the villain reestablishing themselves.
The one aspect of The Spectacular Spider-Men #4 that did not work was the involvement of Peter and Miles supporting cast. They are sort of just here to remind the reader that they have some role to play in this story. But the way it was presented just felt like page filler rather than additive to the story being told. Weisman and Ramos need to find a better way to integrate the supporting cast, especially when they aren’t interacting with Peter or Miles.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Spectacular Spider-Men #4 has a lot of heart thanks to its story. That is thanks to how Greg Weisman and Humberto Ramos utilize Peter Parker and Miles Morales deepest desires to provide meaningful character insight. Now hopefully with where things are left off the villain side of the story gets cleaned up to tap into the full potential of this storyline.
Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
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