ADVANCED REVIEW! Spider-Man 2099 Exodus #1: Just Another Day (Spoiler-Free)

This (kind of) second issue is even better than the first. Author Steve Orlando sure knows the basics of telling a very entertaining, tonal, addictive superhero book. What jumped out about me most in this issue were the moods that Orlando creates. The moods go from hope to defeat to shock and then some. But the common thread through all the scenes is that of excitement and urgency. Like an action movie where there’s a ticking clock, you can’t help but feel that this is a race to the end, even though it clearly is not. But everything is exciting and of the utmost importance. There’s a new character introduced into the 2099 universe-the Winter Soldier! This is a huge difference from Bucky Barnes, but that’s the really great thing about this new version. It’s a night and day difference, yet you get the same feel for the character that Marvel gave us when The Winter Soldier was first introduced in the pages of Captain America. 

Artist Dave Wachter is fantastic! He really shows that a great imagination is essential for any good comic book artist. Drawing a comic set in present-day society is hard enough, but drawing a science fiction comic has got to be downright intimidating. You’ve got to come up with practical, believable, yet fantastic technology that’s based on present-day technology. We’ve seen where tech can go in as little as twenty years, so seeing where Watcher takes it almost 80 years from now is really engrossing, and all this is in addition to really great portrayals of character and action in this issue. This is definitely a book that you want on you’re “buy pile” this week.