Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #13: The Shortest Revolution

As ever, the dialogue in this issue continues to be an exceptional showing of Taylor’s ability to manipulate character voice to create a cacophony of distinct rhythms from figure to figure but here, for the first time in the series, the plotting became problematic. With as little as we’ve heard from Marvel regarding this series, I suspect that is no fault of the creative team but more of an editorial mandate, however the problem is still clear and must be addressed, unfortunately. With no future solicitations beyond November, cancellation feels all but certain and thus Taylor and company are caught in obvious scramble mode here to wrap up loose plot threads. The revolution to free Under York from its tyrant appears to have taken a matter of minutes, a sad conclusion to what promised to be an interesting look at the substructures of power or perhaps some other form of social commentary, truncated and potentially lost.

In deploying the full might of the Fantastic Four with this issue, possible disaster is at least diverted by casting the reader’s mind into the thought of what a Taylor written Fantastic Four title might look and sound like. While the comedic timing is perfect here, from Science Fives to missed opportunities to use powers for convenience, the quickened pace of the story and the uneven artwork (with four artists on board for a single issue, its difficult to even expect anything but unevenness leaving nobody to blame but editorial), this issue falls far short of expectations established in the previous twelve issues.

While certainly not a failure of a comic by any stretch of the imagination, the bar for this book has been set incredible high and it saddens me to say that this issue misses that standard by a noticeable margin. Hopefully the final issue (?) will provide some redemption for what has otherwise been a truly excellent Spider-Man series.