Spider-Verse #3: The Ghost in the Spider-Machine

Spider-Verse #3 delves deeper into the Spider-Verse itself, sending Miles to an Earth that we’ve seen before, but this time we get to spend a longer amount of time there. It’s Earth 14512, the home of the little girl in the big Spider-Man robot. It’s an interesting concept, but I’m not sure how interesting.  Writer Jed MacKay has done a pretty good job telling these various stories of different Spider-People from around the multiverse, but this issue feels like he’s concentrating a little too much on exploring the mythos of this particular Earth, and not so much on the story of finding Ani May Parker and getting her back to where she should be, protecting the Spider-Web. Even so, it’s an entertaining issue with a few surprises and some crazy additions to the Spider-Man story. I have a feeling that we’ll be revisiting either this world or this character before the series is over, and I wouldn’t be surprised if somethings that happen this issue have some fall-out that effects the “big” story that runs throughout this series.

Artist Dike Ruan goes a great job of matching a style to this story. It’s almost straight-up manga, but not quite. Admittedly, I’m not a huge manga fan, but in this case it totally works. He is fantastic at rendering panels that are full of kinetic energy and you can almost feel the air whizzing by as the Spider-Bot of this world flies from building to building. The speed lines are an awesome touch, and the best part is that Ruan doesn’t do the standard over the top facial expressions shown in manga comics.

And a special shout-out to Ian Herring who gives this book an extra point by coloring it beautifully. Done wrong, this book could’ve looked very messy. Thankfully Herring got it 100% right.