Uncanny Spider-Man #1: We Get It, the Pizza Is Symbolic

This inaugural issue of Uncanny Spider-Man greatly exceeded my expectations. It was much, much better than Legion of X, Nightcrawlers, or Way of X led me to expect. This is not, however, unmitigated praise as those previous series had lowered my expectations to such an extent that I was anticipating gritting my teeth through a level of writing that was actively an affront to both the readers and the ostensible main character.

Instead, what we got was a somewhat fun, if largely hamfisted, character study done by a writer who, by his own admission, actively, gleefully misinterprets what the character is about. There was some of Spurrier’s usual drum-beating about the stupidity of people who have faith (paging Garth Ennis, that schtick was old hat a quarter-century ago), and the laughability of clinging to faith in times of trouble. There was a profoundly uncomfortable racial analogy (what is it with straight, white men who don’t bother to educate themselves about other perspectives and yet believe that they can write intelligently about those perspectives?) shoehorned into Nightcrawler’s internal monologue. Seriously, I know that the dude is blue, but when he’s using an image inducer, he presents as white, when he was briefly human in Uncanny X-Men, he was white. Spurrier’s track record of writing about People of Color (hint: they’ve all been mentally ill, homeless, impoverished, or the product of the British foster care system) has been, well, unfortunate.

The X-Men have always been a stand in for minority groups, and that’s one of the best things about them, but when straight white men take that subtext and use it as a trumpet without doing the research, it’s unfortunate at best and deeply, deeply problematic at worst.

Aside from this, the writer was basically hitting us over the head, again and again, with a mallet on whose side is printed THIS CHARACTER IS DEPRESSED BECAUSE HIS FAITH WAS A LIE. There’s a little bit (a smidgen) of hope that Nightcrawler’s faith will be restored at the end of this mini, but given Spurrier’s general contempt for the concept, I can’t quite bring myself to believe it. He hasn’t earned that from me as a reader, content instead to curbstomp the very notion of faith at any given turn.

I will take a minute to talk about the more positive aspects of this issue, and there were (surprisingly) quite a few of them scattered about. I liked the recurring theme of the pizza. The pizza might as well have had THIS PIZZA SYMBOLIZES DEPRESSION spelled out across the top in cockroaches and pepperoni, but at least it was a consistent image that aptly reflected what’s going on in Kurt’s head. The pizza is awful. The pizza is objectively bad (much like every series Spurrier has worked on over the last three years) but Nightcrawler is trying valiantly to convince himself that it’s good, that he’s enjoying it in exactly the same way that he’s trying to convince himself that he’s ok with not fighting Orchis, that he’s enjoying being yet another Spider-Man knockoff.

To Spurrier’s credit, he acknowledges repeatedly how much of a cliché his assumption of the Spider-Man mantle is. Unfortunately, acknowledging, in a meta way, that a piece of writing is a weak cliché doesn’t make it any less of a weak cliché. Like the pizza, it remains bad. And it just gets worse with repeated exposure.

I enjoyed this take on Director Vulture. The character design is amazing, and he fits right in with Orchis as a bitter old man who covets immortality. Mystique’s inclusion also promises to be interesting. She’s clearly suffering from the effects of her stroke, and the fall which precipitated it, and she’s dropping serious hints about the contents of the upcoming X-Men Blue.

Spurrier has a knack for writing snarky, overpowered white men. As such his Spider-Man (original recipe) felt organic and true to character. If he wanted to write a proper Spider-Man book it probably wouldn’t be terrible.

The highlight of this story, for me, was definitely Lee Garbett’s art. This is an artist who expresses the psychological state of characters through the movement of their bodies. I get that this is literally what a comic artist is supposed to do, but Garbett does it far better than most. His take on Nightcrawler’s fighting style is an absolute joy to see. There’s a fluidity to it, a grace, that few other artists can capture. I’d love to see him illustrating Nightcrawler in a better book. Jodie Bellaire’s colors are as breathtaking as always. Bellaire has a gift for enhancing mood and emotional depth, and deserves much more praise than she usually gets.