Web of Spider-Verse: New Blood #1 – The Web’s Edge

It’s that time of year again, folks—’multiversal Spider-Man mini-series prologued by an anthology special’ time. While the regularity of these events has curbed the ‘magic’ of a multiversal Spider-Man story, Web of Spider-Verse: New Blood #1 swaps out the mini-series length for a concise one-shot full of character introductions that will be expanded upon in a bigger way during the next Spider-Verse and/or Venom-Verse storyline.

_ _ _

The Web-Heart – This is the overall connective narrative tissue between all the stories below that sets up future event connections. While that’s all Mat Broom is doing with this introduction and in-between snapshots, the pencils from Luciano Vecchio deliver knock-out, full-body splashes of our newly introduced Spider-people.

Spider-Hulk – The art on this story, provided by Alan Robinson, steals the show for this chapter. It’s highly reminiscent of Art Adams’ cover work on The Amazing Spider-Man: Beyond in the best way possible. On the writing front, Greg Pak delivers an incredibly truncated snapshot of a story that sets a bad precedent for this issue from the jump. While that’s not exactly a fault of Pak’s, the limited page count to tell stories with these new ‘Spider-Men’ really cheapens the value of these characters as characters. This story reads like a cameo at the end of a full-length comic. It feels, tonally, like a comic someone inside the Marvel Universe would read about Spider-Man.

Count Parker – This one was substantially better than the Spider-Hulk story, utilizing its lack of page count to actually weave a solid narrative that succinctly introduces its spin on the Spidey mythos thoughtfully. While Morris’ dialogue suffers from a case of overuse, his internal monologue for MJ is excellent, with the building of tone alongside his art team placing this story in the same atmospheric corridor as Marvel 1602. Of the three stories, this one feels the most contained and especially satisfying but leaves room at the door for further expansion on the mythos established here.

Spider-Prowler – Getting Federico Vincentini to illustrate this chapter was a great choice. He’s been the Miles Morales artist for the last couple of years, and it was pretty fun to see him twist the origins of Miles Morales in this alternate, Kree-ridden future. Broom gets to stretch his legs much more with this tale versus the connective tissue of The Web-Heart, showcasing a great rhythm for such constrictive short-form restraints. Flipping the “Great Power, Great Responsibility” mantra on its head by the context of an ongoing Kree invasion—and how that informs the creation of a Spider-Man that’s equal parts Peter Parker and Miles Davis—was admittedly really interesting. Of all three, it has the most potential and is hurt the most by the departure from the Edge of Spider-Verse format.