Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #14

Released: November 30, 2006

Publisher: Marvel

Writer: Peter David

Pencils: Scot Eaton

Cover: Scot Eaton

 

Now this is the opposite approach from Sensational Spider-Man, Peter David has decided to take the issue of Spidey’s unmasking and his anti-registration head-on all while fitting his normal agenda around it. It means he has to jump through some hoops to make it all work but in the end he’ll be able to tell his stories unhindered by constant references to Civil War.

 

David has taken his ‘Saturday Morning Cartoon’ Spidey book and decided to focus on his job as a teacher. It provides for a contrast to the romance laden Sensational Spider-Man and gives the book the children characters that help keep the book light and airy, cause everyone knows kids are light and airy (why they’re so easy to throw)(I kid, I kid).

 

But now that Peter Parker’s become a fugitive, David is forced to come up with a way to keep Peter working at the school. David’s given three plot reasons for him to stay there: One) Spidey should protect these kids since the villains will attack it as a way to get at Spidey even if he isn’t working there, something David enforced within the issue by having a group of thugs try to take some kids hostage in hopes of luring out Spider-Man. Two) the nurse, Mrs. Arrow, has revealed herself to be some type of mystical/powered Spider-totem creature just like Spider-Man (the only holdout from Peter David’s contributions to the Other series). Three) Peter Parker is given a holographic image projector by Beast (since they’ve used them in X-Men for a while now) which allows Peter to disguise himself so he can get a job at the high school.

 

The opening fight scene between Wolverine and the Punisher against the aforementioned kidnappers is a great little misleader, intentionally making us question the powers and abilities David decides to give Wolverine and the Punisher (both of which turn out to just be Spider-Man using the aforementioned image projector). He uses both personas as a means to convince the thugs that the high school is now protected by the Anti-Registration heroes, a cute little way to solve the problem that Unmasking would naturally cause for Peter’s day-job.

 

The sub-plot of the issue is about the book written by Deb Whitman (ex-girlfriend of Peter Parker) who has had her book edited into a negative portrayal of her relationship with Peter. The other thread introduced is the idea of the government setting the Vulture loose to track down and bring in Spider-Man. This brings us to the cliffhanger and the merging of the two sub-plots: Peter decides to go to a book signing to confront Deb about the book and evidently the Vulture is able to predict Peter’s actions so well that he decides to show up too, just in case Peter did. It’s a stretch and comes off as exactly the absurd bit of psychological prediction it is. It ruins what is otherwise a very good story.

 

Eaton’s pencils are a big change from the past cartoony styles, but it works incredibly well here (he even takes on some Bryan Hitch style poses from time to time). And this title’s editor, Axel Alonso (a different editor than the Sensationally Unfriendly Spider-Man), wisely decided to put a synopsis on the first page to clue any readers in on what has happened in Civil War. The small paragraph makes a world of difference to those who just want some good Spidey tales.

 

Rating - 7