Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Pencils & Cover by Clayton Crain
It’s become clear that Crain and Angel Medina will take turns at art duties on Sensational Spider-Man. It’s not clear exactly how many Medina issues will regularly go between the Crain ones but at least they are attempting to give Crain single story issues. Surprisingly, their art doesn’t seem to clash as much as one might think it would. They both have highly stylized characters and a penchant for making radical looking villains.
The first run over with since the name change, the creative team is now saddled with the unmasking of Spider-Man over in Civil War #2. Unlike the X-Books that largely ignored the real effects of the House of M, the editors (in a rare move I highly agree with) have decided to focus on the unmasking rather than on the Civil War in a more general sense. This is a huge change for Spider-Man, and every book featuring him should be forced to write about it, and so they have.
For Sacasa’s part, we get a look at how this will affect his students. The issue is narrated by one of Parker’s Biology students with a tale that purposefully parallels Parker’s own origin story, minus the radioactive spider that is. The kid, Jordan, is portrayed as a geeky over-achiever without turning him into a cliché.
Jordan is in love with mollusks and wants Peter to help him get ahead in academics by pushing him harder than the other kids. Upon learning that his teacher is Spider-Man, he finds himself getting a call from the class ‘hottie’ because he’s the teacher’s pet and will most likely be interviewed by TV crews; she wants to be interviewed too. Jordan takes it all in stride and agrees to go along with it even though he knows full well that she’s not into him.
More typical here is the age-old story of said characters meeting on the streets of New York only to be caught in the middle of a fight between Spider-Man and Dr. Octopus, who’s pissed to high heaven for having let Peter Parker go after not believing he could really be Spider-Man. It’s a nice nod to the past that coincides with the reality of what might happen to some of Peter’s more ‘personal’ villains. Rather than flee in terror, Jordan stands up to Doc Ock and distracts him long enough for Spidey to beat him up.
Jordan is a well-developed character, for a character introduced this issue, and his love of octopi is given a cute twist at the end when it says he’ll be called Dr. Octopus for both his love of mollusks and his help in apprehending Doc Ock. It’s an all around cute story with Jordan lending some witty lines whilst standing up to the villain. This is a ‘nice’ story of Peter’s unmasking. Jordan continues to be friends with Parker and they imply that Peter keeps his job at the school, despite the safety hazard he might become. I like this tone being brought out first, it will make the eventual problems be all the more tragic, and we know they’re coming too.
This book is losing its identity as the ‘dark’ book of the three Spidey series out, but when it’s good writing and good art, who cares?
Rating - 8
