Review: Scarlet Spiders #1

Previously in Spider-Woman #1

Three Peter Parker clones: Kaine (Scarlet Spider of the Marvel Universe), Ben Reilly (Spider-Man of his dimension), and Jessica Drew (Ultimates member) have jumped to the dimension where The Inheritors are making their clones. They’re not sure what to expect, but it definitely wasn’t a thriving (and very normal looking) metropolis.

In order to investigate safely, Kaine snags hospital gowns for the other two and then enables his invisibility.

Jennix, one of the Inheritor siblings, runs this world and mass produces mindless clones - but they’re not clones of his family. They’re genetically engineering a slave population. Our team is discovered and in the midst of a battle, we’re all happy to see a friendly face arrive.

Except he’s not your friendly neighborhood Iron Man, he’s Jennix’s chief architect and has designed the city’s entire security system. Once they have him neutralized, Jessica removes the Iron Man suit and comes up with a plan to use it as a way into The Baxter Building, Jennix’s HQ.

Ben poses as Iron Man and escorts his two “prisoners” into the building to be dealt with by Jennix personally. Jessica “escapes” to cause a diversion, but before the others can make it inside, they’re stopped by another familiar face.

Thoughts & Questions: 

• Good to see Tony Stark is a dick in every dimension.
• Not sure I fully understand the need to have a whole society of clones.
• With so many Spider possibilities, this series has (so far) done a great job making them feel unique. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before because they’ve been consistently good at it. Here, it’s demonstrated by the three distinct fighting styles of our Spiders.