Review: Spider-Verse #2 (Secret Wars)
Previously in Spider-Verse #1
Gwen’s busted sneaking into a secure area of Ozcorp, where she finds Spider-Ham in a hospital bed and hooked up to machines. Norman Osborn suspected she’d find the room and was waiting for her. Before he can say much more, Gwen webs his mouth shut and his arms to his sides. Her plan is to sneak him out so she can get answers, but his guards arrive and she has to make a choice: Norman and answers or save Peter Porker. Of course, she chooses to be a hero.
But there’s a twist: as they make their escape and Osborn’s men prepare to shoot, he stops them. I’m thinking if Gwen had bothered to let the man speak, she might have been surprised by what he had to say.
Gwen takes Peter to an underpass where he insists she call him Spider-Ham and stop giving up his secret identity. He’s been dreaming of her and others. He suspects Norman knew they were connected - though he’s not even sure how - and was collecting them. The other Spiders arrive and pretty much confirm their suspicions.
They move the party to Pavitr Prabhakar’s apartment where they swap stories of how they got their powers. There’s an appropriate moment of silence when Spider-Ham reveals he was a spider bitten by a radioactive pig. But there is one other thing they all have in common: they’ve all dreamt of another life, other memories, which lead to believe these lives are fake.
Pavitr’s been tracking another member of their group who pings on his radar: he’s at the docks. Once there, they spy on Tombstone and Carnage (whose costume certainly seems familiar to the group) as they’re about to torture two men accused of horning in on whatever illegal operation they’ve got going. The Spiders bust in to stop the two, but they’re all being watched by someone else.
He’s the Spider they’ve been looking for and he’s not impressed with their way of doing things. He uses some kind of sonic device on Carnage, which removes his costume to reveal the man underneath. Then he shoots him in the chest, which doesn’t go over well with Gwen. “We don’t kill,” she says.
This new Spider assures her the man is simply wounded so the creature living inside of him will be too busy repairing the wounds to give them any trouble. He reveals he’s been watching them for months, even breaking into Pavitr’s apartment to steal what he needed to build his own tracking system. As an aside, he wonders why an Indian is living above a Chinese restaurant. Gwen promptly calls him out on being a killer, a thief, and a racist. I fell out laughing.
He’s an investigative reporter where he’s from - except where he’s from means he then goes out and handles who the bad guys are when he figures them out. We don’t get much more from him because a group of villains (various ones throughout the Spider-Man canon) arrive, pleased to find a nest of Spiders to kill.
Overall Thoughts & Questions:
- The sharp wit you’ve come to expect from a Spider-Man comic is on full display here. I laughed out loud many times.
- I’m guessing more seasoned comic book readers than me totally know who this new Spider is, but I have no idea. I like him though. He seems to say whatever the hell pops into his head, no matter how offensive it may be.
- It appears Norman may not be the villain in all of this. We’ll see. Hopefully, now that the Sinister Six is together, we’ll get more answers sooner than later.
- Still, the most appealing part of this Secret Wars tie-in (and, again, I haven’t read all the tie-ins) is the fact that they are all aware this world ain’t right.
