#but good for Kaine for swinging in for the rescue and even continuing with it despite the level of…ingratitude hahaha

[scarletspider2the2ndpower]

Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider (Vol. 1/2017), #20.

Writer: Peter David; Penciler and Inker: William Sliney; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Joe Caramagna

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows V2 #3 Thoughts/Review

Click here to see my older thoughts

I’m not gonna go page by page on this one just FYI

Story:

Annie May Parker is sent to the principal’s office for doodling in class. Outside his office she encounters an older student named Stephanie Kim who has a reputation for being the toughest kid in school. Stephanie advises Annie May to just let the principal say what he wants and wait him out. This works with Stephanie later explaining her four years of school has taught her that their principal doesn’t really care too much about the students or what they do, so long as his life isn’t made difficult.In the playground the pair spot Jermaine Grant (son of Gloria Grant) who’s being picked on by some older kids. Annie steps in but it’s Stephanie’s words which send the bullies skulking off.

Suddenly Annie’s Spider Sense blares and she receives disturbing visions of her parents in trouble. Recognizing the Regent’s base from her visions, Annie changes into costume and races off to help her folks. At the scene though she cannot find them and is promptly captured by the Moloids, waking up hurt and in their clutches (leading us to the end of issue #1).

MJ/Spinneret angrily rescues (and consequently grounds) Annie leaving her to watch them fight the dinosaur from earlier issues from afar. But following another Spider Sense induced vision she sees her parents falling into a large hole and tries to warn them. She’s too late however, but she’s just in time to notice the dinosaur waking up and lunge at her. As Normie Osborn watched intrigued she lures the dinosaur into the hole, sending it tumbling down to land nearby the Mole Man who’s captured her parents.

After a few quick exchange of words Annie declares that it’s time for them to fight, whilst exclaiming fearfully in her head.

Review:

I like the art.

I don’t like Annie being a hero and think it’s OOC for Peter and MJ to let her do that.

Well that’s all I have to say for this issue....okay I’ll elaborate.

Yeah...the art continues to be immensely great and whilst I find it OOC BS for Annie to be a hero...I have to admit that just looking at her as a hero in her own right...it is really endearing.

And this stems from Conway’s ability to write a pretty decent child character. I feel as time has gone by many writer’s have become more skilled at doing this when in the past it used to be an almost guaranteed path to something insufferable.

In the first two pages alone we get a look at her creativeity, a trait stemming mostly from her mother but a little bit from her Dad and also her quick thinking when she covers up her revealing doodle by eating it. Whilst childish and unnecessary it underscores Annie’s youth. We’ve seen Peter go to lengths to cover up his identity and Annie is simply doing the same but in a more childish manner. The artwork even reflects this in places as it becomes a little more simplistic and a little more cartoony which makes sense when the series is being viewed through the eyes of a child.

We’re also introduced to more supporting characters in the form of Annie’s Principal, teacher and school mates. With their introduction we now have a pool of characters and environment for each member of the Parkers to interact with and follow respective subplots about Peter=Bugle, MJ=the store, Annie=the school, an ingenious move on Conway’s part to add variety and dimensions to each family member. The principal character is maybe too hard an attempt to give a character a gimmick, but it is early days. The other characters though are decent enough and there is ground for some interesting dynamics between Stephanie, Jermaine and Annie. Annie looks after Jermaine and is turn looked after by the older Stephanie despite Annie being the stronger of the two. It’s an interesting flip on Peter’s lonely and bullied school days but isn’t quite as wild and popular as MJ’s.

As for the dialogue same story from previous issues though Conway does a good job of reflecting the nervous, ineloquent, jumpy and fast thought processes going through the mind of a child...even one who says OMG in her head...by the way has anyone seen by walking stick?

Moving on...Annie’s Spider Sense.

It is an interesting power that has a lot of potential so long as it isn’t misused too much and doesn’t become equivalent to Madam Web’s abilities. It is also something that renders her unique to her parents...but not her ‘uncle’ Kaine.

Yeah...Kaine’s Spider Sense lets him read the future too. Is this a deliberate rip-off? I dunno.

Her debut double page spread and in fact all of her action panels once more made me more open to what is otherwise not a great visual design for her costume. It’s one of those suits which makes sense realistically but too the point of not being very good visually. In fact her undersuit which is just black with a red chest is much better visually speaking. But the one aspect I’m not okay with at all is the pigtails. I think they are cute on her but as part of the costume look too dorky and offer too easy a weakness for enemies to exploit...which they do in this very issue when they capture her. Its hard enough believing that Peter would allow Annie to play hero let alone believing he and fashonista Mary Jane (who’s made a point of making her hair more practical in costume) would allow Annie to swing around like that.

If nothing else it further makes the deduction of her and the Parkers’ identities easier to figure out. Your looking for a family of three, one man, one woman and a young girl, both ladies with long red hair, the girl wearing it in pigtails. Hmm...how could we figure this out? Maybe Peter Parker the famous Spider-Man photographer who’s daughter has long red hair like her mother and wears that hair in pigtails could tell us? Then again maybe the Parkers don’t care that mucha bout people deducing their secrets considering they all are fairly liberal in throwing their names and familial titles around.

You’d think at the very least Normie Osborn who along with his family has a close personal relationship with the Parkers and probably would know who Annie is would be able to deduce this. Even if he is only aged...um...actually I don’t know how old he is. He’s acting like an adult but he’s much shorter than his assistants and clearly younger too. If you presume Annie was born circa Mayday in the Clone Saga and she’s at most 10 years old now then Normie would be like...15 tops? And that’s really pushing it. The letters page claims that there is a reason or this age dilemma but I have no idea what that could refer to.

The action scenes are well drawn and Annie’s defeat of the dinosaur was an example of her inheriting her paren’ts resourcefulness, but the big problem is that it mostly rehashed what we saw in previous issues and gave us little plot advancement. At least advancement from where previous issues left off. We’ve fleshed out Annie and made note of her powers but in terms of all the Mole Man stuff we’ve moved maybe one pace beyond issue #2 which itself only moved like 2 paces beyond issue #1.

Mole Man is...ehhhh...his weird nutty dialogue is starting to enter a danger zone where it will become too over the top and insufferable.  Its trying too hard to be self-aware that he’s a ridiculous character. In contrast Annie’s joke about being grounded was much funnier and Peter’s reaction of quiet pride and light reprimanding was priceless.

Overall this issue gets a....B I think. It was really compromised by the limited plot advancement but the set up stuff with Annie and her characterization kept it afloat well enough.