Some Goofy Silver-Age Fun...Or Is it? A review of Spider-Man and Hulk: Fire and Brimstone

 written Kevin Smith and Andrew McElfresh

drawn by R.B. Silva

colored by Federico Blee

I didn't even know this book existed until writer Kevin Smith popped up on my Facebook feed (reasonable, since I regularly look up comic books) plugging it. I had practically just finished "One World Under Doom" and as a result I was quite keen on picking up a new book drawn by R.B. Silva--even if it meant risking Kevin Smith's chronic lateness. I pulled the trigger on what promises to be a fairly interesting miniseries starring the stars of the world's number one box-office hit of 2026: the amazing Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk.

The story starts out with Peter Parker aka Spider-man on assignment as a photographer, taking pictures of Easter Sunday Mass in Central Park when suddenly, the mass celebrant Cardinal Leviticus Thornhill and the gathered faithful are suddenly attacked by a motley assembly of supervillains who all have "man" in their names (e.g. Mole Man, Man-Bull, Titanium Man, Absorbing Man, etc.) and who are called, amusingly enough the "Manosphere."  Spider-Man takes on the Manosphere and gets an unexpected helping hand from Bruce Banner, the Hulk, who is at the mass for reasons later revealed. After the fight, Spidey takes a de-Hulked Banner to the apartment of Matt Murdock aka Daredevil to cool down, and they find out why Banner was at the mass: he's trying to vanquish the Hulk by calming his soul. When they Cardinal Thornill makes a shocking announcement on television about the collateral damage from the attack, Banner makes a shocking decision that could have permanent implications for his alter-ego.

I find it worth stressing that the entirety of Spider-man's fight with the newly-dubbed "Manosphere" (which, ironically enough, actually has a woman villain named "Everyman" in its ranks) is loaded with more puns that one could shake a stick at, and this story has plenty of irreverent puns and quips which would look right at home in a book of dad jokes. In short, it's a book that doesn't take itself too seriously and invites the reader to have fun with it, which is easy to do with Smith's and McElfresh's humorous, if sometimes wince-inducing dialogue and Silva's lavishly gorgeous art. 

My only apprehension has to do with the fact that the book appears to take on religion as a central story theme.  I don't consider myself a particularly religious person, but I am a practicing Catholic and I brace myself every time my religion shows up in pop culture because it can lean a bit too far right or a bit too far left (with Marvel tending towards the latter). Cardinal Thornill (a villainous name if ever there was one) comes across as a religious zealot who quite literally demonizes the Hulk and proposes to exorcise him from Bruce Banner forever. I'll give Smith points for the novelty of the premise; apparently Banner has never tried it before.   That said, I can't help but fear that this could be yet another ham-handed swipe at religious types considering that there's no way that this series will actually end with the Hulk being banished from Banner's life, and Cardinal Thornhill will either end the series having learned a lesson in humility or something like that. I hold out hope that Smith has something more clever in store, but I remain cautious.

For all my misgivings, though, this first issue has been a fun read.

8.5/10

Peter's New Crucible: A Double-Review of The Amazing Spider-Man #33 and #34

 written by Joe Kelly

drawn by Ed McGuinness (pencils) Mark Farmer and Wade Von Grawbadger (inks)

colored by Marcio Menyz

It's been a long, LONG while since my last review of an Amazing Spider-Man comic book. I have not been reading them (or comic books in generally) quite as regularly as I used to; my trips to the comic store in the last few months have been rather seldom for one reason or another.  Plus, there was the fact that Spidey got embroiled in that tiresome Venom-centric "Spiral" crossover which I didn't have the patience to review, even though I was glad to learn that in that story, the most hated man in comics, Paul Rabin finally met his gruesome and much-deserved demise.

Well, we're two issues away from the landmark Amazing Spider-Man #1000 and having read what are basically issues #997 and #998 (in terms of "legacy" numbering), I thought I'd finally give a review.

A lot has happened since the last time I reviewed this title; Peter Parker has gone off to space and come back, his job at Rand Industries has been all but ruined by Ben Reilly standing in for him while he was gone and, well, Peter has learned, thanks to the meticulous stalking of the serial killer Torment, that he has a long-lost cousin named Cormac Crane, who was actually Ben and May Parker's biological son who, they had been told, had died at birth. In the meantime, Peter also seems to have picked up a new ally in his crimefighting: the folks at Damage Control, led by ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Agent Griffyn.  (This, of course, lines up with their alliance in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, though given the events in that film one wonders where  this particular team-up is headed). Also, Peter's trying to make amends for the turbulence that resulted from his absence while he was off in space, including helping his boss at Rand Industries, Maira Osmani-Milton, especially in the wake of the catastrophic failure of the fungus project that Peter had been working on with his former high school friend Brian. 

What weighs heaviest on Peter's mind, though, is whether the sudden appearance of Aunt May's long-lost son means he will lose her, as he has lost many other people in his life. 

To be honest, all of the status quo-altering stuff of the last several issues really didn't do anything for me, which was why these  two issues, which basically take us inside Peter's head as he grapples with a new problem, were pretty refreshing for me.  People had worried that Marvel had dusted off the long-abandoned, poorly-received "Trouble" storyline from the early 2000s  to suggest that Aunt May was Peter's son from a fling she had with his actual father, Richard Parker, but that wasn't the case.  As obvious a retcon as this is, at least there's a logic to the way it was done; Cormac Crane was the son Aunt May never talked about because she had sincerely believed him to have died.  On its face, it might seem petty that Peter would feel threatened by Crane usurping his place in May's heart, but, well, we have to remember that abandonment issues are kind of a big part of Peter's character makeup. Is it a little hamhanded? Maybe, but it still works from a narrative point-of-view.

A little less smoothly done, in my opinion, is  Peter's teaming up with Damage Control, which is so blatantly written in to mirror the movie's storyline. While Spider-Man historically does team up with cops, from Jean DeWolff to Lamont Cranston to Neil Garrett to Yuri Watanabe, and he has worked with Damage Control in the past, when their thing was doing post-hero fight cleanup. This new thing of  fighting side-by-side with them just feels a bit abrupt and a tad convenient. This is the sort of activity Peter would question, and to Kelly's credit, Peter does this to look out for them more than to actually team up with them. 

It's easy to forgive these little contrivances when the overall story works, though, I did enjoy Joe Kelly's scripts for these two issues.  This story is less about his adventures with Damage Control and more about how hard he's taking the sudden appearance of a new relative who, to his mind, could gravely compromise the one thing he holds dearer than life itself: his relationship with Aunt May. 

It also helps to have Ed McGuinness on art duties.  I am a big fan of regular artist Pepe Larraz's stylish artwork, but if he needs a reliever to help him hit his deadlines for those big stories like Spider-Man/Superman or the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man #1000, I can't think of anyone better to pinch-hit for him than McGuinness. I have long been a fan of McGuinness' work so it's a treat to see him pencil two issues in a row.  

Two more issues to go till the big 1-0-0-0!

9/10

  

 

Global Dictatorship, Marvel Style: A Review of One World Under Doom

 written by Ryan North

drawn by R.B. Silva

colored by David Curiel

It's not as hard to imagine an authoritarian running the world these days as it would have been around sixteen years ago, which was the last time Marvel Comics introduced a story in which the bad guys were "in charge."  Back then, after Norman Osborn ended the Secret Invasion storyline by shooting the Skrull queen, Veranke in the head, he was basically named the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., and along with his supervillain cohorts plunged the world into a form of dystopia until the heroes kicked them out of power.

In 2025, Marvel Comics launched a slightly "refreshed" version of this concept, except instead of Skrull invaders, it was vampires threatening the world in the "Blood Hunt" event, and instead of Norman Osborn blowing someone's brains out, it was instead Doctor Doom who, as Sorceror Supreme, defeated the vampire  scourge.  Except this time around, Doom doesn't settle for running S.H.I.E.L.D.; he becomes Emperor of the World.  He does this not through subjugation, but somehow, through global consensus.

This is, of course, completely illogical to the world's heroes, who, knowing Doom as they do, instantly suspect that he has an angle somehow, with the prevailing theory being some form of mind-control, and so the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four join forces to ferret out the truth, and figure out a way to take Doom down. The reality they discover, however, is far different from anything they could have imagined, and not only do they realize that defeating Doom will be far more challenging than they anticipated, but they actually find themselves asking: do they actually want to beat Doom this time?

This isn't quite a new story, having been published from 2024 to 2025, but I only just recently got my hands on the collected edition so I wanted to share my thoughts on it.  As much as I appreciate the craft and earnestness on display here, I do confess that, having read the book and thought about it at length, I have some mixed feelings about the story. It's far from the staightforward, old-fashioned superhero yarn one hopes for from a book featuring the X-Men, Avengers and Fantastic Four taking on one of the Marvel Universe's biggest bad guys, which is a good thing. That said, even though, as political allegory it works a bit better than the controversial "Civil War" storyline did 20 years ago, it still doesn't quite capture what's particularly disturbing about the way so much of the world has embraced authoritarian rule. Writer Ryan North clearly tries his level best to lay the basis for a world that would accept Doom and to be fair, a lot of the beats ring true. For example, when Doom argues that a lot of the heroes opposing him are actually villains in their own right, like Reed Richards who hoards his intellectual property instead of using it to cure cancer, or Tony Stark, who using his vast fortune and intellect for machines or war rather than ending world hunger, he actually makes a bit of sense.

For me, though, the allegory falls a bit short.  In most situations, authoritarian rulers don't actually make life better for great masses of people like Doom does here. They don't solve all of society's problems at some hidden, unspeakable cost (which is revealed later in the story, spoiler alert) but rather, they identify a problem and sell themselves as the solution, creating a narrative that, in the beginning at least, they are able to to control.   This problem is usually identified as an "other" whom the authoritarian seeks to eliminate. It's a playbook we've seen played out quite a lot over the last decade or so, with very unfortunate results, like mass murder and human rights violations.   The worst part is that this has widespread buy-in from the population, something not discussed enough in the story. Still, this is a superhero book so I can grudgingly allow North his creative liberty.  Also, R.B. Silva's lavish artwork makes this story go down so much easier that it would with a lesser artist.  This is some really extraordinary work on display across all nine volumes. I applaud Silva for not only his exquisite linework and storytelling, but for finishing the entire series without any fill-in artists. It's sad that this even has to be mentioned, but it is what it is.

From a superhero story standpoint, it's a little harder to swallow the insane amount of plot armor bestowed on Doom here. I acknowledge that Doom is canonically one of the most formidable villains in the entirety of the Marvel Universe, but even then, the way he takes on basically all of the big superhero teams in the Marvel Printed Universe is somewhat...hamhanded.   There are a number of Omega class mutants in that lineup who could have easily handed him his ass if we were to go into a whole power-scaling discussion, but clearly the story imperatives here were...different. Doom's definitely lucky that Magneto wasn't among the masses of superheroes that he had to face. I accept that it's at least debatable that Doom is capable of the power he puts on display here, but personally, I don't buy it.  

I will give this to North; he doesn't try to change Doom from villain to misunderstood hero or antihero. His Doom is just as vain, narcissistic and frankly evil as he has ever been.  Sure, there's a glimpse of his humanity at the end, but at no point did I ever root for him, even when I found myself agreeing with some of his points.  North doesn't shy away from this being a story centered around the bad guy, and whatever my qualms with the overall story may be, this key aspect of the story ensures its narrative integrity. 

8/10 

Comfortably Old School: A Review of Batman/Wonder Woman: Truth

written by Jeph Loeb

drawn by Jim Cheung

colored by Jay David Ramos

Oversized one-shots from mainstream comic book companies are a tragic rarity nowadays, in the age of compressed storytelling and anthologies taking the place of series when it comes to major events. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that DC Comics was publishing this title, so much so that I was actually ready to pick up each of the issues before I learned my joyous surprise, that it was a one-shot. I have long been a fan of Jim Cheung, going all the way back to his Young Avengers days in 2004. I have collected quite a few of his works for Marvel since then, like Avengers: Children's Crusade, New Avengers: Illuminati and Spider-Man: Clone Conspiracy.  I've enjoyed his work so much, in fact, that I regretted missing his runs on titles such as Justice League and even Spawn, so when I found out that he'd be working on something I had a chance of picking up, I decided to go for it. 

It's a properly fun little story. 

Bruce Wayne and Diana Price (aka Batman and Wonder Woman) hold a gala event at which to launch the display of Wonder Woman's single most remarkable possession: the Lasso of Truth. No sooner, however,  does Bruce place the lasso in its protective case, than it is stolen by none other than Batman's ex-fiancee, Catwoman. As Batman and Wonder Woman give chase, Catwoman manages to give them the slip, only to have the lasso taken from her by Harley Quinn.  As it turns out, Batman had requested Catwoman to steal the lasso to test Wayne's security system (spoiler alert: the system failed the test).  Harley Quinn's intervention, however, was unexpected, and where Harley Quinn is, Joker can't be far behind. Will Batman be able to keep his feelings for his ex in check, and will Wonder Woman and Catwoman be able to set aside their differences long enough to recover the Lasso of Truth?

I admit to being a little surprised that the story, apart from being self-contained, wasn't some status-quo shattering event but just a fun little done-in-one that contains some pleasant character vignettes, some decent action and some nice money shots for Cheung to showcase his stellar art.  This is the kind of comic book we don't quite get enough of these days.  

As I write this, the comic book community has marked the anniversary of Dwayne McDuffie's death. For those who don't know, McDuffie, was an extremely prolific television and comic book writer who co-created well-known properties like Static Shock and Damage Control and who wrote several episodes for beloved series like Justice League and Ben 10.  McDuffie excelled at creating rich compelling stories that could be consumed in 22 minutes and which didn't talk down to their audience. I can give no higher form of praise that to say that this is the kind of story Dwayne would have written.   

10/10

An Interesting New Direction: A Review of Daredevil #1

 written by Stephanie Philips

drawn by Lee Garbett

colored by Frank Martin

I was not a fan of the last run on Daredevil by Saladin Ahmed and a rotating gaggle of artists.  It started off strong, with Ahmed and (then) regular artist Aaron  Kuder, working with an interesting premise; having come back from the Hell where he appeared to have been trapped at the end of Chip Zdarsky's run, Matt became a Catholic priest. As the series progressed, though, the storytelling started to come apart at the seams, with Ahmeed's "seven deadly sins" storyline becoming a lot more bloated than it initially appeared to be, and with Marvel seemingly unable to keep their pool of artists to fewer than five.  It actually ended on an interesting note but I wasn't sorry to see it end.

This new direction and creative team of Stephanie Phillips and Lee Garbett, however, looks promising.  Matt Murdock has taken a job teaching law at Empire State University, even though he's no longer a licensed attorney. By night, of course, he's still fighting crime as Daredevil, but he gets a nasty surprise when a new, unknown supervillain appears at Murdock's apartment, telling Daredevil that Matt Murdock in going to die.  It's not exactly new to Matt, but the fact that this new threat completely plays havoc with his enhanced senses and seems to anticipate his every move means that this isn't just another every day threat for Matt but could be someone genuinely dangerous.

Philips and Garbett make for a good creative team, but I refuse to sing their praises too effusively until they've finished at least one five-issue story arc without another artist stepping in to substitute for him. They're not exactly reinventing the wheel with Matt's profession, which was what made Ahmed's run so appealing in the beginning, but as was the case with Peter Parker's teaching career years ago, I think they could go interesting places with this. This is a surprisingly muted issue #1 considering it practically coincided with the second season of the Disney+ show Daredevil: Born Again, but I don't really mind. Splashy first issues are overrated, in my opinion, and what matters most for serialized storytelling is consistency in quality. This new team is off to a pretty solid start, so I hope they're able to keep it up. 

8.5/10

A Heck of a Story to Adapt: A Review of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

 written by Tom King

drawn by Bilquis Evely

colored by Matheus Lopes

In a couple of weeks, audiences will be treated to the first "Supergirl" movie in 42 years. That's how badly the box office failure of 1984's Supergirl scared off anyone from bringing her back to the big screen.  DC Studios, under the leadership of James Gunn, hopes to exorcise the memory of that failure with a highly-promising movie from director Craig Gillespie starring Milly Alcock.  After the first trailer dropped, I confess I grew interested n the story that the film was adapting, an eight-part 2021 miniseries titled "Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow."  DC Comics made the sage decision to reprint the story in a compact, affordable collected edition and so picking it up at a bookstore was a no-brainer.

Having read it, I cannot imagine a better way to introduce Supergirl to noobs like myself.

This story begins in a distant galaxy, where a young girl named Ruthye, whose father has been stabbed to death by stone-cold killer Krem of the Yellow Hills, is wandering around her world looking to hire someone who will kill him. She offers, as payment, the valuable sword Krem left lodged in her father's chest, but when a bounty hunter she has hoped to hire tries to make off with the sword, she gets an unexpected hand from someone she least expects: Supergirl, who, traveling with her dog Krypto, is celebrating her 21st birthday in a galaxy with a red sun so that she can actually get drunk.   Ruthye attempts to hire Supergirl to take out Krem, and while Supergirl is politely refusing her, they are attacked by Krem and the bounty hunter whom Supergirl thrashed. She's more than strong enough to take them on, even in her weakened state, but when Krem shoots Supergirl and Krypto with poisoned arrows and makes off with her spaceship, she finally agrees to accompany Ruthye on her quest to take Krem down as it's the only way to get the antidote to the poison in Krypto's veins. Will they succeed in time?  

Like many folks out there, I only know Supergirl as Superman's cousin Kara Zor-el from Krypton, sent to Earth to protect the infant Kal-el, only to discover that he's an adult and hardly needs protection. I know her story has been retooled over the years but this seems to be the prevailing canon. Writer Tom King revisits and expands this origin considerably, which provides a very effective introduction to this character. He is helped along by absolutely superlative artwork by Brazilian illustrator Bilquis Evely, who lavishes the entire eight-issue story with exquisitely detailed illustrations that are both unique and yet vaguely evocative of art deco stylings of the 1920s. Supergirl and Ruthye, in particular, have a very "roaring twenties" aesthetic to their faces. The art is just pure eye-candy, especially helped along by Matheus Lopes' rich colors.  

 More than just the (very) pretty pictures, though, I admit one thing about this book that deeply impressed me was how Tom King was able to strike a balance between the extraordinarily dark tone of the story's subject matter and Supergirl's ultimately hopeful characterization. She is, after all, Superman's cousin, and not exactly a super-powered Punisher. King doesn't hold back; there's plenty of mention of violent death, mass murder and even borderline genocide as Supergirl remembers the death of both Krypton, and later, of the community of survivors who managed to escape it for a while. Krem allies himself with a group of brigands famous for traveling the stars to murder people for kicks, and while their acts of depravity aren't explicitly depicted, King doesn't shy away from describing them vividly.  Supergirl goes up against some very evil people in this book, but King still manages to remind the reader that even after all of this, the rays of hope still manage to shine through. That's all the description I'll give to avoid any spoilers.

Between the extraordinary story and artwork, I honestly had to struggle to not finish this book in one sitting; I always make it a point to stretch out books, be they prose novels or graphic novels for as long as I can and this book is a great example. I hope that the Supergirl movie cleans up at the box office when it comes out in a few weeks' time, and I hope that after watching it, people go their bookstores  or comic books stores and check out this fantastic, character-defining story. 

10/10

Marvel's Deep Bench: A Review of Wonder Man

 Showrunners: Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest

I was pleasantly surprised to read about how good this series was, considering that, when it was announced, I was at best mildly interested.  I was slightly worried that it would a bit like HBO's old show Entourage with superheroes, but fortunately, my fears were completely misplaced, and instead, Marvel, through showrunners Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest have brought us something really special in these eight compact episodes.

Wonder Man is the story of struggling actor Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen), who's hiding a terrible secret that could sink his career before it even starts; he has extremely destructive super powers that get triggered when he is under extreme stress.  He's also somewhat obsessive in terms of how he approaches the characters he plays (mostly bit roles) which makes it challenging for him to hang on to a job for more than a few days.   However, a chance meeting with Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), once known for playing the terrorist The Mandarin years earlier, may change Simon's life forever as he may get the chance to play the role of a lifetime, that of superhero Wonder Man, in a remake of a movie that Simon loved as a child. A friendship is struck as the pair of them audition for the roles of Wonder Man and his best friend Barnaby, but what Simon doesn't know is that Trevor still has a secret that he's keeping to himself.  

It is a testimony to how well Marvel Studios has handled the vast majority of its characters that it is able to turn to another D-list character for some quality stories. For the uninitiated, Simon Williams aka Wonder Man is actually an ex-villain co-created by Stan Lee and Don heck who turned good and actually joined the Avengers, of whom he has been a member since the 70s.  He's been around for quite some time, in short, but has never really been regarded as an A-lister. I'd argue that made him an ideal candidate for this adaptation because it meant minimal noise from the gatekeeping community.  To the best of my knowledge, the depiction of Simon's powers is comic-book accurate: he basically manipulates ionic energy to perform a number of superhuman feats such as displays of superhuman strength and others. 

In truth, we barely get to see any feats of superhuman derring-do, and yet it is utterly compelling. The way the super stuff is framed is actually quite fascinating; when Simon's powers show up, it's bad news for him, which kind of flips the whole super narrative on its head, and even makes for some pretty harrowing moments.  In one episode Simon and Trevor chase down a kid who has captured footage of Simon using his powers to take out thugs.   The show's greatest strength is the utterly magnetic performances by Abdul-Mateen as Simon and Kingsley as Trevor as well as their chemistry as student and mentor. It's a really great buddy comedy, and apart from the two leads there are some brilliant supporting turns from Zlatko Buric as the Oscar-winning director of Wonder Man Von Kovac, MCU veteran Arian Moayed who reprises his role as Damage Control's Agent Clearey which he first played in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and X Mayo as Janelle Jackson, Simon's beleaguered agent. There are also some hilarious performances from Joe Pantoliano and Josh Gad, who play some really unpleasant versions of themselves.

I love how this show introduces deep universe characters like Wonder Man and his brother Eric, who in the comics is known as the supervillain Grim Reaper, and even Doorman, an obscure 80s character created by John Byrne when he was writing the West Coast Avengers book.  It's interesting seeing someone struggle with super powers as opposed to reveling in them, or using them to do the more "traditional" superhero thing. The Doorman episode, apart from being laugh-out-loud funny for its depiction of Josh Gad as a complete jackass, is particularly instructive as it explains the "Doorman clause" that makes it impossible for a super-powered individual to get work in the MCU's version of Hollywood.    I still have my thoughts on the kind of projects Marvel should pursue, for both the big and small screen, and this show reaffirms my belief that they can do great things if they're willing to step outside of their Avengers/Spider-Man comfort zone.   

10/10