Safety in numbers
The
Inheritors decides to change the stakes, and it’s terrifying how far they can
go in the name of the hunt.
Slott is
making one thing abundantly clear – death is not beyond any of the players
involved, no matter how powerful.
Coipel is a bit hit-and-miss in this issue. The art starts
off very unwieldy and erratic but then encouragingly becomes more solid as the
issue progresses.
SPOILERS FOLLOW.......................
616 Peter Parker and SpOck fight it out for leadership but
the latter, being an earlier version of 616 Peter, is unable to kill him when
Peter allows it – being knocked out when in shock.
Meanwhile, Karn continues his relentless redemption in the
form of another killing, but his father Solus tells the Weaver to continue his
journey. Sensing Morlun’s lack of enterprise in the quest, Solus decides to
start the endgame.
Peter then allots everyone a mission – Ultimate Peter (of
the cartoon series) and Miles Morales are given the task of rounding up more
Spiders, while Peter, Spider-Gwen and Anya go to recruit Jessica for a covert
operation (see Spider-Woman #1).
There is some great character moments here – Peter
acknowledging Otto’s intelligence, a shared guilt over loss of loved ones with
Spider-Gwen.
But their leaving heralds the arrival of Solus and his
family, as the elder Inheritor takes on Captain Universe empowered Peter and is
able to take in his enormous life-force – sending shock waves through the
Spider ranks.
Daemos then knocks out MC2 Mayday Parker and takes her baby
brother – the Scion, one of the triumvate (the others being the Other and the
Bride, 616 Kaine and Silk respectively) who are prophesied to end the
Inheritors.
We do get some nice catch up with the other teams, as the
2099 team and Clone team both make cameos – but I think the Miles/Ultimate
Peter combo was overused a little. Didn’t feel like it belonged here.
SPOILERS END.........................
Slott manages to keep the stakes raised yet not descend into
slasher territory, with a bump in the pacing of the plot that I didn’t think
was coming.
Coipel can be brilliant when he wants to be, and lacklustre
when he doesn’t – resulting in a haphazard mixture of great and below-par
moments.
So, I give it 8.5 out of 10.
+The sudden jumpstart to the main story
+Slott keeps the stakes raised
+Some beautiful Coipel patented imagery
-Coipel is wildly inconsistent
-Some filler material should have been left for the tie-ins
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