Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Scarlet Spiders #3 Review



 

A true hero.


While this was meant to be an emotional finale to the miniseries, it felt anything but.

The ending was telegraphed very early on – and though Mike Costa attempts to disguise that, he fails because of overwhelming odds.

The artwork as usual is great.

SPOILERS FOLLOW………………

We’re treated to a biography of sorts for Ben Reilly, as he and Kaine battle Jennix.


Kaine manages to get the upper hand, when his Other powers emerge, and kill the Inheritor, but a clone comes up and starts beating them – before getting blasted apart by one of the guns.

Jessica manages to disable all the guns after some prodding from a horrified Ben Reilly and engages in a fight with Johny Storm – winning but sadly; Jennix is more than a match for the trio.


As Ben watches the team get decimated, he decides to take action. Taking the broken gun, he goes to the top of the tower and uses one of the unstable bullets to create an explosion – taking out the tower and apparently himself in the process.

While Jessica decides to move on and respect his sacrifice, Kaine is enraged by the loss of another ‘brother’ and with signs of the ‘Others’ mutation, decides to go to Loom World and destroy the entire Inheritor family.

Now confessions. I liked Ben Reilly, and his story of always going against odds and winning.

But this could not be more politically correct and telegraphed. Jessica was never getting killed, nor was Kaine – they were too ‘important’. So, Ben had to be sacrificed.


Of course, it is still in the air whether he died (Superhero death rule no #1: No body, no dice).

SPOILERS END……………..

There are emotional beats spoiled by publishing politics and telegraphed spoilers – but it all feels very rote and Costa does no favors with the plotting.

The artwork is great though and there is a fluidy in the action scenes, but everything feels too contrived for my taste.

So, I give it 6.0 out of 10.

+Some good emotional beats
+Great artwork

-Telegraphed ending
-Too many plot contrivances

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