'Marvel Mangaverse: Spider-Man' #1

Well, this is an interesting beast. The Marvel Mangaverse comics ran from 2000 to 2002 and some of the characters got their own spin-off series, such as Spider-Man. I was a little reluctant about how this would be but I was pleasantly surprised.

Plot Summary: So this is a short and sweet issue 1, it moves quite fast. All of the basic Spider-Man plot elements are there: Peter lives with his aunt and uncle, Mary Jane and Flash and Gwen are all in it, and several other characters from the universe. But everything has been given a Japanese twist. Uncle Ben is Peter's sensei and he is killed by Venom, who is a large...guy in samurai armor. In school, Peter's teacher is Doc Oc, which I thought was kind of funny. Venom takes orders from the Kingpin, who kind of acts as the Yakuza boss stereotype. Now that Peter is the last surviving member of the 'Spider Clan', his life is threatened by the Kingpin. Peter dons his Spider-Man costume and fights Venom and some foot ninjas in a street battle and essentially impresses him quite a bit.

Kaare Andrews did the writing and art for this, which really surprised me. A lot of the panel layout shots are a lot of fun, especially in the action scenes.

There are couple elements that I'm confused about. For starters, how old are these characters? At first, I thought Peter was just a boy, but then when he's in school, it appears to be high school. The art style is great but it makes it a bit confusing as to what age group we're in. There's a moment in the beginning when Peter has a nightmare during class about Uncle Ben's death. When Professor Doc Oc asks him to leave, one kid in the class mutters 'WHATTA FREAK...PROBABLY KILLED HIS SENSEI HIMSELF...' Wow. That was uncalled for. During the final battle, there's a random moment that confuses the hell out of me: Spider-Man knocks down Venom and is about to strike the 'final blow' or what have you. He says 'Any final words, demon?' when suddenly THE HULK comes out of NOWHERE and rips through the entire building...? What? The this isn't a Hulk we're used to, he's literally the size of a building. Why is the Hulk suddenly in this comic with no warning? Why is he tearing through a city? Why is no one REACTING to the Hulk being here? No one even seems to acknowledge it. What the hell. And the final splash page of the comic is Peter deciding to save the city instead of going after Venom, with The Hulk chasing after him and Mary Jane. So the Hulk is evil or something? He doesn't speak. He's just in two panels in the whole comic! I need an explanation or something. I'll have to find issue 2 to figure out what's going on, I guess. Bizarre.

Overall, I thought this was a fun issue and I'd like to read more. Some of the Japanese twists were quite fun. On the cover of the issue, they have MARVEL and the writer's name written in Japanese Katakana, (MAABERU and KAARE ANDORYUUZ) which I thought was a really nice touch.

An interesting addition to the Spider-Man library, give it a read if you can!


Marvel Mangaverse: Spider-Man #1 - 7.9/10


Next up, I'm going to check out SPIDER-MAN: INDIA...