Review by Frank Plowright
A long time ago Spider-Man fought an energy vampire named Morlun, attracted by any form of spider-related power. Read about it in Coming Home. Morlun was an existential threat only just overcome, and the premise of Spider-Verse is that he was just one of a family of similar beings, the Inheritors, and they’re now targetting every version of Spider-Man across alternate realities.
There are two ways of looking at Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Verse. The negative is it being a pointless collection, not because Dan Slott and Olivier Coipel didn’t knock themselves out on the story, but because it’s also available in its entirety along with all related material in the Spider-Verse collection and Spider-Verse/Spider-Geddon Omnibus, both also including the previous Spider-Verse Prelude. Alternatively, if you just want to experience the core story involving the Peter Parker of Earth 616 and only minor participation from others, then this is ideal.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t one of those event crossover tie-in collections redundantly presenting every third chapter. There’s a complete core story here of six chapters and epilogue that references other events in passing, but never loses focus.
What makes “our” Parker special is that across the multivese he’s the only Spider-Man ever to have defeated an Inheritor, so some alternates naturally bend to his influence. The Superior Spider-Man, though, sees things differently, but once that’s sorted out and we’ve taken a look at the Inheritors at home, the real action starts.
Coipel is either an extremely rapid artist, or was given enough time to ensure the art remains at a spectacular level throughout. He’s very fond of telling the story across spreads, but gone are the days when lettering disappears into the binding of the printed version. The spreads are packed with an assortment of Spider-Men, -Women and others and he activates their energy superbly, while they look equally good posed side by side. Guiseppe Camuncoli draws some sidebars, helps with the climax and supplies the epilogue. He’s already proven quality on this series, so no worries here.
For readers of this collection Marvel play fair with directions to the places where dropped-off teams of Spider-People play out their roles, and Slott plays fair by maintaining a constant sense of terror. There’s a clever solution to a sanctuary, and it provides the means of ending the threat. The epilogue is a crowd-pleasing page-turner sending most back where they belong, but also activating a couple of surprises, with Slott’s solution for the Superior Spider-Man very good. Had he worked it out a couple of years in advance or was it momentary inspiration? It’s cheeky and ideal.
Spider-Man’s complicated life under Slott continues in Graveyard Shift, and the content of both is also found in the hardback Amazing Spider-Man by Dan Slott Vol. 2.
