Review by Ian Keogh
The Marvel universe features multiple realities, and there’s surely an online reference page listing each and their peculiarities, and how they differ from the mainstream reality of Marvel heroes now designated Earth 616. That’s where Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and became Spider-Man, where Jessica Drew is the most prominent of several people named Spider-Woman and where Miles Morales ended up after transferring realities. And never mind the Scarlet Spider, and Ben Reilly being Spider-Man when Edge of the Spider-Verse was published.
Alternate Earth variations of Spider-Man have been seen before, some in What If?, Peter Porker, Spider-Ham and Spider-Girl to give some examples, but they really exploded with 2016’s Spider-Verse, which brings us to Edge of Spider-Verse, an anthology collection. As a prelude to End of the Spider-Verse, it supplies nineteen short stories of varying lengths, and unusually for such tie-in products at 21st century Marvel, it isn’t all tryouts for new creators, although a fair amount is. Some creations are new, such as Dan Slott and Martin Coccolo’s Spider-Laird toying around the edges of Macbeth, although set a little later. Some look back on those who’ve briefly been headliners, but didn’t sell well enough, such as Alex Segura and Caio Majado’s catching up on Araña. Others are another outing for those previously tied to a specific event such as Dustin Weaver and D. J. Bryant’s Spider-Man Noir.
How much anyone is going to buy into Edge of Spider-Verse is really dependent on how thrilled they are with the concept that anyone can be a Spider-Man, be they Indian, manga style, an actual spider (admittedly played for laughs), a Tyrannosaur or even Peter Parkedcar. Yes, a car can be spider-powered as well. So can Felicia Hardy, Kraven the Hunter and Gwen Stacy. And no inclusion box is left un-ticked. As originally published as five serialised issues one longer story was accompanied by several shorter, so some characters are seen more than others, welcome in the case of Spinstress in David Hein and Luciano Vecchio’s surprisingly enjoyable story of a musical fairy tale princess. The other sample art is Ruarí Coleman’s Spider-UK.
However such treats are rare and too many stories just supply a basic plot and an internal monologue. Many end with the lead character being recruited for whatever happens in End of the Spider-Verse. The suspicion is several will prove cannon-fodder.
