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PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN #42
"Fifteen Minutes of Shame Part 1"
Mildly Recommended (5/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Zeb Wells
Artist: Jim Mahfood
Colors: Steve Buccellato
Letters: Randy Gentile
Editor: Axel Alonso
Price: $2.25 US/$3.75 CAN |
Zeb Wells blew me away with his Tangled Web story, and I'm
always happy with Jim Mahfood's work, so I don't understand what happened to
this story. It's relatively cute, but it seems to consist largely of making fun
of MTV personalities, which is the comedic equivalent of shooting fish in a
barrel, and it's utterly predictable. There are some intriguing possibilities
here, namely seeing Spidey treated as a celebrity and a clever follow-up to
Jenkins's last Sandman tale, but this is the very definition of empty-calorie
humor, a disappointment given what these creators are both obviously capable of.
In all fairness to Wells and
Mahfood, I have to say that I recognized each target they were plinking away at
despite not having watched MTV in at least two years. This either says
frightening things about my pop-culture absorption or good things about the
accessibility of their story... probably both. But really, while the first
couple gags about MTV (excuse me, Sonic TV) being brain-dead and hypocritical
were cute and funny, these are observations that aren't exactly fresh, and when
most of the story spends it time making fun of targets like Fred Durst, Sisqo
and Mariah Carey, I found everything a bit tired. You want to joke about "The
Thong Song" being an example of a mediocre one-hit wonder? Those jokes write
themselves. Wells and Mahfood are both capable of much, much better.
Mind you, there are glimmers
of something more fresh and fun in Spider-Man's interaction with the whole mess.
It takes way too long for him to get involved, and his role in the book is
pretty miniscule all things considered, but some of the gags about Spider-Man
relating to Sonic TV's faux youth culture were pretty good. The Spidey swimwear,
with Peter's prayers that Mary Jane doesn't have cable, along with the "sneezed
in my mask" bit, both made me laugh.
When it comes to dealing with the chaotic and purposefully asinine antics of MTV, I can think of few better than Jim Mahfood to convey it. His work has that manic energy to it, especially in the crowd scenes, that helps convey the over-the-top mixture of scantily clad teens, loud and bad music and garish design sense that is the MTV ethos. However, I was disappointed to find it lacking in background jokes for the most part, unlike his own projects or his work on Ultimate Marvel Team Up. The only background jokes to be found were more tired jabs
at MTV. It's fair to say, however, that the physical comedy of Sandman rampaging
through the Sonic TV Spring Break party or Spider-Man sneezing into his mask
wouldn't work with most artists.
Overall, this isn't really a
bad story, but the comedy is somewhat predictable and tired. I was glad to see a
fairly clever "sequel" to the last Sandman story by Paul Jenkins, and I'm always
happy to see more work from Jim Mahfood and looking forward to more work from
Wells. However, this outing took one joke and ran it painfully into the ground,
and I hope that next issue we'll see something a little more interesting, or at
least funnier.
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