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SPIDER-MAN/DOCTOR OCTOPUS: OUT OF REACH #1
Neutral (4/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Colin Mitchell
Pencils: Keron Grant
Inks: Rob Stull, Derek Fridolfs & Scott Elmer
Colors: James Rochelle
Letters: Cory Petit
Editor: Teresa Focarile
Price: $2.99 US/$4.75 CAN |
You really can't lay much blame at the creative team's feet on this one. Out of Reach seems like a somewhat mediocre Spider-Man vs. Doctor Octopus story, and might satisfy any fans who are jonesing for some Doctor Octopus tales. Unfortunately, you've got Colin (Who?) Mitchell up against Paul (Inhumans, Origin) Jenkins and Brian K. (Runaways, Y The Last Man) Vaughan, and the results, predictably, are that Out of Reach is the weakest of the three Doctor Octopus stories currently running. About the only chance it had to really excel was in having the strongest artwork, but Jenkins's tale has art by the man who designed the new Doctor Octopus look, Humberto Ramos, and Vaughan's work has solid, classic super-hero stylings by Staz Johnson, so Keron Grant's sketchy, animated style look sort of pales by comparison. Mitchell has some interesting ideas here, but they're buried in standard super-hero conflict and suffer a great deal from the "been there, done that" syndrome, in no small part due to Marvel's overscheduling.
At first, I was ready to get onboard Out of Reach, as Mitchell promises to take the reader into the rarely-explored world of Doctor Octopus's past. Sure, the revelations we get, that his father was disappointed in him and his mother coddled him, are of the sort of predictable pop psychology nature, but it was an interesting foundation. Unfortunately, after a couple pages of flashback, we're into a sequence where Doc Ock tries to steal something and Spider-Man happens by to stop him. We've seen it a hundred times before, most recently about a month ago in Doctor Octopus: Negative Exposure #1. Mitchell's snappy Spider-Man dialogue isn't as strong as that of Vaughan, Grant's fight choreography isn't as good as that of Johnson or Ramos, and the result is that the story starts to look like an also-ran.
Mitchell introduces another interesting idea late in the game, that Octopus is kidnapping a younger scientist who idolizes him, but there's really not enough of that in this issue to really give him too much credit for it. It does provide hope that Out of Reach might head into the more interesting territory of a sort of twisted father and son relationship, or spend some more time on Octopus's past, but at this point it's just unrealized potential.
Though the script is disappointing, I have to be honest and say that the art is a bigger problem for me. It's not terrible art, it's just not my cup of tea, as Grant's work is very much a manga style. I don't mean the big eyes, big feet style that many people associate with manga, but an actual manga style similar to what you might see in a lot of TokyoPop's output. Anatomy that stretches and contorts in almost comical ways, art that is clear in storytelling and full of energy but which has a sort of bland lack of detail to it, most noticeable in the sparse backgrounds and in the dead boring page where Peter and Mary Jane sit on the couch and discuss their relationship.
Ultimately, the biggest problem that Out of Reach has is that it's so familiar. Everything is by-the-numbers, from Doctor Octopus's basic role as a super-powered bank robber to Peter and Mary Jane having interference in their relationship thanks to his role as Spider-Man. If this were the only place in town to get a sort of action-oriented old school tale of Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus, it might earn slightly higher marks despite its vanilla flavor, but given that it's got competition from Ultimate Six, Spectacular Spider-Man and Negative Exposure, it's hardly the only game in town.
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