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PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN #37
"Snow Day"
Highly Recommended (10/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Paul Jenkins
Pencils: Mark Buckingham
Inks: Wayne Faucher
Colors: Transparency Digital
Letters: Comicraft
Editor: Axel Alonso
Price: $2.25 US/$3.50 CAN |
Peter Parker fills an interesting niche in the multi-title Spider-Man publishing plan. While Amazing Spider-Man is the place to go for big story arcs that impact on the status quo and Ultimate is reinventing the early days, Jenkins, Buckingham & Faucher have turned Peter Parker into the "day in the life" book. It's a book you can pick up any
given issue of and not worry about having missed the previous ones, and it is
usually a fairly light and humorous read, although some examination of the
relationships between Peter and his family have made for some emotional stories
as well. It is the red-headed stepchild of the Spider-Man books in the public
eye, which is a shame because it stands right alongside the others as really
great super-hero comics.
So it's snowing in New York.
Hard, which means Peter has the day off from teaching, but he's called by his
Aunt to come shovel the driveway. This being a Spider-Man book, on the way there
he runs into the Vulture and has his usual run-ins with bad luck. It's nice to
see Peter cut loose of running subplots and long, overdrawn super-villain plots
to just have an issue where he interacts with New York City. Though he's dressed
in red and blue tights, he's presented as very much the everyman in this issue,
just trying to slog through the snow and get past all the inevitable
complications.
Jenkins writes a convincing
relationship between Aunt May and Peter, making her a bit tougher and funnier
than she's been in a long time, and actually making me like the character. Her
"selective hearing" when she's talking to Peter is a funny bit, and her
interaction with him at the house is a playful bit of fun from someone who has
known Peter a long time.
It's the interaction between
Peter and his complications along the way that really made the book for me,
though. His run-in with the kids was hysterical, and I loved the banter between
Spidey and the Vulture as well. The Vulture is treated as mildly ridiculous,
which makes sense given that he's a very old man in a flying harness, and seeing
Spider-Man just laugh him off as not much of a threat provides for some great
material. I particularly enjoyed the revelation of why Peter is sitting at the
Empire State Building, which gave me a good laugh, and the surprise guest star
who is one of my favorite occasional Spider-Man supporting characters.
Buckingham and Faucher have come up with a distinctive look for Spider-Man, much as Bagley has done in Ultimate. There's a classic style to him, reminiscent
of John Romita Sr., but he also has a loose flexibility reminiscent of the work
that Bagley is currently doing. It's hard to describe the exact effect, but it's
almost a modernized version of classic artwork, and it's always excellent stuff.
This issue, the big art trick is making the readers feel the cold and snow
permeating New York City, and they do an excellent job in that respect as
well.
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