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GIANT SIZE MINI-MARVELS: STARRING SPIDEY #1
"Paperboy Blues"
Recommended (8/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer/Artist: Chris Giarrusso
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Price: $3.50 US/$5.25 CAN |
When I first
started reading Marvel, the in-house humorist was Fred Hembeck, with a
distinctive visual style and a sense of humor that fit perfectly for Marvel
readers. It's no stretch to say that Giarrusso is this generation's Hembeck, and
I certainly mean that as a compliment. His "Bullpen Bits" have been a lot of
fun, a nice dash of humor in Marvel's in-house hype pages, and he does a nice
job of transitioning from strip style to sequential pages in this issue. I won't
deny that I find his strips more amusing than the main story, but Giarrusso has
a solid and entertaining art style and comic timing that's hard to beat. I'd
love to see more of this kind of thing from him, or maybe even a return of one
of Marvel's humor titles with Giarrusso joined by some of Marvel's other
humor-oriented talent, such as Simone and Bendis.
The re-envisioning of Marvel
characters as "L'il" versions isn't completely new. It's been done before with
the X-Babies, for example. However, Giarrusso, clearly strongly influenced by
Charles Schulz, has taken the entire Marvel Universe and captured the basics of
the characters will also infusing it with a childlike style. You can find this
in the story elements such as Peter Parker and his conflict with his alien
costume, which in the mainstream Marvel Universe is played as good vs. evil but
here is played strictly for laughs, more of a professional rivalry. I was
particularly amused by the Green Goblin/Spider-Man conflict and by Aunt May's
inability to recognize that Peter is Spider-Man.
The basic plot of the main
story gives a good example of what I'm talking about. Spider-Man doesn't face a
big crisis of conscience or a dire foe here, he's simply a paperboy going to
collect his fees. This gives Giarrusso a good reason to explore various settings
and characters of the "L'il Marvel Universe" as well as providing a conflict of
sorts for the story, making it more than a bunch of gags loosely strung
together. Which isn't to say that Giarrusso doesn't still tell the story in
something of a strip style format. Every page has at least one gag and
punchline, and most of them would stand alone as single-page humor strips
without much trouble. I was also impressed that Giarrusso tackled some of the
more tragic aspects of the Marvel Universe, including the Gwen Stacy story, the
Thing's transformation and the hard luck with romance that Peter has had and
managed to make them light and funny.
Aside from the hilarious lead
story, though, this book collects all of Giarrusso's other work together in one
place. His funny "What If...?" suppositions like "What If Gambit was a street
card hustler?" and the shameless mocking of Wolverine's "Patch" identity are
comedic gold. And I've enjoyed the Bullpen Bits, and was glad to be able to read
the few that I missed for one reason or another. However, while I understand the
desire to put the new story up front, it's worth noting that the Bullpen Bits
stories set up some of the status quo for that tale, and might have been better
served opening the book.
At any rate, don't go into
this expecting revolutionary storytelling and art, but it's a solid humor book
for those who enjoy the Marvel characters.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board. |
