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Title: Flight of Fancy
Series: Spiderman 2099 #8
Author: Peter David
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 23
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

The conclusion to Spidey’s fight with Vulture 2099. What more can you ask of 23 pages?

 

My Thoughts:

So, I wish I had read this with the previous 2 volumes that dealt with Vulture. This concluded Spidey’s fight with Vulture and honestly, not much happens. They fly/web around and punch each other and Miguel reveals that he’s a lapsed Catholic when the fight goes into a church, but other than, nothing really.

Mig’s brother Gabe and his girlfriend Kasey hook up with some people [a comic book style group of tough mofos] who want to help Spiderman. Only Gabe knows who Spidey is, so his actions are a bit stilted and you know at some point in the future he’ll reveal to someone that Miguel is Spidey.

I am reading these on my 15in laptop and I have to admit, it is a struggle to read some of the text. In some cases I just looked at the pictures of Spidey and Vulture fighting and ignored the teensy-tinsy bit of dialogue. Whenever I finish/give up this series, I plan on re-reading my Silver Sable collection that was the pride and joy of my collection back in the 90’s. She had a 3 year run before being folded back into the general Spiderman universe. Then I shall see if the dialogue is still tiny. Basically, am I getting old eyes or is the digital a crap scan? * grin *

★★★☆☆

 

• Spiderman 2099 Vol. 6&7
• Spiderman 2099 Vol. 4&5
• Spiderman 2099 Vol 1,2&3

 

^{This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything  by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission}
Title: Downtown, Wing and a Prayer
Series: Spiderman 2099 #6, 7
Author: Peter David
Artist: Rick Leonardi
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 45
Format: Digital Scan

 

Synopsis:

Miggy survives his fall into “down town” with the aid of an anonymous doctor and immediately proceeds to act like an ass. He goes off before being fully healed or even knowing where he is. The Public Eye, under direct orders [yet again] from Stone, is looking for him to capture him. They find him but he is swept away by some guy who is the leader of the Freaks, a guy with metal wings and who can fly. Vulture 2099. Vulture wants Miggy to join him in his fight against the other gangs. Miggy refuses and runs off. A flying battle ensues.

At the same time, Miggy’s brother Gabe heads downtown to look for Miggy, survives a mugging and ends up with a gun. While waiting outside his girlfriend’s apartment, someone grabs his shoulder and he shoots without looking. The volume ends with it being a woman he apparently knows lying in a puddle of blood.

 

My Thoughts:

Frenetic is the word to describe the pace here. Miguel continues his boneheaded and impulsive behavior and just reacts. It certainly allows for fights and action scenes to naturally flow because anyone with half a brain would think and then avoid the fights. Comics, sigh.

Stone, the apparent villain, has a conversation with the CEO of Stark-Fujikawa and that guy knows that Stone used the Specialist for his own purposes and warns Stone that he won’t forget that.

Vulture 2099 is introduced, but since I didn’t really know anything about him in the 90’s, I can’t compare. He appears to be a man who has been experimented on, hence giving him his abilities, but those experiments also seem to have left him mentally disturbed. He’s a bloody cannibal for goodness sake. I guess we’ll see if he develops as a real villain or just a caricature of the character from the past.

I probably could have read the next issue right away, as it’s a continuation of this story arc, but I couldn’t take any more of Miggy or the “practically on speed” pace of things.

★★★☆☆

1. Review of Vol. 1-3
2. Review of Vol. 4-5

^{This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything and links at Goodreads by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission}

 

 

Title:        The Specialist, Blood Oath
Series:     Spiderman 2099 #4 & 5
Author:    Peter David
Artist:      Rick Leonardi
Rating:     3 of 5 Stars
Genre:      Comics
Pages:       48
Format:    Digital Scan

 

Synopsis:

Gabriel O’Hara, brother to Miguel, our erstwhile Spiderman 2099, gets involved with a woman who is on the wanted list by one of the Corporations, namely, Stark-Fujikawa. She is taken in front of Gabe by some Super Samurai. Gabe immediately runs to his big brother to cry for help. Miguel is being wooed back to Alchemax by Stone himself.

To get out from under Stone’s eye, he accepts reinstatement and immediately takes Gabe’s call. Miguel, affectionately known as “Miggy”, dons the suit and rushes to rescue Gabe’s latest girlfriend. He rescue her from the Samurai and then starts a very public battle with the Samurai, who is named The Specialist. He starts the fight to test his own capabilities but unbeknownst to him, “Spiderman 2099”s movements are being watched by Alchemax and publicly broadcasted.

The Public Eye, a sort of private/public Security Force are under orders to capture Spiderman, but one of the higher ups takes things into his own hands and has his forces fire on Spidey. These 2 volumes end with Spidey falling to the undercity of New York.

 

My Thoughts:

“Miggy”? That really is the tone here. A ton of one liners and cutesy quips. Miguel is desperately trying to keep his identity as Spiderman secret from Stone but fooling the CEO of a Mega-Corp isn’t easy.

Gabe, as the token relative, is a real idiot and I foresee a lot of drama coming from his direction. The Specialist was a bit overblown as a character and was more about showing off how another Mega-Corp worked than as a serious threat or evil villain. It’s hard to take him serious when he’s spouting off about “Honor” and “Chivalry” while taking a graffiti artist in to be a human experiment.

 

We also get a few panels of Doom 2099. I like that character and hope he’s more involved even while he has his own comic line from the time.

★★★☆☆

 

^{This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything and links at Goodreads & Mobileread by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission}
Title:      Spiderman 2099, Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
Series:   Spiderman 2099 #1, 2 & 3
Author:  Peter David
Artist:    Rick Leonardi
Rating:   3 of 5 Stars
Genre:   Comics
Pages:    68
Format:  Digital Scan

 

Synopsis:

Miguel O’hara, brilliant geneticist, is working for Alchemax, one of the Mega-Corporations. He is working on genetically imprinting various aspects of other creatures onto humans so as to make them more fit for various Alchemax jobs. So far none of the prisoners assigned as test subjects have survived.

Due to his smart mouth and bad political sense, Miguel gets on the wrong side of Tyler Stone, CEO of Alchemax. Stone injects Miguel with a synthetic drug that bonds to his dna and forces him to keep working for Alchemax, or he’ll die of withdrawal symptoms. In desperation, Miguel returns to his Alchemax lab and re-imprints his own dna pattern onto himself in an effort to cleanse himself from the drug bonding.

Unbeknownst to Miguel, one of the other scientists, who has taken the brunt of Miguel’s acid wit, is also working that night. Said scientist sabotages the imprint program by overloading it with spider dna. A huge explosion happens, Miguel lives but with talons, fangs and messed up vision. He escapes the lab but a bounty hunter is hot on his trail.

Realizing he has to throw the cyborg bounty hunter off of his trail so he won’t know it is Miguel O’Hara he is chasing, Miguel puts on a mexican day of the dead costume made from unstable molecules, which will allow him to use it without slicing it to ribbons with his talons. He attacks Venture, gets captured, escapes and defeats Venture and comes across a cult to Thor.

The origin story ends with Miguel taking a phone call from Tyler Stone, who wants to discuss “Spiderman”. Thus a new Super Hero is born.

 

My Thoughts:

Holy smokes!!! I had totally forgotten just how short comic books were. These scans had all the ad pages removed, so they’re only about 22-24 pages each. I think most comics ran about 30 pages back in the 90’s, so you’re talking an advertisement every 4^th page. Glad I don’t have to deal with that now.

This is my first time reading Spiderman 2099 so let me back up and give just a bit of history about me and the 2099 comic line. I’ll be as brief as possible. I started seriously reading comics in 1991 and in 1992 started my first subscription with Silver Sable & Her Wildpack. This took up all of my money but I began haunting the semi-local comic stores and the grocery stores where comics were sold. I saw Doom 2099 in December of ’92 and that was my introduction to 2099. I bought the first 4 issues of Doom then bought the first couple of issues of Punisher 2099 from my friend Cam who had bought them but he didn’t like them. That brought me to mid ’93 and I was just plum out of money. So while I realized that things were really hopping over at Spiderman 2099 I just couldn’t afford it. Plus, the first several issues sold out wicked fast and trying to get back orders was, while not impossible, much harder than it was today. I’ve always liked Spidey, I’ve always wanted to see what Spidey2099 was all about and since I’m in a manga funk, I figure this will be a good break from that while still keeping my toes in the visual medium.

I bet this would have blown the socks of my teenage self. Flying cars, armed police/guards using flying cycles, cyborg bounty hunters, evil corporations, evil CEO’s personally injecting drugs into their most brilliant workers. Check, check and checkity-check! Now, I am reading this as an “experience” and not as just a book to read and review. If I just read this, it would be very hard to overlook the puerile nature, the complete lack of logic, the utter and complete “boy’ishness” of it. As an “experience” though, it sure is fun. Memories, memories, memories.

These first 3 issues comprise the Origins storyline. We’ll see how future volumes pan out. I will not be surprised if I just up and quit in disgust at some point or just let it peter out [ha, get it, Peter Out, Miguel In?]

★★★☆☆