For many people my age, Spider-Man, Batman, and the X-Men, are their definite heroes. I can only translate that to the popularity of each of their animated shows. For the past few years, I haven’t really been keeping up with the ol’ webhead. While I have enjoyed parts of Dan Slott’s years-long Spider-Man run (Superior Spider-Man was excellent), overall, I haven’t found it clicking with me. I’ve always liked the low-stakes drama of Peter’s social life/job while dealing with street-level villains, so Slott’s corporate Parker and his globetrotting adventures hasn’t been my thing.
Enter Chip Zdarsky.
For years, I only knew Chip as that really funny guy on Twitter that all the comic creators I followed interacted with. Eventually, I realized that he is a hilarious writer and fantastic artist (If you haven’t seen his saga with Applebees, check it out). In recent years though, Chip has had a comic outpouring in great books like Jughead, Howard the Duck, and the still running Star-Lord. The sense of humor and surprising amount of pathos in his books had gotten me terribly excited for his Spider-Man run. All the hype I built up in my head did not prove to be too much as I loved every second of this book.
Within the first few pages of the book, everything felt right at home to me. Zdarsky’s voice for Peter is exactly the Spider-Man I fell in love with. The jokes are making me laugh and Peter’s interactions with his friends seem lovingly genuine. A new romance and mystery are immediately set up and I fell completely compelled to follow along.
Adam Kubert’s art has the perfect blend of cartooning to fit this kind of story as well. He captures Spidey’s emotions through the mask in the best possible way. The Spider-Man jokes don’t work unless we get a good artist. I really like his new rougher sketchy style as well.
All in all, it feels great to want to read a Spider-Man book again. If you have been wanting a change of pace in the terms of stories for Peter, you will not be disappointed in Zdarsky’s and Kubert’s Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man.
The Institute of Idle Time 