Spider Freaks and Geeks
Writer: Jody Houser
Art Team: Nathan Stockman, Ruth Redmond
Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Release Date: February 14, 2017
Cover Price: $3.99
Review by Anthony Guia
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
With Jody Houser’s first arc out of the way and a new penciller on the book, hopefully, this title can bring back the magic that was found by the first creative team. Is this first issue for the second arc of the time jump a worthwhile read? Let’s find out…
We start this issue off with J.J.J. giving Peter a bit of a reality check. Newsprint is dying and the need for newspaper photographers are becoming less and less necessary. With another pay cut, Peter is going to have to find another job just to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Annie is at school still trying to find her place among the walls and lockers, even though she’s a sophomore. She feels more like herself when she’s suited up and swinging across the city.
The spider family is having a family hero night out and Peter drops the bomb that he’ll be the new substitute photography teacher at Annie’s high school. Annie is furious with the idea of having her dad around when he could possibly be working anywhere. Both Peter and Annie go at it, while Spinneret stops a robbery from taking place in the alleyway below before coming in to put her foot down to tell Annie to suck it up and for Peter to give his daughter some space - also, to not embarrass her.
During Peter’s first day, he’s shocked that students just aren’t interested in learning and his daughter pretends to not see him in the hallway. Annie gets one of her spider-sense visions of a bomb going off in school premises and proceeds to find the two students who are going to be the cause of it.
Shortly, an explosion occurs and Peter’s spider-sense triggers. He suits up and heads toward the theatre room, where the explosion happened. As he’s about to open the door, Annie comes out and tells Spider-Dad that she had one of her visions of equipment exploding, but everyone inside is ok. Spidey wants to double check, but Annie points out that it’s too convenient for Spider-Man to be there and it would blow both their identities, so Spider-Man accepts that as long as everyone is ok, he can be on his merry way.
Annie goes back into the theatre room where the two students who caused the explosion are villains and it looks like she wants to put on her big-girl pants and do this solo.
I’ve really enjoyed Nathan Stockman’s art, since his issues of Spidey with Robbie Thompson and recently in this series in issue #10. He draws really expressive faces and it’s shown on these pages. Redmond’s colours are nice, bright, and colourful. His art style may not be for everyone, but I’m a big fan of his style. He even throws in a Ryan Stegman easter egg on the hoodie of the robber in the early pages.
Bits and Pieces:
I’m glad to have Stockman back on pencils for this title and I think he’s a great fit for the story given here. Houser has the character voices down, especially the internal dialogues for Peter and Annie, but the plot is too thin. I’ll still be picking this title up, as I love the family dynamic, but I hope we get more plot than your typical television family dramedies.
6.5/10
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