Radiant Comics

These Spider-Man hardcover books have been coming out fast and furious since the whole line was merged into one monthly comic. I haven’t liked every one of them and I haven’t bought every one of them. They’ve been up and down. I bought this one because I liked Dan Slott’s work on some other volumes. JR Jr. on the art didn’t hurt either.

This was an up volume. Fun stuff. Spidey faces off against Norman Osborn and the Thunderbolts. I’m a little annoyed at this new Marvel Universe where outright villains are openly running the US government. It makes things a little less believable for me and a little too much like the Wildstorm Universe. But I went with it.

This is classic Spidey stuff with Aunt May, Harry Osborn, a newsroom, and things not going Spidey’s way. There are lots of fights with the Thunderbolts, lots of Spidey fighting hurt, and a new super villain. The Anti-Venom. Or is he a hero? Time will tell.

The artwork by Romita and Janson was, of course, good. Those two always do a nice job and this was no exception.

My only complaint is with the aforementioned villains in powerful government jobs with no oversight. It’s a world with no government checks and balances and no detectives to track down wrong doing. Every day there are a million cop shows on TV. We all know how detectives work but apparently (an overused word but appropriate here) there are none on the job in the Marvel Universe.

All in all I enjoyed this book. I’m always up for a good Spider-Man story.