Avenging
Spider-Man #6
WRITERS: Greg Rucka & Mark Waid
ARTIST: Marco Checchetto
COLOR ARTIST: Matt Hollingsworth
LETTERS: VC’s Joe Caramagna
COVER: McNiven, Morales & Gracia
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Ellie Pyle
EDITOR: Stephen Wacker
EDITOR IN CHIEF: Axel Alonso
CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER: Joe Quesada
PUBLISHER: Dan Buckley
EXEC. PRODUCER: Alan Fine
Release Date: April 11th, 2012
Published
monthly by Marvel Worldwide, INC.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS:
Price – $3.99
(32 Pages,
single-issue, color)
INTRODUCTION: (From page 1)
Daredevil
recently came into possession of The Omega Drive which is full of information
about A.I.M., Hydra, Black Spectre, Agence Byzantine, and the Secret Empire.
Now everyone wants it, including the Punisher.
WRITING:
Marvel
decided to come out guns blazing with their decision to pair up two of the
hottest writers in the business right now in Greg Rucka (The Punisher) and Mark
Waid (Daredevil). It is obvious from the get go of the book that this was a set
up issue to allow readers who may not have been following the Daredevil series
to be able to jump right in and get the whole jist of what the Omega Effect
crossover is about and who the major players of the crossover are. (Spider-Man,
Daredevil and Punisher) Personally I feel that this could be somewhat
frustrating for Avenging Spider-Man fans as Spider-Man seems to be the one
character in this issue that seems to solely serve the purpose of moving
Daredevils story along. Granted, Rucka and Waid do a great job of bringing Spider-Man’s
character a sense of humor that so many writers have gotten wrong in the past.
Handling such a difficult task of bringing these characters together however
was done very well by Rucka and Waid.
Rating – “B+”
ARTWORK:
Marco
Checchetto does an amazing job at managing to keep the action intense without
causing too much confusion. There is a lot going on in this first installment
of the crossover and is amazing at how well he draws all four major characters
together with their interactions. Checchetto’s accurately draws Spider-Man,
Daredevil, Punisher and Cole-Alves so that continuity between their respective
titles are not lost in the crossover. This is actually an important issue for
me as I have seen way to many times where artists have been involved in
crossovers where their take doesn’t feel like the characters that people had
seen from their respective individual titles. Checchetto also keeps the dark
and moody feel from the Punisher series and brings it over into this issue. It
felt like it added a darker tone on the story which I was hoping for in the
first place with this event. So in terms of artwork, I feel that the tone has
been set perfectly by Checchetto.
Rating – “A”
STORYTELLING:
Waid has
been investing heavily over the past five issues of Daredevil in building up
the Omega Drive storyline and the conflict with the five mega-crime
organizations. They are attempting to get the drive back before all its
information is leaked to the public. Daredevil set a deadline for these
organizations to act in trying to take the device back.
Rucka and
Waid bring the crossover to life by pulling in Dr. Reed Richards from the
Fantastic Four. Richards reaches out to Spider-Man to begin investigating what
Daredevil is up to with the device and that begins the crossover of Spider-Man
and Daredevil in the story. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem very clear as to why
Punisher and Rachel Cole-Alves are involved other than the fact that they
believe that this drive has information…that if they could get their hands on
would be extremely valuable in their fight against crime.
There is a
large amount of setup in this issue that lays the framework for the battle that
Spider-Man, Daredevil, Punisher and Cole-Alves will go through to expose the
data on this drive. It is a very intriguing story that has me wondering just
how it will all work out. Will Punisher and Cole-Alves have to betray the trust
of Spider-Man and Daredevil before it is all over to really get what they are
looking for? Right now however, Punisher and Cole-Alves are going along for the
ride to find out how it will all turn out.
There are
two very interesting aspects to part 1 of the crossover that stuck out to me in
particular. The first is that there was an obvious focus of attention by Rucka
and Waid to establish Rachel Cole-Alves as a central character involved in the
crossover. She is not just a side character in the story. Spider-Man even takes
the time over several pages of the issue to try to come up with a new name for
this girl that is fighting beside of Frank Castle. He starts it off by calling
her Punisher’s new partner but then moves on to names like…Punisherette,
Punishinni, Punishella. It really feels like there is a focus of establishing a
new character in the Marvel Universe in Rachel Cole-Alves really becoming a new
female Punisher character. I really dig the idea but I am terrified about a
name to be honest. The second thing that stood out to me was the fact that
Frank Castle is really letting Daredevil and Spidey run the show with this
attack on the five mega-crime organizations. This felt a little off in regards
to the character that Rucka has established so far in his current Punisher
series. I know it is early and so I will give the benefit of the doubt moving
forward.
Rating – “B+”
CHARACTER REPRESENTATION:
All four of
the major characters in this crossover minus Frank Castle seemed to be spot on
and well represented by Rucka and Waid. Spidey is his normal cocky and
loose-lipped self that cracks a one liner every other sentence, Daredevil is
his cautious but confident man with no fear and Rachel Cole-Alves is her overly
aggressive I want to kill something self. Punisher however, seems to be talking
way too much in this issue and has the least aggressive stance. I was hoping
that Frank was going to push Spidey and Daredevil over the edge in this
crossover. Maybe that will still happen before the end?
Rating – “B”
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE:
If you cant
get excited about this kind of crossover that puts the characters from three of
the hottest books from the comic book store shelves than nothing will. This
crossover has a ton of history behind it and a lot of the line. It really feels
even bigger than the Avengers vs. X-Men title that just started. It has ninja’s,
guns, devils and spiders…what else could you possibly want right?
Rating – “A”
OVERAL RATING OF ISSUE: “A”
