Spider-Man #5 // Review
Peter Parker has been erased from reality. (Sort of.) It’s actually a lot more complicated than that. He’s still alive, but he’s different...in a parallel timeline. Writer Dan Slott explores a world in which Parker wasn’t bitten by the radioactive spider in Spider-Man #5. Artist Mark Bagley and inker John Dell fuse a reasonably contemporary world with visuals solidly inspired by Steve Ditko’s original conception for a young Peter Parker in high school. There’s careful attention paid to the course of events in the early issues of the original character as they might have played out if Peter was more of an IT guy for the girl who actually got bit by the spider in question.
Peter Parker’s a smart kid in high school. Naturally, he’s got all kinds of questions about radiation and its uses when on a field trip to a lab. An irradiated spider finds its way to the ankle of Cindy Moon, who is promptly given great power and the responsibility that goes along with it. Meanwhile, Peter Parker has to deal with a break-in at his home and the near homicide of his uncle. A single heroic act turns his life around, and he sees an opportunity to aid an emerging spider-based superhero who calls herself Silk. (Everyone else calls her “Spider-Woman” for some reason.)
Slott takes a reasonably sophisticated approach to analyzing what makes Peter Parker an individual under the mask. Without the power, he would naturally have sought out some way to help people, as he really is a very nice guy. Slott follows the events in the life of Peter Parker had he not had powers, while Silk engages some of the villains that Spider-Man ran into in his first few appearances back in the early 1960s. Though it’s nothing terribly new, it’s a fun exercise in character analysis that remains true to Peter Parker throughout.
Bagley’s art draws on Steve Ditko’s original visual world for Peter without exaggerating the dated feel of the early 1960s. To his credit, Bagley doesn’t attempt to completely ape Ditko’s distinctive style, choosing instead to use Ditko’s art as a detailed reference guide that he pours in around his own style of art. Everything looks so familiar, but the art is of a more recent vintage. Bagley’s art isn’t exactly contemporary. Bagley found his style in the late 1980s and early 1990s...and that style has followed through in his art ever since. It’s a very respectable style that does a good job of capturing the drama, horror, and heroism that make Spider-Man who he is.
Peter Parker has been picked apart from every conceivable angle over the course of the past half-century or more. What Slott and Bagley are doing with this issue isn’t anything that hasn’t been done in one way or another. Slott and Bagley HAVE managed to find a pleasant echo of the original idea developed by Ditko under the supervision of Stan Lee all those years ago.
