Marvel Team-Up #14 // Review
Spider-Man is fighting Dr. Octopus. Again. It's actually happened quite a lot over the years across the many different timelines of the Marvel universe. There's something strange about it this time, though. And isn't the fact that Spidey won't to shut up. And it isn't the fact that Doc Ock is getting annoyed about it. It's the fact that somebody popped in from another franchise entirely and knocked him all the way into the next page. Once again, Spidey serves as superpowered guide to someone from another world in Marvel Team-Up #14. Spider-Man from Marvel meets Invincible from Image in a cross-company crossover written by Robert Kirkman with art by Cory Walker and color by Dave McCaig.
Invincible is really concerned. He had just flown through some border between franchisees and slammed into this guy. I had no idea who he was or anything like that. Might be concerned that he might've seriously heard the guy. And when it turns out that he's actually a danger to himself and others, invincible might be OK with the fact that he could have seriously injured the gentleman in question. However, he's not really concerned about that. He is, after all, crying. Spidey's got his hands full with this one.
Kirkman has a solid handle on the scripting with respect to Spider-Man. The dialogue is pretty solidly well developed. The grasp of the Marvel universe is respectively rendered for the page. The pacing of the story seems remarkably competent. The script does get a little bit, plugged it down in basic introductions to some of the basic elements of the Marvel Universe. It offers Kirkman an opportunity to make some pretty weak jokes, so it’s probably worth it on some level.
Walker managers at some very cool action for the page. Light, shadow and depth are provided for the page by some particularly good work on the part of McCaig’s colorst. The action feels very genetic on the page. It's moving around quite well. Spider-Man manages to be very expressive without too much work on twisting or contorting the eyes of the mask. Invincible once again, comes across as being a very sympathetic character, emotionally. The emotions can be read quite well on his face and in his posture. Visually it's not quite well rendered issue that moves across the page with considerable amount of grace.
Had the writer focused a little bit more on relations between the two heroes it might've been a little bit more interesting. Invincible is where Spider-Man was years ago just starting his career. It would have been interesting to see a little bit more in the way of mentorship from one hero to another. That would've been a lot more interesting than that we humor that Kirkman attempts. For all the shortcomings, though, the script does a really good job of delivering a one shot story that happens to involve quite a lot of backstory in a cross company crossover.
