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05/17/2004: Marvel Knights Spider-Man #2
I've read Marvel Knights Spider-Man #2 (written by Mark Millar, pencils by Terry Dodson, inks by Rachel Dodson) and...
(cut for the spoiler phobic, because it's very recent)
...I'm not sure what to think about this. I mean, I like the art (like this lovely panel of Peter and MJ), the story about Aunt May being kidnapped and Peter trying to find out who targets him is intriguing enough, and I like Millar's Spidey voice most of the time too. But--
First, I've always thought that Marvel Knights, while for older readers, takes place in the main Marvel universe. Now in MK Spider-Man #2 Osborn is in jail, while in The Pulse he runs his company. That confused me. Now granted, I'm not that familiar with the Marvel universe and it could be a timeline thing, with one story just taking place at an earlier time, something that might be obvious to regular readers, but to me it felt as if they didn't care about universe integrity. Also I thought it was kind of a dumb move by Peter to talk to Osborn without temporarily disabling security, because even if the guard on duty is on a toilet-break, how can he be sure that the surveillance in a high security prison is only visual not audio? At worst there's now a tape somewhere with Osborn calling him Parker, and Peter mentioning his aunts name. That doesn't exactly reduce the risk for his secret identity.
That wasn't my main problem, however. While I have no real clue about the Avengers beyond the JLA/Avengers crossover I've read, the Avengers here just didn't come across as heroes. They came across as jerks. And some of that is Peter's POV, sure, but somehow in the classic Spider-Man comics I've read (from the 1960s in the Essential Spider-Man collections), it was still clear that they were heroes, even if Peter wasn't their biggest fan. Peter fighting his way into their headquarters because the security thought he was crank was fun to look at though.
And finally, in the scene with Vulture and Electro in the brothel, I was annoyed at the jokes. Okay, so I can get past the fact that of course Electro could only be attracted to the overweight hooker because she's a shapeshifter (god forbid that someone might be shown not to prefer the bizarro comic book version of the female body with big boobs and this weirdly deformed spine around the waist area), but when he then basically said that prison rape changed his sexual preferences... eh. I know it was supposed to be funny when he told her "My last couple of times up at Riker's really opened up a whole new side of myself I didn't even know existed until lately." [...] then she "Just tell me who you want, handsome-guy. An X-Man, perhaps? Fin-Fang-Foom?" "Well, between you and me, I've always fancied a crack at..." which is the moment Spider-Man appears and interrupts them. For me the humor here just kind of missed.
I like it enough that I'll stick with the series at least through the first arc, but I thought it was a bit uneven in the details.
