Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #59

Background

In this comic, our teenaged hero Peter (Spider-Man), Parker is not only (as indicated) a teen, but he now lives in the hi-tech, modern world of today. This series has re-imagined the world of Spider-Man for today’s modern sensibility without all of the grim and grittiness that currently infuses today’s comic line. Still, it retains all of the exciting nuances and straight-up fun from the Silver Age of Marvel. True, these stories are truly targeted for a much younger audience than your typical Marvel Comic reader; but it should be noted that there are plenty of “old timers” (like this reviewer) who find this title a true refreshing breeze.

Story Details

The story opens up with Spidey being chased through an abandoned house by the X-Men, and the finally corner him. At this point the story flashes back to the beginning of the story (that morning, Spidey and Chat are sitting in the tree house of one of Peter’s neighbors. They are discussing the fact that each of them were keeping secrets from the other (Chat was a mutant who could talk to animals, and Peter was Spider-Man). Neither of them is very happy with the other that the other was keeping a secret, but defending that they were keeping their own.

While they are chatting (and working out their differences), Nightcrawler sneaks up to the outside of the tree house with a mini Cerebro then teleports out when a pair of squirrels become very curious about him. The squirrels report back to Chat that someone is observing them, causing Pete to re-don his Spidey mask and head out to investigate, only they don’t find anything as Nightcrawler is gone.

A bit later, as Spidey is swinging around on patrol, he crosses paths with more of Torino’s goons and mops up the street with them. One of the thugs turns out to be Carter Torino, the son of the mobster that put a hit out on Spidey. He tells Spidey that he didn’t want to fight, but tried to get the men to run away. Spidey swings off and meets up with Captain Stacy, where Stacy tells Pete about an assassin named Bullseye who has been hired by the Torinos to kill Spidey. Stacy also tells Pete that his daughter, Gwen seems to be under the impression that she is dating Peter, something that Peter assures the Captain she is not.

Back at his home, Pete is in his pajamas getting ready for bed when Wolverine shows up. Only to be snagged by Spidey’s web (Pet slipped out of the room and rounded around to grab Wolvie). The pair head down the street to an old abandoned building as they continue their brawl. It is inside the building that the story catches up with the opening scene and the rest of the X-Men appear. Spidey manages to take out Wolverine, Storm and Colossus before the entire team (including Cyclops, Banshee, and Nightcrawler) show up.

It is at this point that the X-Men indicate that they are not interested in fighting Spidey, but they want to recruit him into their team. Spidey assures them that he isn’t a mutant, which they find confusing as, Nightcrawler’s earlier recon seemed to indicate that he was. It is at this point that Chat shows up, and tells the team that she is the mutant, and no, she doesn’t want to join the team, because she has already joined the Blonde Phantom’s Detective Agency. This confuses Spidey as in their earlier conversation she seemed to be dead set against him joining her team. Chat doesn’t seem to know what he is talking about and denies either knowing or dating him and then walks off.

General Comments

This story seems a tad sillier than most of the previous stories, and, made it very clear that this Spider-man is clearly not the same Spidey that had been appearing in the Marvel Adventures Avengers series (before it’s cancellation), as Spidey and Wolverine don’t know each other. Tobin has a destination in mind for where he wants to take this series, whether he will be allowed to continue along this path after the up-coming relaunch is anybody’s guess.

Overall Rating

To be sure, while this writer is still enjoying this series, the current direction leaves something to be desired as the direction has sharply veered off from the “classic” feel the series used to have.

Footnote

This title (as is the entire Marvel Adventure line) is slated to end in March, but not to worry, folks, as the books will be re-born (phoenix-like) the following month, complete with new branding and (hopefully) with the same child-like sense of “gosh-wow” present in each and every issue.