Marvel Age: Spider-Man Team-Up #5

Background

Our Marvel aged, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is no stranger to teaming up with mutants, as shown in Marvel Age Spider-man Team-up #3. That said, it's no surprise that two issues later, it's mutant fest 2005.

These Marvel Age Team-ups seem to have all been retellingss of old Marvel stories, but this one has broken format and gone original. For better or worse? Read it and you decide. Or read my review and I'll decide for you.

Story 'Change the Weather'

The moment you open the book up, you see Rogue floating in the air channeling lighting, wind, and rain. You see both Spider-Man and Storm kinda hanging back cautiously: you know something is going to go down.

The story begins with Storm flying over the city, relishing the fact that she's free to rise above it all. A helicopter flies by and suddenly malfunctions. Storm rushes to the rescue, calling on "Mother Wind" to keep the helicopter hovering until she can land it safely.

Elsewhere, Spider-Man is swinging through the city, glad that he can put all his problems behind him when he's swinging around. Three guys are either picking on Rogue or doing a really bad job or picking up Rogue. Either way the situation escalates to Rogue's glove exploding (I'm not kidding--look at the picture!) and Spider-Man intervening.

A little bit of "getting to know you" chit-chat, and Rogue is freaking out that her glove tore. When Spidey offers her his, they accidently touch, and Rogue saps his powers. She runs off--with the agility of a spider, I might add--until she accidently bumps into Storm, who's still trying to save the helicopter.

Spider-Man catches the helicopter in webbing and rushes to save Storm. "Lady, I hope you're the only one. 'Cause if it really starts raining girls, I'm gonna need a lot more web fluid!" Great Spider-Man line! Storm and Spidey get each other up to speed, and then run off in search of Rogue...

...who just happens to bump into the three guys who picked on her earlier. She floats in the air in a freaky "Carrie"/"Exorcist"/"Poltergeist" style and channels snow to freeze the wanna-be thugs. After a little resistance and a display of the spider-sense in action, Rogue realizes that she took things a little too far.

Storm tells Rogue that she'll talk to Professor X for her about joining the school for the gifted, and in a very Captain Planet-esque manner, Storm tells the others that she must make some reparations on the weather. The way Rogue used her powers could cause hurricanes and stuff elsewhere. Rogue apologizes and everyone is happy. The End...

General Comments

...and nothing too impresive goes down.

What happened to the people in the helicopter? Spidey just webbed them to a building and left them there. That helicopter kept creeping into my head the whole rest of the book. I know Spidey, and if someone in that helicopter gets hurt, Peter Parker will feel guilty for weeks.

I like the fact that this story is original, but I have a problem with Rogue stealing Storm's powers. In normal continuity, when Rogue stole Storm's powers, the weather went absolutely, uncontrollably crazy. Rogue didn't have the lifetime of weather control experience that Storm does. I just don't like that Rogue mastered Storm's powers so quickly.

With the exception of the cover, the art was just bland at best. Rogue's exploding glove drilled that into my head immediately. Although Rogue's floating "Exorcist" scene was really cool-looking.

Overall Rating

The story wasn't very good, and details were cast aside. The antagonist was weak at best, and the art was so-so. 1 web for a good cover, good effort on an original story, and a freaky drawing of Rogue.