Scarlet Spider Unlimited #1

Background

Yet another #1 this week with Scarlet Spider Unlimited #1 featuring "Tomb of Kaine". The supposedly dead Kaine goes missing at the end of this story. Looks like his Cool-Factor (tm) was way to high to stay dead for ever.

Story 'Tomb of Kaine'

Detective Raven and Ben investigate one of the Jackal's old bases. Ben ends up fighting a bunch of humanoid animals called 'Animen'. As Ben says "I guess all the good names are already taken". Anyway, the big story is that they also find Kaine in a cyrogenic-type chamber, plus a bunch of DNA manipulating machines.

The Animen work for the high Evolutionary, but Ben runs into some rebel Animen who have set up a "Jackal Worship" temple. They tell him that the young Miles Warren was assistant to The High Evolutionary. They also convince him that the Peter and Gwen clones were actually genetic constructs, the result of Anthony Serba and Joyce Delany being infected with Warren's Carrion virus.

Of course, we originally though they were clones, but then the High Evolutionary told us they were DNA altered constructs. Jackal told us again that they were clones in Maximum Carnage, but now Jackal's worshippers say they were constructs and justify it from Miles' diary. Then, High Evolutionary turns up and says that he faked the diary and in fact they were clones after all!

General Comments

This could have been Marvel's chance to clear up the whole confusion and fill one of the gaping holes in the logic of the clone plot. Instead they screw around with the whole thing and fed us more B.S. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind being in the dark. I didn't mind waiting four years to find the identity of Hobgoblin - or being mislead several times on the way.

What I DO mind is when they obviously change their mind about something and say to themselves "Dang, we've backed ourselves into a corner - let's just see if we can confuse the readers so much that they just give up!" That bugs me.

Overall Rating

In spite of some interesting combined air-brush/pencil work and a couple of snappy lines from Ben, in the final analysis...

; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

One measly web.