Comic Info
Comic Name: Spider-Man 2099 (Volume 2)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Peter David
Artist: Will Sliney
# of Issues: 7
Release Date: 2015
Reprints Amazing Spider-Man 2099 (2) #6-12 (January 2015-July 2015). Spider-Man and his cross-time allies must find a way to stop Daemos from killing all the Spider-Men…which means a trip to the past of Lady Spider. Spider-Man returns to 2099 to discover it destroyed by the Maestro and realizes that he could be responsible but returning to past to cure Tempest of her cancer could also prove deadly.
Written by Peter David and illustrated by Will Sliney, Spider-Man 2099 2: Spider-Verse is part of the Spider-Verse event crossover. Following Spider-Man 1: Out of Time, the volume also serves as a lead in to Secret Wars.
Spider-Man 2099 is a fun character if Marvel allows him to be fun. He’s like Spider-Man, has a few different powers, and a completely different personality. The problem with Spider-Man 2099 is that it is mercy to the whims of the Marvel Universe.
Marvel just can’t find a happy medium. For years, the comics wouldn’t mesh together right. Thor’s Asgard would be floating over New York City in some comics and other comics there is no mention of them. Recently however, Marvel has been trying to create a unified front by having events that truly affect all comics…but they often ruin good comics.
Spider-Man 2099 suffers from this. This volume feels completely segmented. The first part has Spider-Man caught up in the Dan Slott crafted Spider-Verse story which makes little sense in this context due to missing most of the story. The second part has Spider-Man back in 2099 (once again, it is unknown how in this collection) and battling the Maestro. The third section has Spider-Man helping Tempest fight her cancer with bad results. This entry is the only party of the comic that feels tied to the first volume of the series.
This is the larger problem of the Marvel Universe right now. It is so ungodly and tangled that you don’t know what is going on. As a reader of the comic, these issues make no sense as a whole…and that isn’t necessarily Peter David’s fault, but instead of being able to tell a story, he’s forced to tell part of stories that don’t help loyal readers of the title. It is a shame.
Spider-Man 2099 was cancelled after this volume because Secret Wars cancelled all of Marvels series…again. Like Spider-Man 2099, they were relaunched after Secret Wars, but it feels so unnecessary and gratuitous that readers should try to reject this marketing. I admit that I have bought some of the new number ones because I either read the comic before the cancellation/relaunch or because they are giving some interesting characters their own titles (which will undoubtedly be cancelled due to niche publications). Spider-Man 2099 deserves better treatment from Marvel, but so do most of their titles.
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