Spider-Man: The Spider'S Shadow

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Spider-Man: Spider's Shadow #1 is scheduled for release in April 2021. That also happens to be the month Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman are wrapping up their Venom run with the Venom #200 anniversary special. Gaining the Will to Kill: At first, Peter manages to resist the symbiote's urgings to kill Hobgoblin, settling for unmasking him and warning him to stay away unless he wants another beating. It isn't until Hobgoblin murders May Parker that Peter gives in and crushes Hobgoblin's skull. From Bad to Worse: Jameson manages to remove the symbiote from Peter by forcing him into a burning barn and presumes it to be dead, but Peter senses that it survived the fire. The symbiote makes its way to the Baxter Building and takes over Mr. Fantastic, and to make matters worse, it has begun to spawn more symbiotes. That said, I did find the writing a bit linear and two-dimensional. There doesn't appear to be much subplot here, pretty much nothing at all really, which does leave it sitting somewhat flat. Pragmatic Villainy: Fisk learning that Spider-Man has begun killing his foes worries him. Not because it means the web-slinger is getting serious, but because it's bad for his business. Up until now, all Spidey did was beat the shit out of his men and villains on his payroll and put them behind bars, so he can potentially still use them. It's another story if Peter is killing his men; he can't exactly work with corpses.

After an incident with the Hobgoblin, however, things begin to change: Reed Richards informs Peter that his costume is actually alive and he should probably leave it with the Fantastic Four to investigate further, but Peter doesn't want to do that. The costume chose him and he's choosing it. But when a visit to Aunt May's house turns tragic, he gives into his darker impulses and does the thing the suit wanted: kill. Spotting the Thread: Fisk notes that Spider-Man began resorting to brutal methods to deal with criminals after he killed Hobgoblin, which has him investigate the circumstances behind the villain's actions before his death. When he discovers that Hobgoblin killed May Parker, he realizes Spider-Man's murder of Hobgoblin was a violent reaction to the old woman's death, meaning Spidey is someone close to May Parker; her nephew Peter Parker. Moral Event Horizon: The symbiote driving Spider-Man to begin killing his rogues gallery and trying to infect New York with its spawn makes it a Well-Intentioned Extremist, but it goes too far upon murdering Reed Richards and trying to kill Mary Jane for undermining its attempts to corrupt Peter.

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Orifice Invasion: How Peter kills Scorpion. Specifically, Spider-Man forces the symbiote's biomass into his adversary's lungs through his mouth, suffocating him to death. He repeats this with Mysterio.

Pasqual Ferry delivers some tremendous art, which is key in showing Spider-Man slow descent under the influence of the suit. The action scenes are top notch and he excels in the horror driven moments, with a symbiote influenced Spider-Man’s clash with the Hobgoblin and later with the Sinister Six being particularly memorable. I’d be remiss not to mention Phil Noto’s stunning covers which terrifically showcase the horror driven aspect of the series and key scenes of the series. Removed Achilles' Heel: Once the symbiote takes over Reed Richards, it genetically modifies its offspring to remove their vulnerability to fire. However, the art does not always keep the same consistency across the series. When it comes to the finer details such as faces, there can be some distracting inconsistencies. Also, the coloring seems washed out a bit in issue #5. This might be a result of the change of palette due to the final showdown’s setting, but it is noticeable. Thankfully, these inconsistencies are minor and do not detract too much from the overall experience. Zdarsky has had great success with his previous Spider-Man outings. He had a highly eventful run on a new volume of Spectacular Spider-Man which wrapped up with an Eisner Award winning story in issue 310, and his real-time chronological history of the character in Spider-Man: Lifestory has been one of the best regarded Spider-Man stories of the modern era. Zdarsky’s strong understanding of Spidey’s character and history really shine through on all the projects he has worked on, and The Spider’s Shadow is no exception. The design of his suit after Hobgoblin kills Aunt May is also very terrifying, as he adopts the claws, tendrils, and a bit of the added bulk typically associated with Venom and changes his mask into a more arachnoid visage, with four spider-like fangs painted on.

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But this could be one of those stories where it goes too dark and possibly too far. I get that Venom is a violent, dark mirror of Spider-Man -- a creature that is the bonding of two entities that hate Peter Parker. And the idea the alien costume might feed into some of Peter's internal self-doubt and loathing is an intriguing one. But honesty, the concept of Peter going dark was better realized in the animated series from the 90's when the dark suit was brought into the story. I guess I wanted to see Peter do more than just become a violent sociopath who kills or hurts everyone around him before getting a bit of redemption and an obligatory happy ending. My God, What Have I Done?: When Jameson and Kraven successfully manage to remove the symbiote from Peter via throwing him in a burning barn, the symbiote's influence wanes and is promptly horrified of his actions. This thing... it's alive. It has a right to make choices just as I do. It chooses to be with me, and I... choose to be with it. We're helping each other, I can feel it. It shouldn't be kept in a prison here. — Spider-Man Appearing in "Part One of Four" Chip Zdarsky delivers a modern 'What if?' story here with some sadness and dark tones - at least by the standards of a Spider-Man book. Kingpin: So I went about investigating. Seeing if you had any other close family members. A wife, a girlfriend- someone I could threaten. But there was no one. So incredibly sad. You have no one, Peter Parker. Anyone you ever loved is-

Dark Is Not Evil: Peter goes full-on Anti-Hero after Aunt May's death at the hands of Hobgoblin, officially accepting the symbiote. Catapult Nightmare: Peter's been having a lot of these lately. At one point, he accidentally shoves MJ against a wall when he wakes up. It stars with Peter getting the Venom symbiote but the question is what if he kept the symbiote even after Reed told him not to and then you see what happens to Aunt may and then he snaps and what he does to the Hobgoblin and how everyone is after him and in particular Kingpin and when they fight its something but then things get violent as he takes out many villain and its like a dark path and really lives up to what if and its bloody, dark and violent and gory even and I love how the artist brings it out. It's nice when What If? stories are able to breathe. With five issues to explore this story rather than the usual one and done, Spider's Shadow gets to really dig into the consequences of Peter's actions as the Venom symbiote goes wild. There are a few dark turns and some deaths (because what's a What If? without someone getting brutally murdered) but it manages to have a somewhat optimistic ending despite the doom and gloom. The story goes in some fun directions, and it shows once again how well Zdarsky gets Peter Parker (and J. Jonah Jameson, to a lesser extent) as a character.Hair-Trigger Temper: In Issue #1, Peter is shown to be incredibly agitated due to a mix of the symbiote's corrupting influence, several days without sleep, and being plagued by nightmares involving the symbiote.

Evil Costume Switch: Downplayed. Although he still tries to protect innocent people, Spidey's costume becomes more menacing in appearance shortly before he kills the Hobgoblin, featuring a pair of fangs that allude to both a real spider's and Venom's below his lenses, added bulk, claws, and writhing tendrils of symbiote biomass protruding from his torso. The story is then fully realized by the art team. Pasqual Ferry and Matt Hollingsworth capture the narrative’s dark and eerie tone and add another level to it. There are a lot of haunting images here such as Peter unconsciously suspended above his bed by the symbiote, or the monstrous visage the suit begins to take on. These moments are striking and add to the grim tone. The colors work really well throughout especially in the darker sections. A nice touch throughout is the red and blue highlights around the symbiote’s edges that nods to the ’90s animated series. Unscrupulous Hero: As described by Peter, the symbiote isn't entirely evil. It genuinely wants to help people based on what it knows from Peter. The problem is that it has zero understanding of morality. The writing here is good, which pretty much sets the book up for success automatically given that Spidey's more recent run of things in comics hasn't really met the usual expectations for most people. It's refreshing to see Peter Parker struggling against a darkness and facing some serious danger, all laid out against an interesting premise and storyline.

Spider-Man: Spider's Shadow is a 2021 Marvel Comics five-issue mini-series written by Chip Zdarsky, with art by Pasqual Ferry and Matt Hollingsworth. The reality this comic is set in has been officially designated as Earth-21619. It is the first in a new line of What If? mini-series, in this case: What if Peter Parker became Venom? The story received a follow-up called "Spider's Eclipse" in Extreme Venomverse.