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| Front cover of Marvel Comics TPB Spider-Man Renew Your Vows volume 3 |
Score (out of 5 Capes)
2.5 capes - The creative team took an imaginative but risky decision to jump the time line eight years into the future between issues #12 and 13. It makes for a stronger role for Annie and more focus on the tensions a teenaged super hero has with her parents. But with shaky visuals and uneven storytelling, it comes out as a mediocre book.
My Review
Spider-Man's earliest stories give us a smart but socially awkward Peter Parker in his late teens, at the tail end of his high school days and the years that follow. Some versions of his origin story have the radioactive or genetically altered spider biting Peter while he is on a school field trip.
The new creative team on the Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows ongoing series gave themselves a cleaner slate by jumping the timeline eight years into the future. Now, Spider-Man Peter, Spinneret Mary Jane and their daughter Annie's Spiderling have had years to work out the kinks in the family super-hero business.
This eight-year jump also moves Annie from a little super-powered kid to a sophomore in high school. She has become a mid-teens young person navigating the treacherous waters of growing up and transitioning from childhood into adulthood. Her struggles and journey are central themes of this book.
The opening pages of the book show her battling six classic Spider-Man villains at once. It would be a tall order for her father, so imagine how she fares as a 15-year-old. When things start to go badly, good old Dad is there to swoop in and assist. At least until Wolverine kills the Battle Room simulation. Turns out Annie is undergoing some intense education and training.
But her lessons are learned on the job, not just through lectures Battle Room sessions. So it comes as no surprise to anyone, the Spider family included, that their relaxing trip to the Coney Island fairgrounds is interrupted by a rampaging, out of control Lizard.
Over the course of the three-chapter arc, she learns some important lessons about jumping to conclusions, using only her fists when she should also be using her head and her heart, and what is really important when battling super-powered villains. Best of all, the lessons give her - and us - a glimpse of Annie emerging from a child hero, with heavy-handed parental lessons, to something closer to an intern or even a peer, a valued contributing member of the heroic team.
In the second three-part story, the family finances are tight so Peter takes on a teaching position at Annie's high school. His excitement at the potential for super-fun father-daughter time is equalled by her dread and dislike for the new arrangement.
Annie also learns some important self-taught lessons about super-hero team dynamics when two new meta-humans she befriends are driven by a passionate desire to kill Normal Osborn Jr. for the sins of his ancestors.
Teens having disagreements with people in authority is nothing new. And when the teen is actively teaming up and working closely with Mom and Dad in the emotional blender of the super-hero work, the possibilities are that much stronger.
Author Jody Houser does not shy away from moments of conflict and tension at home between Annie and her parents, or even between Peter and Mary Jane themselves. Although admittedly those moments of tension are pretty mild - everyone is just too light-hearted for anything too serious to last more than a few panels.
That also describes the stories overall: pretty mild and light. It is fun to watch Annie growing up into her heroism and, conversely, her parents learning to let her figure it out on her own, when to guide, or when to step in and take over. None of this feels too threatening or broken or dysfunctional, always staying on the light and fun side of the line.
Houser's writing is simple and straightforward, with only a couple threads weaving together at any one time and everything proves to be resolvable within an issue or two.
The art duties are split between Nick Roche (#13-15) and Nathan Stockman (#16-18). Both artists favor a style that is overly cartoony for my tastes but does match and help keep the overall mood light. The deliberately cartoon-influenced expressions, poses and style sometimes turn into a visual hash and it can be hard to distinguish the characters, beyond hair style and clothes.
The three heroes wear very different and somewhat gaudy costumes, which does help us tell the spiders apart. The three certainly want nothing to do with any family Christmas-Jammy matching cuteness. While Spider-Man's outfit has become a classic with its mix of blue and red with webbing pattern in the red parts, the women have much worse costumes.
Spiderling's two-tone blue with the common web-and-spider elements is offset by pops of red on her boots, ankles, wrists and mask and a bit of a neckline. The satchel on her right hip is a twist on the utility belt of other heroes and adds to an overall goofy effect.
Mary Jane's Spinneret costume is the worst of the bunch. I say more in the "What I Didn't Love" section below, so for now let me just say that the colors, cut and accessories exude a "Mom on a fitness kick" vibe.
The concept of a Spider-family, one of whom is now a teenager, breathes fresh air into a long-standing pillar of the Marvel universe. At times heavy-handed and uneven, and dragged down by an overly cartoony style, it results in a middling book with intriguing potential.
What I loved
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| Taking on adult levels of leadership and responsibility |
With the jump eight years into the future, little Annie Parker is now a sophomore in high school, with all the attendant teenaged angst and challenges. I love the many various ways the creative team shows her wrestling with the transition from childhood to adulthood.
She wants to reject the childish hero codename name "Spiderling" but is not quite sure how to shake it.
She is mortified when her dad Peter winds up teaching at her school and, even worse, trying to make eye contact in the hallways.
And, best of all, when she encounters some fellow teens in her school with new super-powers, but still very rough around the edges, she takes them under her wing, steps into her first leadership role and guides them into becoming more effective and making better decisions in the application of their new-found abilities.
The "Annie is growing up" arc can be overly cliche and wordy, but has some powerful moments and real character growth.
What I didn't love
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| Spinneret's hideous costume |
Mary Jane Parker has usually been portrayed as a classy, sometimes even sexy lady in Peter's life. Now, in the Renew Your Vows universe, she is married and the mother of a teenaged daughter. So there is a definite Mom vibe to her portrayal in these pages.
Which is fine. It is nicely offset by her heroism as the costumed hero Spinneret; her parental wisdom and relationship with Peter are well handled; and she gets a few pages about how she runs her small business, showing good acumen and skills. Mary Jane is a multi-faceted character, even though she is clearly the third-wheel to father and daughter, the supportive mother who quietly fades into the background for much of this book.
But then she pulls on that hideous Spinneret costume. It hurts my eyes just to look at it. The goofy little elf-booties; the boundary lines and cut of the red areas and dominant white sections; the ridiculous mid-thigh cycling-shorts look of the webbed red areas. The mid-thigh thing is so bad that the artist draws it differently whenever he can get away with it, sometimes condensing the red area all the way up to the bikini line.
The overall effect of Spinneret's costume screams "middle-aged mother on a fitness kick." It is completely at cross-purposes with the woman Mary Jane is portrayed to be while out of costume.
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Quick Reference Details
Writers: Jody Houser
Artists: Nick Roche (#13-15), Nathan Stockman (#16-18)
Published By: Marvel Comics
Published When: May 30, 2018
Parental Rating: Teen
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| Back cover of Marvel Comics TPB Spider-Man Renew Your Vows volume 3 |
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