Peter Parker, Spider-Man: Back in Black

Collects Sensational Spider-Man #35-40 and Annual #1, Spider-Man Family #1-2, Marvel Spotlight: Spider-Man and Spider-Man Black in Black Handbook.

Most of this book is written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and drawn by various artists, most notably Angel Medina, Clayton Crain, Lee Weeks and Salvador Larroca.

This is the second half of the Back in Black event, the first of which you can read about here. Just like the first book, this is a mixed bag of loosely connected stories which share a common theme, dark Spidey, more than they share an actual storyline.

In the first story, written by Aguirre-Sacasa with art by Medina and Ramon Bachs, Spider-Man impostors with similar powers begin popping up on the streets, but it turns out that their bodies start deteriorating after a while, so of course the original Spider-Man goes to investigate. In the end it turns out that Mr. Hyde is behind it all for reasons I never really understood. Aguirre-Sacasa usually writes dark stories with hints of horror in them, and I have to admit that I really don't think that Spider-Man and horror stories match up too well. Maybe he wants to do something like McFarlane's run from the beginning of the 90's, but hey, this ain't the 90's no more!

Although Medina only did one issue in this book I have to comment on how badly he draws. He draws really badly, ugh! Why he keeps showing up as artist on the Spider-Man titles I don't know, can't they get rid of him? He's a copy of an artist that was interesting 15 (fifteen!) years ago. Spider-Man looks all wriggly when drawn by Medina, and the characters look just awful. Yet Marvel considers him a hotshot artist and therefore had him draw the covers to both Back in Black books. Wtf!!! What did Spidey do to deserve this!?!

The other artist on the first story, Ramon Bachs, has a much more down to earth style of drawing, and I think he could be really good on hard boiled crime books or books like Vertigo's Hellblazer, but unfortunately his way of drawing seems to be a little out of place in a Spider-Man book. He's still a hell of a lot better than Medina though...

Where the first story is rather uninteresting, the second story, also written by Aguirre-Sacasa with art by art by Lee Weeks and Rick Hoberg, shines as one of the best Spider-Man stories I've read in recent times. This story is really about Eddie Brock who is dying from cancer and who is beginning to display symptoms of schizophrenia. Brock has gotten rid of Venom, but Venom still lingers in his mind, and it is the graphical depiction of this mental illness that really makes me like this story. Not only is the art great, it also lifts the story, which is actually pretty good as it is, to a higher level. If you buy this book, I recommend skipping the first story and going straight to this one!

The book contains four more short stories writen by Aguirre-Sacasa, Matt Fraction and Sean McKeever and drawn by different artists, among them Clayton Crain and Salvador Larroca. They're drawn in very different styles, but they are all very well drawn in their own way. Each story is self-contained, so they give the book the feel of an annual more than a regular issue. The Spider-Man Family stories are pretty dark in tone, which surprised me, because I thought that was supposed to be a kiddies mag, but maybe that was just from seeing the cover of the first issue.

This book also contains Marvel Spotlight: Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Back in Black Handbook. The Spotlight issue features some pretty interesting interviews and the handbook has a bunch of profiles, very few of which are even remotely connected to Back in Black, but I will commend Marvel for including stuff like this in the trades. Please continue to do this!

All in all this book is a tad better than the first Back in Black, but the first story really drags the overall impression down. Also, the stories are not really connected, so as a Spider-Man event Back in Black is disappointing. The book does give a good impression of the diversity of stories and styles of expression that suits the Spider-Man character, although in general the stories are rather dark, as this seems to be the theme of Back in Black. If you're looking for a bunch of short disconnected Spidey-stories to read on rainy summer nights, this is the book for you, but this doesn't really seem to be what todays comic book readers crave, now does it?

5/10