- Written by: Cody Ziglar
- Art by: Justin Mason
- Colors by: Jim Charalampidis
- Letters by: VC’s Travis Lanham
- Cover art by: Takashi Okazaki, Rico Renzi
- Cover price: $3.99
- Release date: August 3, 2022
Spider-Punk #4 brings the Spider-Band to Washington D.C. on a mission to find Osborn’s secret communication hub and destroy it and Osborn’s legacy forever. Will Hobie’s Power of Punk be enough to shut down the Man before it’s too late?
Is It Good?
Spider-Punk #4 is propaganda. It’s not even good propaganda where you see the cleverness in the writing and the skill in presenting multiple layers of meaning. It’s propaganda that stands on the mountain top and screams in your face “NORMAN OSBORN IS TRUMP! I’M CLEVERLY MAKING A STATEMENT ABOUT TRUMP! GET IT? OSBORN IS TRUMP! TRUMP IS BAD! GET IT? TRUMPTRUMPTRUMP!” If this last statement was obnoxious to read, it was ten times worse seeing it play out in a comic.
Hobie, aka Spider-Punk, and the Spider-Band arrive in Washington D.C. where the central hub for Osborn’s communication and records is located under a version of Lincoln’s Memorial with Norman Osborn’s likeness as the sitting statue. The Memorial is surrounded by an unruly crowd of Osborn supporters, so the Band devises the most absurd plan for sneaking past the crowd and the guards – Kamala grows big and carries everyone to the statue because they believe nobody ever looks up. The plan makes no sense. When you see it executed, it makes even less sense. And, you have no choice but to accept this level of storytelling is inexcusably subpar.
Hobie and the Band opine Osborn was a fascist and a racist. They admonish the crowd for going along with and still supporting Osborn even though he no longer sits in office. And they reckon the large crowd of Osborn supporters surrounding a Washington building is simply responding to the legitimacy of Osborn’s rightful role as leader. There is no subtlety or cleverness in Ziglar’s setup.
The Band enters the guarded inner chambers and fights their way to the central control room where they find out they’ve each been under surveillance for a long time. Riri begins hacking the computer systems when suddenly, Osborn arrives and attacks. As we saw in the last issue, his severed head is kept alive by symbiote goo, and he moves around encased in the torso of a robot, Arnim Zola-style. Osborn’s lethal protectors join the fight to make quick work of the Spider-Band, hauling them off for what is promoted as a public execution on the steps of the Osborn Memorial.
The dialog is corny and eye-rolling, the entire premise of this issue is as heavy-handed, on-the-nose, dripping-with-propaganda modern politics (plot not theme) as you can get, and the plan of attack is idiotic in both thinking and execution. The only punk thing about this comic is the grungy, underground art style, but that’s about it.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
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Bits and Pieces
Spider-Punk #4 gives up on any attempts to be punk, edgy, or interesting by shifting into an all-out propaganda piece equating Norman Osborn as a fascist, racist despot with a former U.S President. The writing is poor on every level except the pacing, and the only punk thing about this title is the grungy, underground art style, but just barely.
Weird Science Marvel Comics 