Spider-Man #2 Review

Written by: Dan Slott
Art by: Mark Bagley, John Dell
Colors by: Edgar Delgado
Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover art by: Mark Bagley, Alejandro Sánchez
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: November 9, 2022

Spider-Man #2 gathers the last remaining spiders from across the Spider-Verse to regroup and make a plan to stop Shathra from converting all spiders into her wasp minions.

Is It Good?

File Spider-Man #2 under “the one with all the exposition.” This is the explanation issue in the series, so prepare yourself because a lot of information is getting dumped on you through flashbacks, conversations, explanations, and a teeny bit of action.

In fairness to Dan Slott, bringing an entire multiverse of spiders to a close in a clean, coherent way is no easy task, so I suppose this issue is the best we could hope for. Still, spiders come out of the woodwork. Some old, some new, and some old with new looks, as if the cast of thousands wasn’t confusing enough to keep track.

In this issue, we learn how and why Spider-Noir unraveled Spider-Woman, how and why Morlun joined the good guys, and why Peter Parker is critical to this fight against Shathra. That’s it. This issue is almost entirely exposition, explanation, and setup.

Are the exposition and setup interesting? Mostly, yes. Morlun gets the most time explaining his placement with the good guys, and it’s interesting enough, but the major down point of this issue is the volume of information and the speed with which it’s delivered. Morlun’s backstory barely has time to develop and breathe before Slott’s script moves on to the next scene and the next scene and the next scene. Without enough time to invest readers into what’s happening to the characters, the issue is dramatically flat.

The comic reads like Slott is rifling through a checklist of plot points that need to happen to get the information out to the readers and get the characters in place in time for the next issue. To Slott’s credit, the rushed tempo never gets the narrative twisted into a confusing knot, so even though the pace feels rushed, the story doesn’t.

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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Final Thoughts:

Spider-Man #2 is an acceptable entry in the series that relies almost entirely on exposition, explanations, and setup to get readers up to speed and characters in place. There’s minimal action, and the pacing is almost too high, but the narrative stays clear throughout.