Spider-Boy #6 Review

Written by: Dan Slott
Art by: Paco Medina, Walden Wong, Julian Shaw (infomercial)
Colors by: Erick Arciniega, Fer Sifuentes-Suo (infomercial)
Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover art by: Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado
Cover price: $4.99
Release date: April 17, 2024

Spider-Boy #6 follows through on Madame Monstrosity’s plan to force Spider-Boy to submit to her experimentation by turning Christina into bait.

Is Spider-Boy #6 Good?

Dan Slott’s latest entry in the latest Spider-Hero series is a mixed bag. Madame Monstrosity concocts a plan to keep Spider-Boy in her clutches with a clever bit of manipulation, but the issue is interrupted with a lengthy attempt at farcical humor that doesn’t quite work.

When last we left Spider-Boy, he and Christina were captured by Hellifino and brought back to Madame Monstrosity for experimentation. Now, Madame Monstrosity turns Christina into a Humanimal that crosses her DNA with a pigeon. Then, Christina is forced to sit through an overlong orientation film about life as a Humanimal under Madame Monstrosity’s care. When Christina is forced to accept her fate as a pigeon/human hybrid, she soon learns the path to freedom is a long one.

When Bailey, aka Spider-Boy, learns about Christina’s new condition, he breaks free and attempts another escape. However, Madame Monstrosity dangles a carrot Bailey can’t resist – submit to experimentation, and Madame Monstrosity will find a way to restore the memories of Bailey and his mother, Tabitha.

What’s great about Spider-Boy #6? Despite the wacky action of Madame Monstrosity toward Christina, her plan to keep Bailey under her control is a clever one. This issue gives readers an appreciation for how manipulative Madame Monstrosity can be when properly motivated.

What’s not so great about Spider_boy#6? With Bailey captured, there was no reason to capture Christina or turn her into a pigeon-headed Humanimal. It’s a villain doing things just for the sake of doing them, which lowers the deviousness observed in the positive points above. Further, the orientation sequence takes up five+ pages, and it’s not as farcically humorous as Slott intended. Sometimes less is more with humor, so Slott should have given less with the orientation film so as not to seem like it’s page filler.

How’s the art? Medina, Wong, and Shaw deliver a great set of visuals with an equal mix of action set pieces, dramatic moments, and enticing enjoyable designs. This issue may be more satire than substance, but it looks good.

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-Boy #6 elevates Madame Monstrosity as a shrewd and clever villain, and then immediately undoes that character’s work with wacky shenanigans that do nothing but fill pages with silliness. The art is solid, and the ending keeps Bailey moving in the right direction, but this issue is a mixed bag.