Marvel 100th Anniversary Special: Spider-Man
Writer: Sean Ryan
Artist/Colorist: In-Hyuk Lee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Cover Date: September 2014
Rating: 
This week, I’ll take a look at one of Marvel’s 100th-anniversary specials, this one focusing on Spider-Man himself. So the whole point of these specials is to give the readers a glimpse of what the Marvel Universe would look like in 2061. I’ll admit that it was a great concept but for the most part, it missed the mark like this particular example.
The special opens up with the conclusion of an arc called “Great Power” in which Peter Parker gets his hands on a techno-symbiote suit that was developed by The Kingpin and with that, he soon revels in the power that comes with the symbiote (Sounds familiar?!); He then meets up with Eddie Brock who wants the suit for himself but they soon decide to destroy it until the Kingpin himself ambushes both of them, shoots Eddie Brock and dons the symbiote himself then takes out Peter Parker in an all-out battle where he uses the techno-symbiote to detonate cars and actually uses a helicopter to take out Peter.
Reading this when it first came out, I felt that the story moved incredibly fast just so it could get to its conclusion which felt like a huge disappointment because this could have been terrific if Sean Ryan found some time to trim the fat and add in some flashbacks to highlight the story, but even though this special is showing the ending to an arc that never existed, there should have been more context for anyone to get invested in this story; In-Hyuk Lee’s art is the only thing that doesn’t come across as half-hearted because he clearly brings a high level of sophistication and force in his artwork which makes it such a masterpiece (As long as you remove the dialogue)
While Sean Ryan played it safe by rehashing the most iconic moment in Spider-Man’s history with the alien costume (I mean seriously?!?, Peter has to go through the lesson of having too much power……again!) this could have gone another route that could have been entertaining than the one that was presented in this special so if this was another way for Marvel to celebrate its 100th anniversary, then all I have to say is hope they have better luck when it’s time to break out the balloons and red carpet for their 200th anniversary.
Well, that’s it for me this week. Thanks for sticking around and I will see you all next time.
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