This is a weird mixture of really good and really bad stuff, but for £8 this collection of some hugely significant stories was a steal. Whilst I'm not a fan of John Romita Jr at all, this is exactly the kind of book where he can excel - his loose pencilling style and over abundance of cross hatching make his magical warfare scenes look suitably mystical, and the fight between Ezekiel and Peter, like the fight from Volume 1 between the pair and Morlun is fantastic. It's reminiscent of the Ryan Ottley art when Invincible fights Conquest - entire pages filled with multiple moments in a titanic battle, which each strike illustrated together, giving a sense of the speed of each attack.
Alongside this incredibly strong opening arc however, we get the much more attractive art of Deodato with a truly awful story - the one story that Spider-fans point to as being a terrible legacy of Straczynski. The decision to retcon a relationship (and offspring) for Norman Osborne and Gwen Stacey is ridiculous, and time hasn't been kind to that idea at all. In amongst all the Spider Totems, Spider Gods and Loki showing up it just seems ridiculous.
Its a shame that Deodato, who draws fantastic people, is wasted on this arc, as he's a more accomplished and readable artist than JR Jr. The less said about this the better, to be honest. At least it ends after just a few issues, and can be quietly forgotten about.
I've read a few of these collected volumes and all advertise a plethora of DVD style back-ups - there isn't much, just a few pages of uninked artwork. No commentary, no scripts, no introduction. It's pretty vanilla disc.
Also Try:
Brian Michael Benids; Ultimate Spider-Man
Dan Slott; Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Mark Millar and John Romita Jr, Wolverine: Enemy of the State
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