So Wolverine and Spider-Man are trapped together in the late cretaceous and living amongst early man and dinosaurs… Sounds like the beginning of a joke, right? Well, it’s the beginning of The Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine by By Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert.
This issue was beautifully rendered and the character writing was good, the story was a bit absurd. Somehow while foiling a bank robbery Peter and Logan find themselves in the dinosaur era , but living among early man. Now, I’ll try to ignore the fact that man and dinosaurs never co-existed. I’ll just assume in the Marvel 616 Universe they did and move on to the next point: This comic didn’t really feel like it went anywhere. It was fun to read, Wolverine and Spider-Man were certainly in character and on topic, but the story raised two questions at the beginning of the book and proceeded to raise them over and over again so there was no real surprise left at the end of the book. A question Peter asks Logan on page 3 is the obvious payoff for the end of the book and it just felt like the whole thing was on mute or something. It wasn’t all that terribly exciting. I felt next to no suspense. And it’s hard to put characters as iconic as Wolverine and Spider-Man, set them up in a mini-series, and get me to forget that everything is going to turn out just fine.
Aside from that, the set-up for the book feels like the next five issues in the series could be fun to read, but not if they’re as tedious and go so far to say so little as this one did.
Jason Aaron has done good work, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. And let’s be honest, this is Spider-Man and Wolverine together, it’s not like my opinion of the book is going to talk anybody out of buying it, but I’m just offering my perspective. I’m really just glad it didn’t have anything to do with Deadpool. That guy is overexposed to all hell.
This book hits news stands and comic book stores everywhere on Wednesday.
Weekly Marvel comics reviews are brought to us by Dr. Volts Comics in Salt Lake City.