Take a photo of a barcode or cover
james_desantis 's review for:
Spider-Man 2099 Omnibus Vol. 1
by Peter David
As you can probably tell with my individual volume ratings that I really enjoyed 80% of Spider-Man 2099.
Prior to this reading I'll be honest, my Miguel knowledge was very limited. I knew him from basically the video game edge of time, and then here or there has guest appearance in other comics. This was the first time I got to sit down and invest in the character and I'm very glad I did.
See Miguel is not your typical Spider-Man hero. He's a smart mouth, kind of assholeish main lead, who is also a genius. And when he's poisoned by his boss that makes believe he gave him a drug he'll get hooked on forever, he decides to do something drastic like inject something inside him that'll fix that. But when a jealous co-worker wants revenge he instead injects Miguel with the project they've been working on to give similar powers as Spider-Man. But this project has killed multiple men prior and Miguel would be the next to die.
But he didn't. Instead he morphed into a man with razor sharp nails and teeth, almost vampire like. Far scarier than most Spider-Man characters. Miguel had no interest being a hero but thanks to the company he worked for, he couldn't let them do all their shady shit. So he decided to break them down from the outside, while at the same time dealing with villains, and try to help the downtown levels of New York where the poor and broken lived.
Peter David is smart on giving Miguel his first arc of dealing with basically a non-stop chase against him to eventually meeting up with a future version of The Vulture who Miguel finds out eats people. So Spidy and him go at each other while the city goes wild, leaving only one victor, and one dead. This sets the tone, and overall feel to Spider-Man in such a marvelous way that I can't help but give tons of credit to. Miguel is a more lethal, if you have to die you have to die, type hero that I absolutely love and makes sense in this darker and morally gray world they all live in.
There is a 5 part cross over around the first third of the book that does go on way too long and drag down the overall enjoyment for me. It's basically "Thor" rebirth or so they say and Spidy, X-Men, Dr. Doom and more have to team up to stop the mighty Thor. It's kind of silly, dumb, and the issues outside of Spidy and Doom are pretty horrible if I'm being honest. This one was a little rough to get through.
Luckily we pull back out and get multiple good arcs and one shots after. Interesting enough we start to dig into Miguel's childhood at the end of each issue giving us usually a 6-7 page special. It helps build up Miguel's backstory while also helping us understand character introduced later.
On top of that the side cast is really wonderful. From Miguel's soon to be wife Dana, to Xena, to his brother, everyone gets to shine in new and exciting ways each arc. Probably one of my favorite side cast his Miguel's mother, who's both crazy, and super fun. Easily one of the best parts of the books for me and she effects the overall plot in major ways.
As we tackle this huge book we do start to build up more and more plot lines and twist. And a lot of the twist are effective. A lot of the deaths actually hit home. I will say the introduction of Venom was well done, and while the reveal obvious, was a nice strong arc. We then introduce Green Goblin and while not as strong twist, I felt like we were building up to something major that could really effect the cast.
But sadly it feels like Peter David got short notice that 2099 would be ending because while few plot points wrap up there's like 5 or 6 that didn't. Left open ended. And sadly after this, there's not much more 2099 till later 2000's and from what I understand that's Miguel stuck in the present time, not the 2099 time period.
But plotlines left unanswered and a pretty meh crossover can't stop the overall amazing character work that Peter David put in Miguel. On top of that the art is freaking fantastic, the first 25 or so issues being done by Rick Leonardi, and other artist later come on board to also help build this fantastic future like world that somehow works so well in a cyberpunk like setting.
Overall, Spider-Man 2099 is very much worth a read. I never know if I'll like something I don't know much about, but similar to The Question I read last year for DC, sometimes a unknown helps when reading something like this for the first time and loving 80% of it.
A 4 out of 5.
Prior to this reading I'll be honest, my Miguel knowledge was very limited. I knew him from basically the video game edge of time, and then here or there has guest appearance in other comics. This was the first time I got to sit down and invest in the character and I'm very glad I did.
See Miguel is not your typical Spider-Man hero. He's a smart mouth, kind of assholeish main lead, who is also a genius. And when he's poisoned by his boss that makes believe he gave him a drug he'll get hooked on forever, he decides to do something drastic like inject something inside him that'll fix that. But when a jealous co-worker wants revenge he instead injects Miguel with the project they've been working on to give similar powers as Spider-Man. But this project has killed multiple men prior and Miguel would be the next to die.
But he didn't. Instead he morphed into a man with razor sharp nails and teeth, almost vampire like. Far scarier than most Spider-Man characters. Miguel had no interest being a hero but thanks to the company he worked for, he couldn't let them do all their shady shit. So he decided to break them down from the outside, while at the same time dealing with villains, and try to help the downtown levels of New York where the poor and broken lived.
Peter David is smart on giving Miguel his first arc of dealing with basically a non-stop chase against him to eventually meeting up with a future version of The Vulture who Miguel finds out eats people. So Spidy and him go at each other while the city goes wild, leaving only one victor, and one dead. This sets the tone, and overall feel to Spider-Man in such a marvelous way that I can't help but give tons of credit to. Miguel is a more lethal, if you have to die you have to die, type hero that I absolutely love and makes sense in this darker and morally gray world they all live in.
There is a 5 part cross over around the first third of the book that does go on way too long and drag down the overall enjoyment for me. It's basically "Thor" rebirth or so they say and Spidy, X-Men, Dr. Doom and more have to team up to stop the mighty Thor. It's kind of silly, dumb, and the issues outside of Spidy and Doom are pretty horrible if I'm being honest. This one was a little rough to get through.
Luckily we pull back out and get multiple good arcs and one shots after. Interesting enough we start to dig into Miguel's childhood at the end of each issue giving us usually a 6-7 page special. It helps build up Miguel's backstory while also helping us understand character introduced later.
On top of that the side cast is really wonderful. From Miguel's soon to be wife Dana, to Xena, to his brother, everyone gets to shine in new and exciting ways each arc. Probably one of my favorite side cast his Miguel's mother, who's both crazy, and super fun. Easily one of the best parts of the books for me and she effects the overall plot in major ways.
As we tackle this huge book we do start to build up more and more plot lines and twist. And a lot of the twist are effective. A lot of the deaths actually hit home. I will say the introduction of Venom was well done, and while the reveal obvious, was a nice strong arc. We then introduce Green Goblin and while not as strong twist, I felt like we were building up to something major that could really effect the cast.
But sadly it feels like Peter David got short notice that 2099 would be ending because while few plot points wrap up there's like 5 or 6 that didn't. Left open ended. And sadly after this, there's not much more 2099 till later 2000's and from what I understand that's Miguel stuck in the present time, not the 2099 time period.
But plotlines left unanswered and a pretty meh crossover can't stop the overall amazing character work that Peter David put in Miguel. On top of that the art is freaking fantastic, the first 25 or so issues being done by Rick Leonardi, and other artist later come on board to also help build this fantastic future like world that somehow works so well in a cyberpunk like setting.
Overall, Spider-Man 2099 is very much worth a read. I never know if I'll like something I don't know much about, but similar to The Question I read last year for DC, sometimes a unknown helps when reading something like this for the first time and loving 80% of it.
A 4 out of 5.