Spider-Man: The Gauntlet - Juggernaut #1

The Hood searches for a new Scorpion to take the mantle once owned by Mac Gargan. Spider-Man comes across a severely injured Juggernaut and searches for the one responsible. He eventually finds out it was done by the new wielder of the Uni-Power.

The Gauntlet continues and the villains keep coming. Fred Van Lente pens the first issue while the last three are written by Roger Stern. The first issue was a little slow as it centers around Carmilla Black, the female Scorpion and her encounter with Spider-Man and the Hood. She steals the original Scorpion suit worn by Mac Gargan from the Hood and gets away with it. I wonder if this will be explained or play a part in future issues. I hope it does otherwise it would have been a waste to have done this. It does make you wonder about a few things.

Roger Stern handles the writing duties for the Juggernaut portion of the story. I actually enjoyed this part even though it's exactly the opposite of what I was expecting. I figured Spider-Man would be facing off against the Juggernaut by the looks of the cover but instead he sort of teams up with him. Nevertheless it was still pretty entertaining and I enjoyed getting some backstory of Juggernaut's first encounter with Spider-Man. I like how at the same time all this madness is going on, the writers take time to focus on the little things in Peter's life. It gives this story a more realistic feel and helps you identify with these characters more. We see Peter and Carlie slowly getting closer to each other. I also like how they talk about how Peter is running out of web fluid and how difficult it's going to be to get more with him being unemployed. 

The art is slightly better than the previous issues but still not nearly good enough as it should be. Michael Gaydos and Lee Weeks were the two artists. I think the problem this series has is that it's creative team is constantly changing. Marvel should pick one, maybe two artists and stick with them instead of rotating every issue. Art is a huge part of comic books and when it's exceptionally awful, it can make it difficult to enjoy your comic.

This was a decent improvement overall from the last segment of this series. I hope the conclusion of this story arc will end in a way that wraps everything up while at the same time sets up for the next event nicely.