Great Ending to the Mini Series.
Some people might end up totally disagreeing with my review of this book. With that said... I totally loved it.
I think the last issue of a mini-series is the most important. A mediocre mini that has a fantastic ending will be remembered... a fantastic mini-series with a mediocre ending will be remembered for the mediocre ending. I honestly think Spider-Man: Reign #4 is the best issue of the mini series hands down. Everything comes to a great climactic ending which I was extremely satisfied with.
This mini-series had so much going against it before the first issue was even released. People were calling it "Spider-Man's Dark Knight Returns", which practically guaranteed that fans all over the web would be complaining about it before the first issue even came out. I've read complaints that this story is really a Batman story with Spider-Man forced in it. Although it is clearly inspired by The Dark Knight Returns, this is not a Batman story. Kaare Andrews doesn't try to pretend that this wasn't inspired by DKR either. He even names the reporters in Reign after the creative team of DKR.
This was clearly a Spider-Man story, and wouldn't work with Batman. The story takes place 35 years in Spider-Man's future, and does feature an aged superhero after his career was over just like DKR. It's a bleak future comparable to Dark Knight as well, but that's were the similarities end. The story itself is all Spider-Man. Where he finds himself 35 years from now is logical and makes sense, since Peter has always been cursed with the Parker Luck.
Venom actually reveals that he isn't just doing all this to be evil, he has a reason and a purpose for doing this. I'm not 100% sure if this has been explored before in a Spider-Man story or not... but his reasons make perfect sense, and I'm surprised I don't remember something like this happening in normal continuity.
There's also some great moments with supporting characters here. Although I'm used to everyone having an explanation to show how they got to where they are... Andrews doesn't waste any time on things like that here. Which is totally fine by me. It's 35 years in the future, and I don't need to know how every character got to where they are. It keeps the story moving at a great pace instead of wasting time on elements that aren't that important to the story. Although it seems that a few plot points come totally out of left field because of this, that is fine because it plays on the unknown fact that we don't know what's happened to these characters since we've seen them in normal continuity.
The really sad thing however is that some people stayed away from this series because of the art... while I thought it was one of the strong points of the series. Not only does Kaare's art set itself apart, it conveys emotions in the characters he draws that you don't usually see with other artists.
I don't know what else to say. Easily the best Spider-Man mini-series that I've read in years, if not ever.
