The Puns Thicken
After reading two issues of this Kevin Smithified Spider-Man story, I'm beginning to come to a conclusion about him as a writer. It could be completely wrong, but here it goes anyway. Kevin Smith is undoubtedly a big comic book fan, and he gets paid to write stories about them. Sounds like an awesome gig, doesn't it? The problem, though, is that, when it comes down to doing the actual writing, Smith forgets to take the job seriously and treats it like a giddy fan would. He gives his interpretation of the character, but he forgets to consider a large amount of previous interpretations that make Peter who he is. He's far from the only writer to do that, but it comes across pretty strongly here.
At first glance, Spider-Man seems like a perfect character for Smith to write. Their both snarky and have a pretty big arsenal of pop culture jokes at their disposal. The problem is that I think Smith's arsenal is a bit too big. Or a lot too big, really. Even during the Stan Lee days, Spider-Man made references to pop culture icons, but what Smith does is ridiculous. There can be anywhere from 1-4 of those jokes per page. That's just too much, in my opinion. Every time I read one of his jokes I would think, "That's Kevin Smith talking, not Spider-Man".
I may not have been bothered much by all of that if the story was there to keep my interest, but nothing really happens here. A few things are accomplished, but this issue mostly feels like a vehicle for Smith's jokes.
I don't mean to sound overly critical here. After all, this is just my interpretation of Spider-Man conflicting with Smith's. If you like his style, you may really like his work here. It has just about everything you could want or expect from a production of his (that a "PG" rating will allow, anyway). If your not a fan of his style though, you've been warned.
Oh! One last thing. In this issue, Black Cat senses Spider-Man staring at her and bets that he has a "mad-on". Really now? I know that a substitution for the word that should actually go there would be needed to keep the rating down, but "mad-on"? That was the best choice? Am I missing the joke here?