We got teams for DAYS in the sophomore installment of Nick Spencer’s conclusion to Amazing Spider-Man, Sinister War #2! Written by Nick Spencer & Ed Brisson. Drawn by Mark Bagley, Diogenes Neves, Carlos Gómez, and Zé Carlos. Inked by Andrew Hennessy, John Dell, Andy Owens, Carlos Gómez, and Zé Carlos. Colored by Brian Reber. Lettered by Joe Caramagna.
Jam-issue energy and overwhelmed Spidey briefly bring some spark to the Nick Spencer Era finale in Sinister War #2.
Working on the back foot since the dual Sinister’ing of the opening issue, Spider-Man awakes and tries to get his bearings in a graveyard. Something that happens a lot to Peter, when you think about it. But he doesn’t have much time to do so as he is quickly attacked by the fun combination of a Silver Sable-less Wild Pack, the new all-female Sinister Syndicate, and the newly reformed (but Beetle-less) Superior Foes of Spider-Man.
All of whom are, wouldn’t ya know it, now working for Kindred, who has put centipedes in their brains (gross) and sicced them on Peter Parker in a race to see who can kill him first and take their place as Kindred’s new right hand (pretty cool, to be fair).
As a setup, I actually found this pretty fun. Working off the novelty fostered by the opening’s use of the original-roster Sinister Six and new animal-themed Savage Six, Sinister War #2 just triples down. Big Time, but no, not that one.
Throwing together more teams and more villains, this issue keeps Peter from catching even one breath and provides to the affair, a real drive that I like to see in Spider-Man stories. Somewhat like the drives presented by the classic The Gauntlet storyline and criminally underrated Marvel Knights: Spider-Man miniseries. Meaning, just a bucket-full of baddies that keep coming at Peter, so hard that it even bleeds into the narration (like it does so again, here in Sinister War #2).
Spencer can’t help but get in his own way, however. Though the action in the present crackles, Sinister War #2 is hamstrung by near-constant flashbacks. Flashbacks focused on how Kindred got together all these teams and how he now controls them. I could not be less interested in this. I don’t think y’all will get much out of it, either.
The kink that whoever actually deals the killing blow to Spider-Man will get a sort of managerial position in Hell IS pretty fun, I’ll admit. I am only human and that kind of Hellblazer-like focus on the promotion track of Hell is always something I am going to respond to. Unfortunately, it seems Spencer is more so interested in the mechanics of how this is all working and less with the metaphysics of it, which is an obvious bummer. And keeps it from being the real pulpy fun this kind of idea could be.
A very game bench of artists, however, do what they can with them. Anchored by Mark Bagley for the large part, Sinister War #2 takes a lot of visual cues from the Bendis era Avengers “jam session” issues. Each art team never really jibes together THAT well visually, unfortunately. All of their styles are far too similar to really stand out from one another. Further, they all seem to be taking the cue from Bagley, which gives it an oddly pedestrian focus and point of view throughout all the scenes.
BUT, all that said, the handoffs between each art team are very smooth. And each team keeps the action and character appearances flowing, never allowing the energy of the constant attacks to dip into boring or stale levels. Colorist Brian Reber stands, honestly, as the issue’s MVP. While the art styles just look like slight variations on the same thing, Reber’s somber, but darkly assured colors keep at least the tonality of each of them shored up in a way that benefits the issue overall. Giving it at least one strong thread of visual power throughout.
Sinister War #2 still doesn’t feel like a grand finale just yet, but at least seems to trend upward toward one. That is if its main writer can get out of the way of its ascent first. If that can happen, Sinister War might just end up getting fun before we have to put all these toys away. Until then, at the very least, we have a neat triple-team-up (supporting first a double-team-up) in the form of Sinister War #2.
Zachary Jenkins runs ComicsXF and is a co-host on the podcast “Battle of the Atom.” Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside of all this.
