Spider-Man comes to the City of Angels as a cosmic horror hits the town too from Taboo, B. Earl, Juan Ferreyra, and Travis Lanham in Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1!
No one quite knew what to expect from Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man, especially not me. Cracking the issue open, I was surprised. Where I expected a story about a Spider versus a Bear we instead got a build-up of surreal cosmic horror, and an unsettling breakdown, accomplished both through the art and the story. It was the latest win for horrific Spider-Man stories from the recent past.
Late last year I wrote about Spider-Man horror stories and what makes them work well. Since then, we got Chilling Spider-Man via Marvel Unlimited, and the horror influenced Dark Web has been announced. It’s been a good year for Scary Spidey, and a big part of that is this week’s Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1.
Advertised as Spider-Man versus the Demon Bear, the actual story is far deeper than that. Peter has relocated temporarily to the West Coast while completing a research project into the healing power of sonics. Meanwhile, he’s beginning to have nightmares about cosmic horrors- nightmares that are invading his waking life. Little does he know that he’s about to unleash cosmic terror on the City of Angels!
The frightening Spidey stories succeeded by grounding the horror in Peter’s personal relationships. In last year’s Darkhold: Spider-Man, Peter’s love for his wife caused him to unravel when the horror hit home. In the cult classic Marvel Zombies, the most emotional horror beat was Peter breaking down when he couldn’t contain himself from attacking his family. Your mileage may vary on how those stories worked overall, but there’s no denying those story beats were successful for that reason. Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man didn’t have Mary-Jane, Gwen, or Aunt May though.
What Taboo and B Earl did to make the horror land was establishing our relationship with Peter. First person narration fills the issue- ably depicted by Lanham- and it gives it a look inside Peter’s head. Even though it’s one-sided, it feels like a conversation with Peter Parker, and we get inside his head. We come to care about our hero, and his temporary world in Los Angeles. And it’s not that we don’t already care about Peter, but the narration guarantees that this story is intimate and personal.
With that established, we’re invested a bit more into the action. We’re asking questions that we wouldn’t have been without it. Is he going through a breakdown? Is he being influenced by one of his bad guys? Or is the horror real? We don’t find out until the last page, and that tension that preceded it makes that work for the reader. We have doubt, we’re concerned, and then the Demon Bear appears. It’s a Spidey story through and through, and it’s executed so well that I cared deeply about not just Peter but also this new supporting cast he’s built up that we’re meeting en media res.
Ferreyra’s art is incredibly unsettling too. Right from the first page, we see Spider-Man, and he’s wrong. The bright blues of his costume have been replaced by blacks, his fingers are too long, his eyes are glowing. It’s a great introduction that sets up the surreal unease we’re going to experience through the issue. He has a great sense pacing, which is vital to a horror story, and a strong design sense. His painted story has a great sense of motion too, something a lot of artists with similar styles can struggle with.
But what about the elephant- or giant evil bear- in the room? First of all, it’s great to finally get a Native writer writing the Demon Bear, even if it is only on the last page, and Ferreyra might be the first artist since Bill Sienkiewicz himself to get the look right. The Bear itself only shows up on the final page though, so we’re left without answers here. It’s confusing to see them mashed up, but it’s something we’ll have to wait until next issue to really say anything more about.
On its own though, I think this issue worked. It was unsettling and well paced. It was centered in its characters, and had a great grasp of Peter Parker in particular, something that’s surprisingly hard to do. Put all those things together and it’s a successful opening issue, one that I’m excited to see what’s next.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
